Summary of IBM EduQuest Fifty, #1

This is a high-level summary of general characteristics of the machine. For details (which are of course subject to change) the machine itself, and the manuals concerning it on the manual racks, must be consulted.

Owner, if known:

Donated to the Educational Technology Center by IBM.

CPU:

Intel 486SX

Operating system:

DOS 5, with Windows 3.1

Bus architecture:

ISA

Physical memory:

1 MB conventional, plus 7MB extended.

"High" ("adapter", trans-640K) memory usage:

High loading of PC-NFS, mouse, etc.

Memory management:

• 386Max v7, to enable EMS usage and optimise positioning of RAM addresses in "adapter memory". (See the memory map diagrams for default ROM positioning in the EduQuest handbooks on the manual shelves.)
  386Max was obliged to place the 64K page frame for EMS in the top 64K of the 640K "conventional" memory region, as no 64K space was still available in high memory. NOTE:The Virtual Control Program Interface (VCPI) provided by 386Max v7 is essential for permitting multiple programs, including Windows 3.1, to use the 486 in protected mode (otherwise, the first program to establish protected mode gets exclusive access to it).
• Virtual memory is enabled in Windows 3.1 . The ICSS system, listed below, has considerable memory demands, including the running of parallel server tasks.

Local storage:

• 212 MB hard disc
  IMPORTANT SETUP PARAMETERS:
  

  Cyl  Heads  Pre  LZ (landing zone) sectors  size
  683   16     0      683              38      212
  

  THESE ARE SOFTWARE-CONFIGURABLE AND MUST BE CORRECT,
  or the hard drive will become inaccessible (in which case a floppy or ROMDos will be needed for booting and restoration of the parameters). To obtain adequate use of the "adapter memory" space (640k to 1m zone) the "autodetect" mode for disc parameters, which depends on shadow BIOS' occupying part of "adapter memory", had to be turned off.

• CD-ROM drive (caddy type)

Important local Software or Data:

• IBM Continuous Speech System (ICSS) speech recognition system; requires an audio card, in this case supplied by IBM's MWave card and control software. Includes directories of sample recognition "profiles", new experimental profiles, experiment results, etc.
• Borland Pascal for Windows.
• "ROMDos", including its own in-memory directory (ROMdisc?) for booting if the physical media have been rendered inaccessible, for instance through configuration experiments.
• Norton Utilities, Windows version; including Norton Disk Doctor and Norton Desktop.

Graphics adapter:

ATI VGA card with variable resolution capabilities; can handle SVGA resolutions at 256 colours. ATI control device software included for Windows.

Network:

• PC-NFS, when a net is actually in use;
  
• Western Digital WD8003E ethernet adapter, ; taken from one of the Olivetti's, probably edutech5.ics.uci.edu .
• To obtain the IP (Internet Protocol) address, run
  "ypmatch edutech5 hosts", under DOS or UNIX.
• To obtain the ethernet address , run
  "myeaddr wd8003e".

Remote drives (by network):

Not firmly chosen, but following the letters for the CD-ROM and possible RAMdisc.