Compaq Deskpro 386s20/n

What can I say? I saved it from an untimely end at a computer recyclers.
It's completely alive but unhappy about the state of its CMOS battery.

Specifically, it asks me for a configuration disk. I can "press F1 to
continue" and it will boot, but...I'd like to configure it if I could.

Amazingly enough, HP/Compaq's web site had not forgotten about the existence
of this machine. They have forgotten about all the files for it, though.
Drive A is a 5.25" floppy, although that is the least of my problems. I have
no problem writing out 5.25" floppies, either HD or 360K.

Can anyone help spin the clock back on this one?

William

On Feb 21, 8:06 pm, "William R. Walsh"
m wrote:
What can I say? I saved it from an untimely end at a computer recyclers.

Untimely? It's going on 20 years old.


It's completely alive but unhappy about the state of its CMOS battery.


No suprise there.

Do you want the bad news first?

386 machines often have a Dallas Realtime clock that holds it's own
charge for about 10 years. Meaning it's a chip you have to replace,
not just a battery. Dallas no longer makes that part, and it's
replacement is incompatible with 386s. Last i looked, you could find
the part for around $20, from various resellers.

If on the other hand, you are lucky enough to have an actual battery,
it's not the standard cr2032. It's a more hard do find model.

Specifically, it asks me for a configuration disk. I can "press F1 to
continue" and it will boot, but...I'd like to configure it if I could.

Amazingly enough, HP/Compaq's web site had not forgotten about the existence
of this machine. They have forgotten about all the files for it, though.
Drive A is a 5.25" floppy, although that is the least of my problems. I have
no problem writing out 5.25" floppies, either HD or 360K.

Can anyone help spin the clock back on this one?

William

To be honest, given the vintage of the machine, if all you have to do
to make it work is press f1, you're doing pretty good.

If the RTC is a Dallas chip, the model number is most likely DS12887 and it
looks about the size of a black lego. It can be removed carefully by wedging it
out with a small flat-bladed screwdriver. I keep a few around, pulled from 486
boards. If that's what is in a 386s20/n, send me a fiver and I'll send out a
battery.

The battery might instead be one of the older ones that attaches to a
motherboard header with two leads and is affixed to the inside of the case with
velcro. Sorry, don't have any of these... Ben Myers

On 25 Feb 2007 23:16:25 -0800, " wrote:

On Feb 21, 8:06 pm, "William R. Walsh"
om wrote:
What can I say? I saved it from an untimely end at a computer recyclers.

Untimely? It's going on 20 years old.


It's completely alive but unhappy about the state of its CMOS battery.


No suprise there.

Do you want the bad news first?

386 machines often have a Dallas Realtime clock that holds it's own
charge for about 10 years. Meaning it's a chip you have to replace,
not just a battery. Dallas no longer makes that part, and it's
replacement is incompatible with 386s. Last i looked, you could find
the part for around $20, from various resellers.

If on the other hand, you are lucky enough to have an actual battery,
it's not the standard cr2032. It's a more hard do find model.

Specifically, it asks me for a configuration disk. I can "press F1 to
continue" and it will boot, but...I'd like to configure it if I could.

Amazingly enough, HP/Compaq's web site had not forgotten about the existence
of this machine. They have forgotten about all the files for it, though.
Drive A is a 5.25" floppy, although that is the least of my problems. I have
no problem writing out 5.25" floppies, either HD or 360K.

Can anyone help spin the clock back on this one?

William

To be honest, given the vintage of the machine, if all you have to do
to make it work is press f1, you're doing pretty good.

Hi!

Untimely? It's going on 20 years old.

It runs and it works. What more do you want? I can think of useful things to
do with it, although I do realize that I'm probably in something of a
minority.

No suprise there.

Actually, there was. :-) Someone had gone to the trouble of replacing it.
They cut into the original Compaq wiring and grafted a more standard battery
into the system.

386 machines often have a Dallas Realtime clock that holds it's own
charge for about 10 years.

They really do quite better than that in real life. Ten years is the
lifetime of the memory without any external power. I have some of these that
are over 10 years old and still keeping excellent time. The same seems to be
true of their "bigger brother" the DS1387.

The DS12887 and DS12887+ (ROHS compliant) are still available and work fine
in every machine I ever had to put one in. I'm not sure where you got the
idea that these "don't work" in a 386. I've put new parts in 286, 386SX and
386 systems and never had a problem. Quite a few pin compatible replacements
exist from other makers.

In any event, this Compaq uses a large 4.5 or 3V (haven't checked yet)
battery pack, not a Dallas module.

To be honest, given the vintage of the machine, if all you have to do
to make it work is press f1, you're doing pretty good.

Which is fine, apart from the fact that it was stuck in January 1st, 1980
and the normal DOS TIME/DATE commands couldn't fix this so it would survive
rebooting. I did manage to ask around and get ahold of a suitable
configuration disk. This let me set the time and date without incident (and
the battery now seems to be holding) but I've lost the hard disk. The
program is new enough to properly configure the system, but it tells me the
hard disk is not supported. I know nobody's replaced it, since it has Compaq
stickers and part numbers on it. I need to figure out what the exact
operating parameters of the disk are and see if I can manually pick one from
the listing that will work. It's a 120MB Conner Peripherals drive.

William

Hi!

The battery might instead be one of the older ones that attaches to a
motherboard header with two leads and is affixed to the inside of the
case with velcro. Sorry, don't have any of these... Ben Myers

It's definitely more like this type of battery and I do have a source who
can get them brand new for a pretty good price.

For now I've put the system aside (see my earlier post) and have been
working on reviving a Compaq 386DX/33 EISA box. I plan to run FreeDOS with
this system. (I always wanted to work with a 386DX/33...imagine what a nice
system that would have been back when it was new. Fortunately, its battery
is up (the system appears to charge it when running) and the configuration
partition was easily restored from disk images on the HP/Compaq site. Now
just to try and wait patiently for my EISA adapters to come in from eBay...)

William

On Mar 4, 1:16 pm, "William R. Walsh"
m wrote:
Hi!

Untimely? It's going on 20 years old.

It runs and it works. What more do you want?

Web surfing?


I can think of useful things to
do with it, although I do realize that I'm probably in something of a
minority.


I don't have a problem with using ancient beasts. It's just spending
money on fixing them. If you're just having fun, go ahead, nothing
wrong with that. But you can get a working pentuim 3 for under $50.

No suprise there.

Actually, there was. :-) Someone had gone to the trouble of replacing it.
They cut into the original Compaq wiring and grafted a more standard battery
into the system.

386 machines often have a Dallas Realtime clock that holds it's own
charge for about 10 years.

They really do quite better than that in real life. Ten years is the
lifetime of the memory without any external power. I have some of these that
are over 10 years old and still keeping excellent time. The same seems to be
true of their "bigger brother" the DS1387.

The DS12887 and DS12887+ (ROHS compliant) are still available and work fine
in every machine I ever had to put one in. I'm not sure where you got the
idea that these "don't work" in a 386. I've put new parts in 286, 386SX and
386 systems and never had a problem. Quite a few pin compatible replacements
exist from other makers.

Last time i looked, which was last year, Dallas said they stopped
making the 12887 but was offering a 128887, which they said, right on
the spec sheet, more or less 'this wont work in your 386.'




In any event, this Compaq uses a large 4.5 or 3V (haven't checked yet)
battery pack, not a Dallas module.

To be honest, given the vintage of the machine, if all you have to do
to make it work is press f1, you're doing pretty good.

Which is fine, apart from the fact that it was stuck in January 1st, 1980
and the normal DOS TIME/DATE commands couldn't fix this so it would survive
rebooting. I did manage to ask around and get ahold of a suitable
configuration disk. This let me set the time and date without incident (and
the battery now seems to be holding) but I've lost the hard disk. The
program is new enough to properly configure the system, but it tells me the
hard disk is not supported. I know nobody's replaced it, since it has Compaq
stickers and part numbers on it. I need to figure out what the exact
operating parameters of the disk are and see if I can manually pick one from
the listing that will work. It's a 120MB Conner Peripherals drive.

William

Hi!

Web surfing?

It can be done. :-) (You knew I'd say it!)

http://greyghost.dyndns.org/8507/part2/DSC03100.JPG (1216x912, 70KB, from a
PS/2 Model 80 and an 8507 monochrome display...)

I generally agree with what you say about a Pentium III, although they don't
seem that cheap around here quite yet. I just find the old computers more
interesting than just about any PIII box you could find:

http://greyghost.dyndns.org/mcastuff/
http://www.walshcomptech.com/comp_coll.htm

Last time i looked, which was last year, Dallas said they stopped
making the 12887 but was offering a 128887, which they said, right on
the spec sheet, more or less 'this wont work in your 386.'

I think you mean the 12C887, which doesn't work since it handles the century
byte differently.

By the way, I was surprised upon returning to this group for the first time
in a while...it's evidently nowhere near as alive as it used to be. :-(

William

EISA adapters for what? EISA graphics cards were not even close to being what
they were cracked up to be. EISA SCSI adapters were pretty respectable. EISA
network cards offered no advantage over ISA ones. I do not think that there
ever was an EISA 10/100 card, but 3COM produced its 3C515 10/100 ISA NIC.

You also need an EISA configuration utility program with configuration files for
the motherboard and all EISA add-in cards.

Wow, this takes me way back to the EISA versus MicroChannel article I worked on
for PC Magazine. The 386/33 was a much nicer box in its time than IBM's
ridiculously proprietary MicroChannel machines... Ben Myers

On Sun, 04 Mar 2007 21:21:11 GMT, "William R. Walsh"
m wrote:

Hi!

The battery might instead be one of the older ones that attaches to a
motherboard header with two leads and is affixed to the inside of the
case with velcro. Sorry, don't have any of these... Ben Myers

It's definitely more like this type of battery and I do have a source who
can get them brand new for a pretty good price.

For now I've put the system aside (see my earlier post) and have been
working on reviving a Compaq 386DX/33 EISA box. I plan to run FreeDOS with
this system. (I always wanted to work with a 386DX/33...imagine what a nice
system that would have been back when it was new. Fortunately, its battery
is up (the system appears to charge it when running) and the configuration
partition was easily restored from disk images on the HP/Compaq site. Now
just to try and wait patiently for my EISA adapters to come in from eBay...)

William

Hi!

EISA adapters for what? EISA graphics cards were not even close to
being what they were cracked up to be.

Compaq's QVision seems to be pretty darn respectable. I've run one of these
in a 486DX2/66 EISA box and it was more than fast enough at the time. It
also had a VRAM upgrade fitted, so it could manage high color at up to
1024x768 resolution. This 386DX/33 box has the same adapter, and the VRAM
upgrade is present on it as well.

EISA SCSI adapters were pretty respectable.

I found a seemingly new in box Adaptec AHA-1740 adapter with all the docs
and diskettes. Another preservation effort...image the disks and scan the
docs...

EISA network cards offered no advantage over ISA ones.

Really? Oh well, the price was right right for the three 3C579-TPs I got
ahold of.

I do not think that there ever was an EISA 10/100 card, but 3COM produced
its
3C515 10/100 ISA NIC.

Hmmm...I don't know. Guess I'd be surprised if there wasn't, as EISA did
hold on for a lot longer in the x86 world than MCA. I've heard of Pentium II
machines that had EISA slots. I'd really like to find a real EISA Token Ring
card.

Wow, this takes me way back to the EISA versus MicroChannel article
I worked on for PC Magazine. The 386/33 was a much nicer box in
its time than IBM's ridiculously proprietary MicroChannel machines...

Funny you'd mention that (got a copy of the article? I'd love to read
it...wctatsignwalshcomptechdotcom) as I have quite the Microchannel
collection:

http://greyghost.dyndns.org/mcastuff/
http://www.walshcomptech.com/comp_coll.htm

I guess you could say that I think microchannel was "insufficiently
appreciated" in its day, although I can very easily see why that was. But
they are rock solid reliable boxen... Oh, by the way, there does exist a
100Mbit Ethernet card for MCA-bus systems. Too bad it's a loosely converted
ISA design and a joke from a reliability perspective...

William

On Mar 4, 7:28 pm, Ben Myers
wrote:
EISA adapters for what? EISA graphics cards were not even close to being what
they were cracked up to be. EISA SCSI adapters were pretty respectable. EISA
network cards offered no advantage over ISA ones. I do not think that there
ever was an EISA 10/100 card, but 3COM produced its 3C515 10/100 ISA NIC.


I've seen a few by 3com, they were in my hands just long enough for me
to break off the gold leads, and put the rest in the High Grade
Circuit board bin.

Our linux guy tried to get one working an an SGI machine, running
Gentoo linux, couldn't find drivers except 'experimental' ones. And
then cursed when he remembered he could put an isa card in the eisa
slot.


You also need an EISA configuration utility program with configuration files for
the motherboard and all EISA add-in cards.

Wow, this takes me way back to the EISA versus MicroChannel article I worked on
for PC Magazine. The 386/33 was a much nicer box in its time than IBM's
ridiculously proprietary MicroChannel machines... Ben Myers

On Sun, 04 Mar 2007 21:21:11 GMT, "William R. Walsh"

m wrote:
Hi!

The battery might instead be one of the older ones that attaches to a
motherboard header with two leads and is affixed to the inside of the
case with velcro. Sorry, don't have any of these... Ben Myers

It's definitely more like this type of battery and I do have a source who
can get them brand new for a pretty good price.

For now I've put the system aside (see my earlier post) and have been
working on reviving a Compaq 386DX/33 EISA box. I plan to run FreeDOS with
this system. (I always wanted to work with a 386DX/33...imagine what a nice
system that would have been back when it was new. Fortunately, its battery
is up (the system appears to charge it when running) and the configuration
partition was easily restored from disk images on the HP/Compaq site. Now
just to try and wait patiently for my EISA adapters to come in from eBay...)

William