Ryan, I'll have to dig a bit into the HITR to confirm this, but POS 5
has the channel check bit, which sets the function of POS 6 and 7.

POS 3 and 4 pass address or whatever from 6,7 , damn it Jim, I'm a
doctor, not an engineer. The patent does not seem to fully describe POS
5 bit 6, at least not in detail.

Louis Ohland wrote:

The subaddress-pointer registers located at input/output ports 106(hex)
and 107(hex) serve a dual function, storing channel check status
information in addition to pointing to subaddressing data. A specially defined bit, called the channel check status indicator field and located
at bit six in the register at I/O port 105(hex), shows which of the two functions these registers are performing at any given time. When the
Channel Check Status Indicator Field shows a value of a logical zero, it means that registers 106(hex) and 107(hex) provide Channel Check status
(or point to the location where this status information is stored). When
this bit indicates a logical one, registers 106(hex) and 107(hex) can be
used as pointers to subaddressing data.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Bit 7 of POS register 5 is set to 1 unless -CHCK is active from the adapter. The remaining bits can be implemented as required....

hex 0105
bit 6 **may** be used to indicate that additional status is available
through bytes hex 0106 and 0107.

The indicator is set to 0 on a channel check condition, or when bit
7 of hex 0105 is o. The indicator is set to 1 on a channel reset, or
when bit 7 of hex 0105 is 1. This bit may be reset by any action
that occurs during the channel check service routine.
-------
Will look at this next:

This byte may be read at address hex 0091. Bit 0 of this
byte is set to 1 whenever the 'card selected feedback' signal was
active on a previous cycle or when the system board 1/0 functions
(diskette drive, serial, or parallel interfaces) are accessed by an 1/0
cycle. Bit 0 is reset by the read operation

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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https://www.ardent-tool.com/docs/pdf/Personal_System_2_Hardware_Interface_Technical_Reference_May88.pdf

Page 90

Hex 0105, Bit 6: Channel-Check Status Indicator:
When set to 0, this bit indicates channel-check exception status is
available from POS Registers 6 and 7.

When set to 1, this bit indicates no status is available. Registers 6
and 7 may be the status, a pointer to status, or a command port to
present the address elsewhere (for example, in a subaddress area).



Louis Ohland wrote:

Ryan, the references barely mention POS 5 bits 6,7 when those two bits determine the function of POS 6 and POS 7.

I sendt you a link to my latest brainchild page, http://ps-2.kev009.com/ohland/9-K/9-K_and_XPOS.html

I think they futzed up POS 5 bits 6,7 with POS 6 and POS 7. Then they
say to use POS 4 to access the XPOS. I am kontuzed.

Ryan Alswede wrote:

Bit 7 of POS register 5 is set to 1 unless -CHCK is active from the
adapter.
The remaining bits can be implemented as required....

  hex 0105
bit 6 **may** be used to indicate that additional status is available
through bytes hex 0106 and 0107.

The indicator is set to 0 on a channel check condition, or when bit
7 of hex 0105 is o. The indicator is set to 1 on a channel reset, or
when bit 7 of hex 0105 is 1. This bit may be reset by any action
that occurs during the channel check service routine.
-------
Will look at this next:

This byte may be read at address hex 0091. Bit 0 of this
byte is set to 1 whenever the 'card selected feedback' signal was
active on a previous cycle or when the system board 1/0 functions
(diskette drive, serial, or parallel interfaces) are accessed by an 1/0
cycle. Bit 0 is reset by the read operation

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

Ryan, the references barely mention POS 5 bits 6,7 when those two bits determine the function of POS 6 and POS 7.

I sendt you a link to my latest brainchild page, http://ps-2.kev009.com/ohland/9-K/9-K_and_XPOS.html

I think they futzed up POS 5 bits 6,7 with POS 6 and POS 7. Then they
say to use POS 4 to access the XPOS. I am kontuzed.

Ryan Alswede wrote:

Bit 7 of POS register 5 is set to 1 unless -CHCK is active from the adapter. The remaining bits can be implemented as required....

hex 0105
bit 6 **may** be used to indicate that additional status is available
through bytes hex 0106 and 0107.

The indicator is set to 0 on a channel check condition, or when bit
7 of hex 0105 is o. The indicator is set to 1 on a channel reset, or
when bit 7 of hex 0105 is 1. This bit may be reset by any action
that occurs during the channel check service routine.
-------
Will look at this next:

This byte may be read at address hex 0091. Bit 0 of this
byte is set to 1 whenever the 'card selected feedback' signal was
active on a previous cycle or when the system board 1/0 functions
(diskette drive, serial, or parallel interfaces) are accessed by an 1/0 cycle. Bit 0 is reset by the read operation

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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POS 5 bit 6 is not implemented on this card. All the mca docs say **may**. They are not using POS 6 or 7 for error status.

POS 6 is the address value mapping to sub register.
POS 7 turns on the piping from POS 4 to the registered addressed by POS 6.

This is just a patent doc so who knows what they revised when going to the real AIC-906R chip

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Well, is B32 present? That is the -CHCK line.

The wimpy announcements make no mention of Channel Czech.

Ryan Alswede wrote:

POS 5 bit 6 is not implemented on this card. All the mca docs say **may**. They are not using POS 6 or 7 for error status.

POS 6 is the address value mapping to sub register.
POS 7 turns on the piping from POS 4 to the registered addressed by POS 6.

This is just a patent doc so who knows what they revised when going to the real AIC-906R chip

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Louis Ohland schrieb am Samstag, 14. Oktober 2023 um 21:05:06 UTC+2:

Well, is B32 present? That is the -CHCK line.

The wimpy announcements make no mention of Channel Czech.

I was confronted with "Channel Check" when trying to repair my MIAMI based Ultimedia Video Adapter.
CHCK# was active on very basic disturbance of important MCA control lines, like when I had a dead 74xx logic chip in the CMD# line.
The Adaptec chip may be different, but I don't think this is the right bit to look at.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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This is getting intersting (again).
Beginning of this year I was already in touch with Ryan, and wrote an AIX userspace tool to read/write the 9-K's POS/XPOS and I/O space. The tool worked, but did not come up with anything useful.
XPOS subaddressing did not seem to do anything, but I have to refresh my memory on the convo.

These are dumps of the POS and IO space: http://www.holzapfel.biz/8F62/POS_8F62.txt http://www.holzapfel.biz/8F62/IO_8F62.txt

I started looking for a proper 100 MHz capable, multi-channel logic analyzer like the HP 16700 series to capture the initialization sequence directly on the bus, but those machines all look either dead or incomplete and still very expensive, if available
at all in my old world.
Any suggestions for an alternative?

Will also fire up my RS/6000 -42T that made the 9-K testbench last time.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Monday, October 16, 2023 at 4:58:24 AM UTC-4, Christian Holzapfel wrote:

I started looking for a proper 100 MHz capable, multi-channel logic analyzer like the HP 16700 series to capture the initialization sequence directly on the bus, but those machines all look either dead or incomplete and still very expensive, if

available at all in my old world.

Any suggestions for an alternative?

Sadly, no. About 25 years ago, it was possible to pick up a Biomation logic analyzer for a relatively good price (around USD1000), those days are long gone, and finding a Biomation AT ALL these days requires arduous searching. One might get lucky with
a herd of 4-channel digital scopes that have external triggers that actually work properly (many don't), but you would need a lot of luck. Your best bet is likely to find/make a friend with someone in the technical services department of a well-equipped
university, you might be able to come into a lab and use one of their logic analyzers with some kind words and a bit of handwaving. I don't know of any makerspaces with logic analyzers, but maybe they exist -- or maybe one of the makers in the community
knows of a way to get access to a logic analyzer at their day job.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Just for fun I fired up my -42T and stuffed 3 San Remo cards in it.
Check out the dump:

http://www.holzapfel.biz/8F62/IO_POS_3x_8F62.txt

I also added the current ressource configuration for comparison.
Looks like POS[3] upper nibble is clearly DMA arbitration level.

Still unsure about interrupt level and if the I/O dump is useful at all.

Are we sure the missing configuration is done through the XPOS rather than through the I/O window or DMA memory space?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Got to be a simpler tool out there to just watch bits 0-3 on an address line and bits 0-7 on the data lines on a break out board when CDSETUP goes high and stop recording when CDSETUP goes low on the slot. The POS registers are only 1 byte and the
bus on an RS/6000 runs at a max of 20Mhz but if your machine is older then it's only 10mhz.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

POS[4] register = 0x03 Interrupt priority 3

Christian Holzapfel wrote:

Just for fun I fired up my -42T and stuffed 3 San Remo cards in it.
Check out the dump:

http://www.holzapfel.biz/8F62/IO_POS_3x_8F62.txt

I also added the current ressource configuration for comparison.
Looks like POS[3] upper nibble is clearly DMA arbitration level.

Still unsure about interrupt level and if the I/O dump is useful at all.

Are we sure the missing configuration is done through the XPOS rather than through the I/O window or DMA memory space?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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POS[4] register = 0x03 Interrupt priority 3

Interrupt priority is CPU based, not set by POS.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Monday, October 16, 2023 at 9:38:37 AM UTC-4, Ryan Alswede wrote:

Got to be a simpler tool out there to just watch bits 0-3 on an address line and bits 0-7 on the data lines on a break out board when CDSETUP goes high and stop recording when CDSETUP goes low on the slot. The POS registers are only 1 byte and the bus

on an RS/6000 runs at a max of 20Mhz but if your machine is older then it's only 10mhz.

Certainly, if someone had the inclination (I do not), perhaps they could use an Arduino Uno (14 digital I/Os), write some software for trigger and capture, then dump and analyze. Other microcontrollers could also be used, the Uno is inexpensive and
readily available. I'm not sure if it would be fast enough to reliably pick up the data. One phrase I used to hate when I was working was "it's just a simple matter of software". If it's so simple, friend, YOU write the software. That response always
shut them up.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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I got myself a cheap rip-off of the Saleae Logic 16 analyzer from e*ay. The original costs way over a thousand bucks, and is capable of doing up to 100 MSPS on 16 channels , 16 MSPS when all 16 channels are used. Juuust enough. The software is excellent
and extensible through their C++ SDK.

It's enough signal inputs to monitor the POS addressing:
CDSETUP#, CMD#, S0#, S1#, M/IO#, A[0-2], Data[0-7].

The original Snark Barker has debug pin headers to access all those signals, plus I grabbed the card-exclusive CDSETUP# signal from the 9-K San Remo card in question.
Stuffed this unusual setup in my RS/6000 -42T and took a 60 s long capture of the whole AIX bootup process.

Then used the Saleae software to manually analyze all POS accesses to the 9-K card from the BIOS, BOS and driver.
It's 36 accesses in total, and all very plausible.
The BIOS only reads out the Card ID in POS[0-1] and sometimes enables-disables the adapter through bit 0 in POS[2].
The driver additionally sets the values to POS[2-5] for IRQ, DMA and IO window as they could be read out later during AIX run time.

There's no access to POS[6-7], no signs of XPOS subaddressing at all. No mysterious, unexpected reads or writes. All very simple and basic.

I'm afraid, we're on the wrong track here, and said patent does not have anything to do with our 9-K adapter.
It must be using a completely different way of configuration, maybe through the IO window.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

What if... AIX does the XPOS thing, and not setup?

Christian Holzapfel wrote:

There's no access to POS[6-7], no signs of XPOS subaddressing at all. No mysterious, unexpected reads or writes. All very simple and basic.

I'm afraid, we're on the wrong track here, and said patent does not have anything to do with our 9-K adapter.
It must be using a completely different way of configuration, maybe through the IO window.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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There's no action on POS 6 or POS 7 and POS 4 stays 0x03 the whole time CDSETUP is high.

The card is still a mystery on how to access the PCI registers. The command register being the most important.

I do have an ADF put together based on Christian's work that we can upload to the website for others to play with this card.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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