Date   : Fri, 28 Jun 1991 07:55:45 GMT
From   : mcsun!hp4nl!gufalet.let.rug.nl!rug4!laverman@uunet.uu.net (Bert Laverman)
Subject: Re: HELP!! -Annoying Problem with Televideo 803H w/o Hard Drive-

In article <15736@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> baumgard@handel.cs.colostate.edu
(jan feli baumgardner) writes:
>HELP!
>
>I have a Televideo TS-803H CP/M machine, running CP/M 2.2.
>
>I have a hardware problem.  The machine originally came with a hard drive
>and a single floppy drive.
>
>The hard disk was cannabalized (I.E. MISSING) when I got the machine,
>and although It runs fine off of the floppy drive, Whenever I turn
>the machine on, I recieve a "HARDWARE ERROR: CONTACT DISTRIBUTOR"
>or a "Booting from hard disk" message.
>
>Once I turn the machine on and off and on a few times, it has no trouble 
>booting from the floppy drive.  I was wondering what it takes to make
>the computer realize that the hard disk is missing.
>
>If anyone knows the answer to this question, 
>PLEASE, PLEASE (grovel grovel beg) PLEASE let me know. It would be
>most gratifying to clean up this annoying, if not life-threatening problem.
I had a 806 up and running for a while (until the HD gave up of old age).
The idea is that the machine boots either from floppy or from
harddisk. Of course the 806 (a server for up to 6 diskless z80 systems) was
supposed to boot from harddisk all the time. The trick was to simply press
the re-boot button immediately, and then it would try the other device.
I suppose it stored an indication of what was tried last time somewhere
in memory.

So, if you have a reset button on it, try using that.

The 80x series are sufficiently prehistoric _not_ to know something as
auto-configuration. You could try to find the boot ROM's, disassemble
them, find the right spot for correcting the boot device, and make new
EPROM's. ;-)

Greetings, Bert

-- 
#include <std/disclaimer>

  Bert Laverman,  Dept. of Computing Science, Groningen University
  laverman@cs.rug.nl                   bert@arrakis.nl.mugnet.org