PC104 Video

[simo2E0YWF]

HI PC104 VGA, Does anyone have any knowledge of PC104 cards and can i just plug a PC104VGA card in to a motherboard and get video out ,
I have a Marconi radio test set 8920C ATE controlled by a PC104 but it does not have PC video i would like to monitor this ,

Can i just get a card like a  PCM-3521 plug in and get video out? i will post a pic of my PC104 i cannot find any information on the TE486 PC ,
 
Any info would be great Many Thanks

Link to OP system on the Flash Card if anyone can make hear or tale https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/13xbv014Th6E3u_2t1XizM3he7EkesuG4?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bOGArC1Qpe5vzlziiUyll_MnggW_WDqO/view?usp=drive_link  system photo
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sLYc9djXl3AFLiZE_K7P0XHR1F9oUwQi/view?usp=drive_link     photo of internal pc

[squadchannel]

I have no experience with STPC, but from the datasheet it seems to be an x86 compatible processor, and vogons has benchmark information.
PC/104 is basically an industrial embedded standard that uses the ISA bus in pin socket/header form.
A PC/104 VGA card will basically work (unless there is a failure), but as mentioned, I have no experience with STPC.
I have experience with a pentium 133 and a PC/104 VGA card (chips 65500), as mentioned, it is equivalent to just an ISA card, so it works fine.

Perhaps it is disabled in the BIOS settings, or it may have a custom BIOS that disables video output.
Before you do anything else, please make a backup first. can see the compact flash, but be sure to use the linux DD command to back up.

Also, you can zip the contents of the compact flash and upload it directly to the forum as an attachment, so that even if the drive is no longer available, it will remain as long as the forum is still there.

[coromonadalix]

since the pc104 socket has the top row available   

you should be able to add an vga card  ..... and check if the bios has some vga settings

do you have the pc104  board model ?

[simo2E0YWF]

HI and thanks for the reply

There is a link to some pictures in my post , It is  TE486 by DSP Designs i have never been able to find any info on this board anywhere  and searching the ic's on the board i can find no video controller and scoping all the pins i see no video signals or sync signals . I think it runs DOS and the ATE runs Marconi test program generator which is a in house software for controlling the radio test set and handling the data  please see the link to the files in the OP system above .
I have ordered a VGA board so will have to see what that does for me see if i get an output.

Many Thanks

[coromonadalix]

can you show us  the other card under the main one ...  seems an i/o extender

on the cpu one, can you take better pictures of the biggest's ic's  numbers ??  hard to see ...


the problem would be 

if its based on a dos operating system or else, you would need drivers  ??  even if you smack an pc104 video card on it

or in DOS  you had some configs in autoexec.bat and config.sys


an 22 year old pc104 ...  outch

you seem to have some isa flat cable connector going to the green card    gpib or other interface ?? parallel ??   
you have an 50 pins flat cable coming out of the cpu one and other under it


ok   

you do have some video files in dos, it should help   ... i do see a display.sys   but no autoexec.bat
config.sys  is almost empty

[squadchannel]

contents of the CF card he uploaded, it is definitely DOS-based.

[coromonadalix]

yep sorry  missed the post links     

[darkspr1te]

I think i saw a video on the whole pc/104 setup, may have be CRT dude but not sure, anyway i do remember the pc/104 was a a spec and produced by a few makers, here are some manuals listings pinouts ,
https://files.digilent.com/manuals%2Fpc104-dio48.pdf
https://pc104.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/PCI104_Express_v3_0.pdf
https://connecttech.com/ftp/pdf/CTI-M-PCI-104-to-PC-104-Adapter.pdf
https://connecttech.com/ftp/pdf/CTIM00056_000.pdf
https://theretroweb.com/motherboard/manual/icop-6050-51-52v3-2-62069d6c90e2e639713627.pdf
https://theretroweb.com/motherboard/manual/icop-6052v-6204076e3849f409487199.pdf


darkspr1te

[coromonadalix]

for pc-104 and variants  see the wiki, some are isa, isa+pci, pci, and pcie   etc ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC/104


the PCM-3521  has some datasheet .. the vga pinout is on a idc 10 pins, the pins are listed

doc attached here

[simo2E0YWF]

Thank you f all for your reply's  i really need some help, i am not a software person i am hardware man.

The PC104 connector runns thru the connector board underneath to a GPIB card which connects the Radio interface board, Radio test set 2955B, Power Supply and multimeter .

The 50 pin connector goes to a ticket type printer for test results .

The PC runs test programs to test Clansman radios EX MOD radio system .

I cannot just coppy the Flash card to another it will not boot even with a card the same size it will not boot.

I hope the VGA card will work will have to see.
IN the files the display files might be to controll the display on the 2955B screen , I guess it uses the GPIB to make the 2955B display what the PC wants

I will add more pics to the folder tomo so you can all see ok.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1mxfZtCOQpyfqZ6QXAG00myfsG2CesQjW?usp=sharing

The operating information is in folder too .

I would like to be able to run the system from a PC because one of the spare PC104 i have has died so they wont last forever.

SO thankfull for all your help.

[simo2E0YWF]

[squadchannel]

I am not sure what you are trying to do.
assume from the context that you want to replace the TE486 board with a modern SBC before it fails and becomes unusable.

Since we have no information on the TE486, we have to "guess" at the pin assignments for the connectors, but it's possible.

[squadchannel]

looking at the “simplified system block diagram” on page 17 of the manual, it seems that the only connector communicating is GPIB.

It seems that everything is connected and working via GPIB, to the display unit and to the printer.

Looking at the contents of the DOS system, it seems to be similar in design to the marconi midata 511 system. There is a program called “clanmenu” that is used inside the tpgrung.
The contents are not known because it gets stuck in the middle of execution. It is not running on the actual ATE. It is probably waiting for a response from the other device.
but perhaps clanmenu is the main program that makes ATE work.

I think it is possible to replace the TE486, but I think the SBCs that have the actual ISA bus attached to them are out of date. All modern SBCs that support the ISA bus use a PCI/PCI-e to ISA bridge. I don't know if it works with that bridge, but it is NI's gpib-pcii/iia that runs the entire ATE. If it works, the entire ATE will work.

I don't think you'll get any useful information connecting via VGA; it's the kind of program where nothing happens via VGA.

PS: To run 16-bit DOS programs in a 64-bit environment, “MSDOS Player” can be used. tpgrung can also run.

http://takeda-toshiya.my.coocan.jp/msdos/



I am wondering why autoexec.bat does not exist.
My thought is that config.sys is executed and auto_run.bat inside the clansman folder using autoexec. I do not know.

[simo2E0YWF]

Thank you all again for your replays

I am wanting to have a back up plan if the PC goes down as one already has , There were about 40 of these systems in one room when i used them in service but now i got two of them in bits .

The PC itself runs the printer off the 50pin connector (in older version with a EPROM board it had D9 video, Hdisk, RS232 connectors and keyboard on rear of unit )

Everything but printer runs thru the GPIB card you select the menu with the buttons on the 2955B test set , TPG.EXE is the development and TPGRUNG is the runtime i al lead to believe .

Thanks for the link for the emulator i will have to learn how to run it and open the files  . in am older PC you can open some in a word document and read most of it .

Would it be possible to have PC with a GPIB card and run the ATE from that ? Just the interface would take some working out .

Thank you all for my help i am just need to learn a lot about DOS.

I updated the folder with pics of the interface board.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1mxfZtCOQpyfqZ6QXAG00myfsG2CesQjW?usp=drive_link

[squadchannel]

Yes, I think it is possible to make it work on some kind of computer with a GPIB card.
However, it is possible that the black IDC connector side on the main board where the TE486 is mounted also controls something.
It may not work if it is not connected, but I do not know.

ISA cards don't have keying and it's easy to make a back and forth mistake, so be careful.

As far as I can see, DOS is installed with version 5.0.
However, you don't have to worry too much about the version.
I think it can work with a boot disk that can be made with XP's FD format.
Be careful with the GPIB driver, it may depend on the version. It is better to use a copy of it.

It is possible with a clansman folder, a GPIB driver, and some knowledge of DOS.

[coromonadalix]

to backup this card  i think hdd raw copy  can do the job  ...  because it must contain some boot sector  etc .. like an normal hdd

you would need another card and do an floppy setup to make one bootable thru fdisk, format, and system it  to make it bootable

the large flat cable under the sbc are isa ports for sure, the gpib card seems to be isa too ... the black connector is 2x31 pins witch fit isa port pinouts


more recent pc104 boards can be put into it  ...   

i think  even some cheapo motherboards with isa slots can or could do the job, it a matter of interfacing them properly   

[simo2E0YWF]

HI all

I have tried to back up to another same size card with macrum reflect a while back but no luck guess it needs to be done in DOS will have to research this , I do have Four CF cards that boot there original ones a working PC104 and a broken one thats why i would like to find an alternative motherboard or run form another PC .

In the PC104 form the only item that is connected to the Black connector on the connector board is the ticket printer and power in , In the old version with the eproms and old CPU board there was rear connectors for Disk Drive, Keyboard, Video (got displayed with an adaptor see pics in folder ) , RS232, but the new PC104 does have output for a Keyboard but it is not used and the PC104 doe snot have video out i am waiting for a VGA card to arrive  .

In the folder i have used DosBox-x to run TPG but you need a password for a part of it can this be hacked? and you can open the runtime version witch i guess some of you have done , then not sure what to do now.

If you look at this board similar and i think the 50 pi connector is the same so there might be keyboard function it is just not used wonder how that did this in the factory ?

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1mxfZtCOQpyfqZ6QXAG00myfsG2CesQjW?usp=drive_link