MicroSys SBC1190 Problems

I got one of the SBC1190's off of EBAY from Alltronics:

http://www.alltronics.com/cgi-bin/item/24C004/search/Microsys%2DSBC1190

It's an embedded PC104 80C188 with 512K Flash & Ram.

The board is as it is, no ROM in U12 socket. (MicroSys website shows
a ROM in that socket)

And I'm having trouble with its configuration and startup.

At power-up, the PWR LED blinks, but I'm not getting any response on
the PC (hyperterm) its connected thru at COM1.

I called MicroSys and they want $50 for their DK1190 developers kit:
2 cables and the manual!

The 4 page "brochure" on MicroSys' website has the pinouts of the 
connectors but not the default jumper settings.

I sent their tech support an email today and am waiting for a reply.

Has anyone here got one of these?  Alltronics tells me they got them
from a bankrupt company as new and "sold about a hundred of them and no 
one ever reported any trouble"

On May 10, 5:23 pm, Mike H <m...@rushourgraffic.com> wrote:
> I got one of the SBC1190's off of EBAY from Alltronics:
> http://www.alltronics.com/cgi-bin/item/24C004/search/Microsys%2DSBC1190
> It's an embedded PC104 80C188 with 512K Flash & Ram.

I'm not familiar with the board, but have some guesses in case nobody
comes forward with authoritative info.

> The board is as it is, no ROM in U12 socket. (MicroSys website shows
> a ROM in that socket)

That would indicate possible lack of an operating system, as you've no
doubt conjectured.

> And I'm having trouble with its configuration and startup.
> At power-up, the PWR LED blinks, but I'm not getting any response on
> the PC (hyperterm) its connected thru at COM1.

It might not be sending anything because it doesn't have a program to
tell it to do so.

It might be expecting a program to load into flash. Maybe in intel
hex, or trx, or bin or whatever. I didn't read the PDF, it didn't
specify? If so, it would probably be fairly stupid, and expect it in
one certain format AND NO OTHER, and at some certain bitrate AND NO
OTHER. Hopefully your vendor or another developer will come through
with some real data, because you'd lose a lot of hair trying every
possibility!

jcomeau_ictx wrote:
> On May 10, 5:23 pm, Mike H <m...@rushourgraffic.com> wrote:
>> I got one of the SBC1190's off of EBAY from Alltronics:
>> http://www.alltronics.com/cgi-bin/item/24C004/search/Microsys%2DSBC1190
>> It's an embedded PC104 80C188 with 512K Flash & Ram.
> 
> I'm not familiar with the board, but have some guesses in case nobody
> comes forward with authoritative info.
> 
>> The board is as it is, no ROM in U12 socket. (MicroSys website shows
>> a ROM in that socket)
> 
> That would indicate possible lack of an operating system, as you've no
> doubt conjectured.
> 

Possibly, but the brochure says the OS in in flash, on the bottom of the 
board. and the socket is for ROM or RAM (user supplied?)

>> And I'm having trouble with its configuration and startup.
>> At power-up, the PWR LED blinks, but I'm not getting any response on
>> the PC (hyperterm) its connected thru at COM1.
> 
> It might not be sending anything because it doesn't have a program to
> tell it to do so.
> 
> It might be expecting a program to load into flash. Maybe in intel
> hex, or trx, or bin or whatever. I didn't read the PDF, it didn't
> specify? If so, it would probably be fairly stupid, and expect it in
> one certain format AND NO OTHER, and at some certain bitrate AND NO
> OTHER. Hopefully your vendor or another developer will come through
> with some real data, because you'd lose a lot of hair trying every
> possibility!
> 

I got an RS232 tester and hooked it up. I am getting a "heartbeat" 
signal on COM2, but its probably a non-printing character. I get nothing 
on hyperterm.

Still haven't received any info from MicroSys tech support :(

On May 11, 4:37 pm, Mike H <m...@rushourgraffic.com> wrote:

> I got an RS232 tester and hooked it up. I am getting a "heartbeat"
> signal on COM2, but its probably a non-printing character. I get nothing
> on hyperterm.

If you are getting one character repeated at a fixed interval, I bet
you it's actually the start of an XModem session. The unit is begging
you for a decent meal of fresh software, and you aren't giving it any,
you heartless cad.

larwe wrote:
> On May 11, 4:37 pm, Mike H <m...@rushourgraffic.com> wrote:
> 
>> I got an RS232 tester and hooked it up. I am getting a "heartbeat"
>> signal on COM2, but its probably a non-printing character. I get nothing
>> on hyperterm.
> 
> If you are getting one character repeated at a fixed interval, I bet
> you it's actually the start of an XModem session. The unit is begging
> you for a decent meal of fresh software, and you aren't giving it any,
> you heartless cad.
> 
> 
Well, if you have a copy of the MicroSys software, I'd be happy to feed 
it to it.

As my OP stated, I got the board from Alltronics as is. No software, no 
manual and MicroSys is too $$$ for my budget right now.

On May 11, 9:08 pm, Mike H <m...@rushourgraffic.com> wrote:


> Well, if you have a copy of the MicroSys software, I'd be happy to feed
> it to it.

I don't - but I hope you're not believing what Alltronics wrote about
"this board will run Linux".

> As my OP stated, I got the board from Alltronics as is. No software, no
> manual and MicroSys is too $$$ for my budget right now.

I think you've just had an object lesson in the true meaning of "penny
wise, pound foolish", but looking at the datasheet shows that it does
indeed have an XModem application loader built in, and it seems to be
slightly DOS compatible. The heartbeat character you are seeing is
probably <NAK>, 15H. Given this information and either a terminal
program that will display hex or an oscilloscope, you should be able
to work out the baud rate in fairly short order. If you send the board
a DOS .EXE (use Turbo C or OpenWatcom to build it), the board should
run it.

larwe wrote:
> On May 11, 9:08 pm, Mike H <m...@rushourgraffic.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>> Well, if you have a copy of the MicroSys software, I'd be happy to feed
>> it to it.
> 
> I don't - but I hope you're not believing what Alltronics wrote about
> "this board will run Linux".

It's like they used to say about newspapers: Don't believe everything 
you read.

> 
>> As my OP stated, I got the board from Alltronics as is. No software, no
>> manual and MicroSys is too $$$ for my budget right now.
> 
> I think you've just had an object lesson in the true meaning of "penny
> wise, pound foolish", 

More like Blackjack in Vegas. I got to other PC104 boards off of EBAY, 
both Octogon products and they work fine. So 2 out of 3 aint bad.

but looking at the datasheet shows that it does
> indeed have an XModem application loader built in, and it seems to be
> slightly DOS compatible. The heartbeat character you are seeing is
> probably <NAK>, 15H. Given this information and either a terminal
> program that will display hex or an oscilloscope, you should be able
> to work out the baud rate in fairly short order. If you send the board
> a DOS .EXE (use Turbo C or OpenWatcom to build it), the board should
> run it.
>