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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!hp9000.csc.cuhk.hk!saimiri.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!news.unomaha.edu!cwis!dosburn From: dosburn@cwis.unomaha.edu (Don Osburn) Subject: Help, Unable to install on Tandon Hardware Message-ID: <dosburn.724562400@cwis> Summary: Unable to install 386bsd on Tandon Keywords: Hardware, Tandon, Architecture, install, boot Sender: news@news.unomaha.edu (UNO Network News Server) Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 03:20:00 GMT Lines: 42 I have been attempting to boot my Tandon 386sx using the dist.fs image and it will not work. I did a binary download of the image from three different places, and used rawrite.exe to write it to a 3.5" floppy each time, but to no avail. When I boot the system, it starts ok (I guess), queries the A:\ drive, then just hangs leaving the A: drive spinning infinitely. I get a black screen with a flashing cursor, but nothing else. I called the Tandon company long distance, and after waiting a LONG time, I finally got to speak to a rather rude person that gave me the following answers to my inquiries: The Tandon 386 Option has a "standard 16 bit AT bus architecture," and a "standard IBM compatible BIOS." Here is the catch, when I asked about the chipset on the board, I was told that it is a "Tandon proprietary chipset, made by Tandon." I have 4 MB of memory installed, and a 105MB IDE hardrive. I would really like to work on porting the 386BSD to this machine, but I am going to need some serious help. I have relegated myself to perusing the articles in DDJ to find some answers. In one of the early articles (sorry, I forgot the date), there is mention of some tools that were created to "check out" a systems configuration, hardware, etc., to determine any idiosyncracies that would need to be resolved with a system in order to port the bsd to the machine. Does anyone know anything about this? Where can I get these tools, and how do I use them? The Tandon company does not seem to be very willing to give me much information about the internal hardware of this machine! I guess I should ask if anyone else has managed to port the bsd to a Tandon machine. Am I just being a total klutz, or is there something different about this hardware? I would be willing to spring for the phone calls to Tandon if someone can tell me more specific questions that I should ask to resolve the problem. I admit that I am rather new to this, (I am a graduate student that has spent too much time in the theory, and not enough in the applications), but I am willing to put in the effort if someone can point me in a direction. :-) If anyone has any information that can help, PLEASE contact me soon. Thanks in advance. Take care. Don