Thunder/24 for Windows EISA notes
Driver software for the Thunder/24 EISA card for Windows 3.1.
All files located in this directory are compressed into a self extracting
archive using the PKZIP file compression software. No software is required
to de-compress these files. After your files have been downloaded, simply
use the following command to extract the files:
THUNEISA -D <destination>
Example: THUNEISA - D A:
The example above will place the unziped files on to your A: drive.The "-d"
option will extract the original directory hierarchy on to the designated
drive.
Filename Size Date Description of File Contents
============ ======== ======== ============================================
THUNEISA.EXE 307569 07-01-94| Thunder/24 EISA Disk Version 7/1/94
| This is the entire Thunder/24 EISA installation
| disk.
==============================================================================
Windows 95 Note
The Thunder/24 EISA board will not be updated beyond this driver version,
nor will it be supported under Windows 95. Windows 95 expects a
user-accessible base MMIO address, and since the Thunder/24 EISA board
pre-dates these requirements by several years and offers no MMIO interface,
it will not be possible to retrofit or upgrade it to run under Windows 95.
==============================================================================
A Windows NT 3.5 compatible driver for the Thunder/24 EISA card is
also available.
==============================================================================
Technical Support
For technical support for this product, you may call Radius Technical Support
at: 1-408-541-5700.
For priority access to technical support for assistance with this product,
please call Radius Technical Support at: 1-900-555-6275, or 1-800-573-6275.
Also virtually all of the information about this product, including
compatibility and common questions and answers can be found, free of charge,
on our technical faxback system at (800) 332-9225.
SuperMATCH Thunder/24 EISA
Release Notes
29 March 1994
Revised ReadMe 3/22/96
These release notes contain the latest information about operating your
new Thunder/24 for Microsoft Windows graphics display card and software.
-------- Release Notes ---------
1. Requirements
The Thunder/24 drivers require a 80386 based CPU or better, and are
fully supported only in Windows 386 Enhanced mode.
2. Unnamed floppy prompt
If you attempt to install the Thunder/24 software from your B: floppy,
you will see the prompt "Please insert the .", due to a bug in the
Windows SETUP program. Type "B:\" (or the name of the disk drive
holding the Thunder/24 install disk), then click OK.
3. Third-party "shell" programs
If you are using a third-party shell program, such as the Norton Desktop
for Windows, and you experience problems while installing Thunder/24
software, refer to the detailed section later in this file.
4. Applications with difficulties at 24 bits
- The Windows Program Manager will cause errors if you attempt to add
applications to a large group. See the detailed section later in
this file.
- The Microsoft Visual C++ setup program attempts to create a large group
and will issue two errors. See the detailed section later in this file.
- The "Aquatic Realm" and "Swan Lake" screen saver modules in After Dark
2.0 display strange bitmaps on devices with 24 bits of color depth.
Release 2.0a of After Dark solves this problem. Contact Berkeley
Systems Technical Support at 1-800-877-5535 for this upgrade.
5. Compaq Prosignia with motherboard SCSI
If you intend to install your Thunder/24 in a Compaq Prosignia system
using a SCSI disk and the on-board SCSI controller, you need to take
an additional step after installing your Thunder/24 but before actually
using the board. Refer to the detailed section later in this file.
==========================
-------- Details ---------
==========================
This file contains notes and information relating to the Windows driver
installation and usage which might not have made it into the release
documentation.
1. Restrictions
---------------
The Thunder/24 drivers require an 80386 CPU or better, and are fully
supported only in Windows 3.1 386 Enhanced mode. Our experience has shown
that the driver operates correctly in Windows Standard mode only if an
extended memory manager (such as EMM386 or QEMM) is NOT used. Thunder/24
will not operate at all in Windows 3.0 Real mode, and neither should you.
Ordinarily, this does not present a problem. Most 386 users use Enhanced
mode. However, when you perform an initial Windows installation, you must
select a VGA device as your initial graphics adapter when performing an
initial Windows installation. Then, once Windows has been installed, you
may use the Thunder/24 Setup utility to change to the Thunder/24 adapter.
2. Windows 3.0
--------------
SuperMac does not support operation of the Thunder/24 EISA card and driver
under Windows 3.0.
3. Installation Notes
---------------------
. Unnamed floppy prompt
Because of a bug in the Windows SETUP utility, if you are installing
Thunder/24 from your B: floppy, you might be prompted with the
particularly unfriendly message "Please insert the ." If you receive
this prompt, type in "B:\", or the path to the floppy disk drive
holding the Thunder/24 install disk if you are using a different
drive.
. Third-party "Shell" Programs
The Thunder/24 installation and setup program communicates with the
Windows Program Manager to install the Thunder/24 group and program
icons. Some third-party shells, such as Norton's Desktop for Windows,
do not fully comply with the Program Manager DDE interface, and will
produce a system error during the Thunder/24 installation.
To work around this problem, either change the SHELL line in your
SYSTEM.INI file to read "SHELL=PROGMAN.EXE" and restart Windows, or
launch PROGMAN.EXE from your preferred shell. Then, restart the
Thunder/24 installation.
4. Applications with difficulty at 24 bits per pixel
----------------------------------------------------
Some applications have difficulty operating on a true-color device with 24
bits per pixel. Here are some of the applications which are known to have
difficulty.
. Program Manager
All of the bitmaps for all of the icons within a Program Manager group
must fit within a single 64K segment. Because of this, at 24 bits per
pixel a single group can hold at most 19 icons. Attempting to add the
20th icon to a group results in a message box indicating "Insufficient
Memory to complete the operation." The only solution to this is to
split the group into two smaller groups.
. Microsoft Visual C++
As one of the last steps in its setup process, Microsoft Visual C++
creates a program group with 22 icons. Because of the Program Manager
limitation described above, the addition of last two icons will generate
errors. Microsoft is aware of this problem and will be issuing a
corrective update.
In the interim, one solution is to create another group by hand
called "Visual C++ Doc", then move (using drag-and-drop) all the
documentation related icons to this new group. Then you may add the two
icons which fail: MFCNOTES.HLP and MFCSAMP.HLP, both in the MSVC\HELP
. Berkeley Systems After Dark 2.0
The "Aquatic Realm" and "Swan Lake" screen saver modules in After Dark
2.0 display very strange bitmaps on devices with 24 bits of color
depth. Release 2.0a of After Dark solves this problem. Contact
Berkeley Systems Technical Support at 1-800-877-5535 for this upgrade.
5. Usage of I/O Ports
----------------------
In some cases, in can be useful to know exactly which I/O ports are required
by your peripheral devices. This can be especially useful for isolating
unusual conflicts.
The Thunder/24 EISA card uses the 32 I/O ports in the range zC80 through zC9F,
where "z" is the number of the EISA slot where the Thunder/24 resides. For
example, if your Thunder/24 EISA is installed in slot 4, the card needs
I/O ports 4C80, 4C81, 4C82, and so on through 4C9F. Because ALL of our I/O
ports exist in the EISA I/O space for our particular slot, if none of your
other cards violate the EISA specification in this regard, there should be no
possibility of an I/O port conflict.
Thunder/24 EISA requires no IRQs nor DMA lines.
6. Compaq Prosignia with motherboard SCSI
------------------------------------------
There is a bug in the ROM BIOS for the on-board SCSI controller on all
Compaq Prosignia systems. This bug results in the upper half of one of
the 80486 32-bit registers (EAX) getting lost during a SCSI hardware
interrupt, which can occur at any time. This bug manifests itself as a
General Protection Fault in SPECBUS.DRV when the mouse is being moved while
the screen is refreshing at the same time disk activity is going on.
Compaq is currently working on update to their ROM BIOS, and has a corrective
patch disk available through their technical support. Until you receive
that update, you can use the "CPQSCSI.COM" program which is installed in
the system\supermac subdirectory of your Windows directory by the Thunder/24
installation program. You need to a line invoking CPQSCSI in your
AUTOEXEC.BAT file. You must inform CPQSCSI of the IRQ number that your
SCSI controller is using; you can find out the IRQ number by running your
EBUS configuration utility. The default IRQ is 15; if this is the case
for you, a line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT reading:
c:\windows\system\supermac\cpqscsi 15
This program takes up only a few bytes of memory, and saves and restores
all of the 32-bit registers around each SCSI hardware interrupt.
If you need assistance with this procedure, contact SuperMatch technical
support.
7. NEC EISA Systems
Some revisions of NEC motherboards and CPU boards incorrectly limit the bus
address space to the lower 64 megabytes. This is in violation of the EISA
specification, and prevents installation of the Spectrum/24, since all our
possible addresses are above 64MB.
NEC is aware of the problem; their more recent motherboards and CPU boards
extend the address range to 256MB. This does not solve the general case, but
it does permit installation of Spectrum/24 at 0F00,0000 (240MB).
If you are experiencing problems with an NEC EISA system, you will need to
contact their National Service Response Center at 1-800-388-8888. Press 3
once the message starts. You will need to inform them of your date of
purchase, serial number, and model number of the unit experiencing trouble.
You will need to replace both your motherboard and CPU board with A73
Enhanced parts. The following are the earliest versions which allow
256MB addressing, although later revisions may be in place at this time:
Rev # Part Number
Motherboard: D7B 158-053306-003
CPU Board: C8A 136-263293-501A
The BIOS version should be 1.00.40 or later, and the System Configuration
Utility (SCU) should be 3.03.01 or later.
NEC has informed us that these modifications will be handled as a warranty
repair even if your warranty has expired. If the service personnel at NEC's
National Service Responce Center require the name of a technician, refer them
to Jim Galvin at 508-635-4755.
