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Microchannel

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Micro Channel Linux Home Page



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Su's PS/2 page



IBM Personal System/2



Knowledge Base - On some IBM PS/2s
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 MCA
  • Summary - Experience

    • Micro Channel Architecture

    The 32-bit bus used in most IBM PS/2 PCs and the RS/6000 workstations. IBM introduced the Micro Channel bus architecture in 1987. It was the primary expansion bus used in IBM's Personal System/2 and RS/6000 computers over the period from about 1987 to 1995. It was designed to be an improved replacement for the PC-AT, or ISA, bus architecture. It was eventually replaced by the PCI bus architecture.

    Some characteristics are:

    • It runs at 10 MHz
    • The theoretical maximum data transfer rate is 20 or 40 Mbytes/s
    • It supports up to 16 bus masters
    • Two types of slots are defined (16-bit slots have a 16-bit data bus and a 24-bit address bus and support for video and audio)
      (32-bit slots support separate 32-bit data and address buses)

    MCA never accepted as widely as expected.

    PS/2 - Micro Channel

    Examples of PS/2

       Type         Processor      Video  S/B     Memory   SS   Hrd Dsk 
   8590-0G9     486SX-20       XGA    4/4     4M/64M   Y    160M SCSI 
   8590-0GF     486SX-20       XGA    4/4     4M/64M   Y    400M SCSI 
   8590-0H9     486SX-25       XGA    4/4     4M/64M   Y    160M SCSI 
   8590-0J5     80486-25       XGA    4/4     8M/64M   Y     80M SCSI 
   8590-0J9     80486-25       XGA    4/4     4M/64M   Y    160M SCSI 
   8590-0J9     80486-25       XGA    4/4     8M/64M   Y    160M SCSI 
   8590-0JF     80486-25       XGA    4/4     8M/64M   Y    400M SCSI 
   8590-0KD     80486-33       XGA    4/4     4M/64M   Y    320M SCSI 
   8590-0KF     80486-33       XGA    4/4     8M/64M   Y    400M SCSI 

   9556-0B6     486SLC2-25/50  XGA    3/3     8M/16M   Y    104M SCSI 
   9556-0BA     486SLC2-25/50  XGA    3/3     8M/16M   Y    212M SCSI 
   9557-0B6     486SLC2-25/50  XGA    5/4     8M/16M   Y    104M SCSI 
   9557-0BA     486SLC2-25/50  XGA    5/4     8M/16M   Y    212M SCSI 
   9557-1BA     486SLC2-25/50  XGA    4/4     8M/16M   Y    212M SCSI 

   9576-0H6     486SX-25       XGA2   3/3     8M/32M   Y    104M SCSI 
   9576-0U6     486SX-33       XGA2   3/3     8M/32M   Y    104M SCSI 
   9576-0UA     486SX-33       XGA2   3/3     8M/32M   Y    212M SCSI 
   9577-0UA     486SX-33       XGA2   5/4     8M/32M   Y    212M SCSI 
   9577-0UF     486SX-33       XGA2   5/4     8M/32M   Y    400M SCSI 
   9577-1UA     486SX-33       XGA2   5/4     8M/32M   Y    212M SCSI 

   9577-0NA     486DX2-33/66   XGA2   5/4     8M/32M   Y    212M SCSI 
   9577-0NF     486DX2-33/66   XGA2   5/4     8M/32M   Y    400M SCSI 
   9577-1NA     486-33/66      XGA2   4/4     8M/32M   Y    212M SCSI 
   9585-OKG     486DX-33       SVGA   8/7     8M/256M  Y    540MB SCSI 

   9585-0X6     486SX-33       SVGA   8/7     8M/64M   Y    104M SCSI 
   9585-0XA     486SX-33       SVGA   8/7     8M/64M   Y    212M SCSI 
   9595-0LF     486-25/50      XGA2   8/7     8M/64M   Y    400M SCSI 
   9595-0MF     486-50         XGA2   8/7     16M/64M  Y    400M SCSI 
   9595-0MT     486-50         XGA2   8/7     16M/64M  Y     1GB SCSI 
   9595-PQT     Pentium        MGA    8X7     16M/256M Y     1GB SCSI

    Linux for Microchannel machines

    My experience with Linux and IBM MCA machine ...

    Some ftp promised ...

    ... "for MCA machines were prepared S.u.S.E (tm), RedHat (tm) or Slackware (tm) distributions. At the beginning, there was a group around Slackware that developed a release for MCA-machines. This group stoped their work. Linux also runs on Microchannel with IBM-SCSI-interfaces or other MCA-SCSI-adapters."

    My old PS/2 computer is

    • 486SX Model M77,
    • 16 MB System Memory,
    • SCSI on the System Board,
    • SCSI Hard Disk 545 MB ID6 Lun 0,
    • Display Adapter XGA-2 with 1024 kB,
    • Bios Part Number 39G3300,
    • CDROM NEC 2x,
    • Token Ring Netcard

    I am a nevbie in Linux. Now I used Slackware distribution with kernel ibmmca.s (rev. 2.1.103)


    IBM PS/2 MCA systems was supported since Linux kernel version 2.0.7, but only for the stable kernel releases. For information I look at the Micro Channel Linux Home Page.

    I had problems with display adapter in X Window System. Now I used XFree86 AGX server and a Compaq monitor. The xf86config is (from Jason.Harper@nau.edu):

    • Monitor : Compaq model 140
    • Section - Device
    • Section - Screen
      • Section "Device"
  Identifier "XGA-2"
  VendorName "IBM"
  BoardName "Unknown"
  Chipset "XGA-2"
  Ramdac "XGA-2"
  Videoram 1024
  DACspeed 90
  Instance 6
  IObase 0x2160
  COPBase 0xC1f00
  MEMbase 0xfd800000
  BIOSbase 0xC0000
  VGAbase 0xA0000
  POSbase 0
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Driver	"Accel"
    Device	"XGA-2"
    Monitor	"140"
    Subsection  "Display"
        # will work at 16bpp depth if you remove 1024x768 from "Modes"
        Depth	    8
	Modes	 "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        ViewPort    0 0
    EndSubsection
EndSection




      

    • /proc/machine
      • 

            Model ID: 0xf8
      Submodel ID: 0x41
      BIOS Revision: 0x5

      

    • /proc/pos
      • 

            Slot1 :  da 8f 0d 6e fd d0 00 00
      SCSI  :  ff 8e 01 fc 20 ff ff ff  IBM SCSI Adapter w/Cache

      

    • /proc/scsi
      • 

         Integrated SCSI Adapter
     Adapter Name : IBM SCSI Adapter w/Caxhe
     ID : 8eff
     IO base address : 0x3540
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