PC makers plan rebellion against Windows at 2014 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), analysts say

Fox News ^ | 01/01/2014

[Utilizer]

On using old motherboards one thing you have to worry about is bit rot in the EPROMs The ones in the older MBs are reaching their retention lifetimes. I have several old MBs that are not useable because of the EPROM bit rot.

Hmmm. That is a new one I have not previously heard of. I knew of data degradation due to random UV in ambient or artificial lighting causing problems, but since most of the EPROMs and EEPROMs had at least an adhesive label pasted over them I thought that the particular problem you mentioned was alleviated in that regard. Plus, all the boards I have stored away are in nonstatic sleeves, in foam-padded containers that have not seen any light whatsoever for many years, so is that still a concern? Bit rot from simple age?

[Utilizer]

Other problems I have noted on mixing old and new equipment is using older MFM/RLL hard drives with newer motherboards.(P3/P4) If you have a newer MB with an ISA slot, you can put a MFM hard drive controller in it, and it will be able to use a hard drive that has already been low level formatted by the controller on an older MB. ..

Thanks for the tip. I do indeed have some old MFM and RLL drives that I was looking at recently, although it was for parts reclamation truth be told. Still have the controller cards (SCSI, too -and drives!) and the info you mentioned was indeed not something I had come across earlier, so thanks again since you most probably have saved several days of frustration on this end without that knowledge.

I think I will make a definite foray into the storage area and begin making backups ASAP. Last time I did I was pleasantly surprised to find not only brand-new (well, newly purchased at the time and never installed) 5-1/4in floppy drives and media, as well as some old C-programming and Assembly progs on that media that I had completely forgotten about. I may just pull one of the older EISA 386 with Math Co-Processor boards out and see if I can get one working just to have a look at the data still on the disks... Never know what you may find!

[Utilizer]

Thanks for the link. *smile* Downloaded and saved.

[Rage cat]

“Bit rot from simple age? “

The EPROM is a charge storage device. Each bit is a CMOS capacitor that is charged by the programming voltage. When you read an EPROM it check to see if it’s above the “1/0” threshold voltage. If it is, it is read as a 1. If not, it’s a zero. When you erase an EPROM with UV, the light causes a temporary break down of the insulating layer which sets all cells back to zero. With no light you still have a very small leakage of the cells because no insulator is truly perfect. Most EPROMs are designed around a 10 to 30 year minimum retention lifespan. Once you get past the rated lifespan of that chip then the “1” cells start getting to a low enough voltage that they start falling below the “1/0” threshold. At that point the computer will become unstable, if not totally unusable. In real life the leakdown rate varies form IC batch to IC batch for the same class of chip. For a chip with a 15 year rated life some may have 50+ year lifespan, others barely get the 15 year rated life. The rated life is the minimum that quality control requires it to be able to achieve.

[Utilizer]

It includes drivers for many ISA network cards that were common at the time. Many with a 10baseT interface.

Quick question: any of those support cards with an AUI interface? I have some cards that have the 10baseT and AUI interface only, and those were the ones that I used to connect with the Sun Sparc machines that I also have, including the Sparc4 and IPX (I think; the "lunchbox" Sparc) machines.

[Rage cat]

Yes. I don’t have a list of the cards with me, but I know I have used cards that have the AUI interface with it.

Just install it on a dos machine and you will see the list during setup.

[DaveArk]

Multiple OS’s? My first computer was a Commodore 128 (1985). It had three OS’s. I replaced it in 1988 with a PC AT clone made in Hong Kong. It ran at 8mhz with a “turbo” button that increased the clock to 12mhz.

•C64 Mode - 1Mhz, 8502 CPU with 6510 emulation, 99.8% compatible with Commodore 64 BASIC 2.0 hardware and software, accessed by holding down the [Commodore] key while booting, or by typing “GO 64” from the C128 Mode.
•C128 Mode - 2Mhz 8502 CPU, 128K Memory, 80 x 25 RGB display, advanced BASIC 7.0 with many new commands including powerful high resolution displays and graphics manipulation.
•CP/M Mode - 4Mhz Zilog Z-80 CPU, 100% compatible with CP/M 3.0 applications such as Turbo Pascal and WordStar. Accessed by booting with a CP/M disk in the drive, or by typing “BOOT” from the C128 Mode

Those were the days. :)