It doesn't boot

[ArchCangyuan]

I used the BIOS file and other files in the folder 'sd' and all follow your guide. But after choosing floppy image, the screen went black and nothing happened. What the problem maybe? Thanks for your help.
    Best regards,
    Cangyuan Lee

[alfikpl]

I have received raports that the VGA BIOS firmware settings aren't fully compatible with the ao486.

The problem seems to apply to the 80x25 text mode (VGA mode 0x03 index 0x18). The hsync frequency is 28.89 kHz, and vsync is 64.63 Hz. Perhaps your monitor can't synchronize to these frequencies.

[ArchCangyuan]

I've boot successfully with another branch of your project called frix. I think your job is so excellent and I can study from you a lot. Thank you for opening source.

Best regards,
Cangyuan Lee

[MasterJerryZh]

Well, I used the BIOS file and other files in the folder 'sd' and all follow your guide.But it cann't be boot.There some words on screen.
SD reinit:1
SD header chk...
The SD card I used is a usual SD card instead of SDHC card. It's capacity is 2GB. I have not modified two files in sd/hdd. I seen the file named msdos6.properties shows that
start =52428800
size =528482304
cylinders=1024
heads =16
spt =63.
Should I modified this file with properties of my SD card ?
Best regards,
Jerry Zh.

[alfikpl]

Hello MasterJerryZh,
As far as I can remember the SD card driver requires a SDHC card. The old SDSC (Standard Capacity) card won't work.
The parameters in the properties file define the location on the SD card and the parameters of the emulated hard disk. They are not really related to the SD card much.

Best regards,
Aleksander Osman.

[MasterJerryZh]

Thank you very much ! I hava a try again with a SDHC card and the card is OK . But there are also some problems . The screen display these worlds like that "SD OK, SD header invalid" ! What's wrong with it ?
I hava only copied the file ao486_tool/sd.dat to SD card by using 'dd if=sd.dat of=/dev/mmcblk0p1' command . Don't I need to copy anything else to SD card ? I hope to get your help !
Best regards,
Jerry Zh.

[alfikpl]

I think you have to copy sd.dat to the beginning of the card, so /dev/mmcblk0 and not partition 1 /dev/mmcblk0p1 (?)
Best regards,
Aleksander Osman.

[MasterJerryZh]

Yes，It's my fault ! I'm sorry about it . Now , I have used 'dd if=sd.dat of=/dev/mmcblk0' command again. It's successful ! I can select bios and vga bios , but the screen displays there are no floppy when I selected the floppy on the OSD . Need I copy an OS image to SD card using 'dd' command ? For example : 'dd if=freedos.img of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=102400 seek=512' . I also don't know what is this file ao486/sd/fd_1_44m/fdboot.img used to ?
Best regards,
Jerry Zh.

[MasterJerryZh]

Thank you very much ! I have boot Win95 on DE115 board successful !

[alfikpl]

I am happy you managed to boot the system. Sorry for not replying to your last comment, but I believed you would manage yourself :) and anyways I was preparing for Christmas :)

Best regards,
Aleksander Osman.

[MasterJerryZh]

I am studying your project now and I may have many questions to discuss with you in the future .
Thank you for your contribution to open source object !
Merry christmas !
Best regards,
Jerry Zh.

[sherikapotein]

Could you please share your solution? Which win95 image did you use could you link me to that. Having a hard time trying to get anything beyond the BIOS selection menu. The screen goes blank. No errors on compilation/ uploading.

My College lab have some decent monitors wherein I checked them, just to be sure that it is not a monitor sync issue.

a) Used the fdboot.img provided in the repo
dd if=sd.dat of=/dev/sdc
dd of=fdboot.img of=/dev/sdc seek=102400 //52428800/512=102400 from dos image properties
b) uploaded the soc.sof using quartus programmer. Success.
c) compiled the boschs BIOS and VGA bios by downloading their source tar, applying the difference file and then as instructed in the instruction. Success.
d) Run the 'exe' project as "NIOSII hardware" (after generating BSP from exe_bsp and building project of course)
e) The BIOS selection screen visible .. no floppy detected.... on clicking fdboot.img the screen goes blank
f) Not sure if this is due to the fpga not being configured or the SD card

I am using Quartus II 14.1 on linux

Thanks in anticipation..

[MasterJerryZh]

I think the fdboot.img file isn't a completed bootable OS image file. So, you should have a try with a completed OS image file, Free Dos or Win95. I have boot it successfully with a freedos image in another github project which is named Fix. You can find a useful bootable OS image file from it. Its URL is here.
https://github.com/archlabo/Frix
If you want a bootable Win95 OS image file, you can give me your address of e-mail and I can share with you by it.
Best regards,
Jerry Zh.

[sherikapotein]

Thanks.
So did you succeed with this project or only with the frix implementation?
Will try out frix tomorrow.
[email protected]
Is my email id .
Thanks again

[sherikapotein]

I could the the frix project with the demo images provided on their site still no joy on running a win95 image @MasterJerryZh could you please forward me the win 95 image you spoke of.

[JUSDJTIN]

@MasterJerryZh may I ask you a question. I have load bios and vgabios successfully. but when load the img file , I only find the fdboot.img, but I did not copy this file, no matter I copy freedos.img or not. It does not work. thanks
sudo dd if=bios_vgabios.dat of=/dev/sdc0 bs=102400 seek=0
sudo dd if=freedos1.1.img of=/dev/sdc0 bs=102400 seek=512