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Philips P2120: Searching for manual and schematics

H

hkzlab

Member
Joined
Jun 22, 2012
Messages
16
Location
Italy
Hello Everyone!

A colleague that is cleaning up his attic just stopped by to gift me a computer he found under other stuff: a Philips P2120.
The machine is in unknown condition, but is very clean and doesn't even look yellowed.

Pity he did not find any manual nor floppy disc to go with it.

After a quick check on the net I was able to obtain the following:
  • What apparently is the content of the setup floppy, required to initialize the configuration for the bios
  • A comment on an italian retro newsgroup about the usage of some of the dipswitches
  • A marketing leaflet from archive.org, with some specs
Also, the ROMs on this units are socketed, so I dumped them right away (bios on a 27C256 and I suspect what is the char gen ROM on a 27C64).

So... does anyone here know this unit/has manuals or other papers about it? I'd like to obtain a scan of the manual if possible and the schematics (I know this is going to be almost impossible, but maybe they were attached to the manual?).
 

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Hi hkzlab ,unfortunately I can't help you with the manual or schematics, but it would be great if you could post the ROMs and chargen - I'd like to include them in the MAME emulator.

All the best
Robert
 
@rfka01: any status update on the MAME port?

the 27C256 is indeed the bios, 32kbyte in size from 0xF8000 to 0xFFFFF. This system is able to use 128K extra memory enabled by executing an executable COM file from the p2120 utilities. This maps 0xD0000 to 0xEFFFF to the RAM chips.

about the 27c64. I dont find any clue yet. Most likely the video bios at 0xC0000 for the onboard hercules/mda/cga card. I dont see any strings in it. Otherwise this can also be just character ROM as auggested by hkzlab, with video interrupts already defined in the BIOS itself, have to find out.

EDIT: This 27C64 IS from begin to end a character ROM for the onboard CGA Card, have checked it.

P.S. For setup the BIOS, you need external utilities. You can find them here:

https://forums.techarp.com/threads/c...rror.76/page-2

Regards,

Mathijs
 
Last edited:
Thijsnl said:
@rfka01: any status update on the MAME port?

the 27C256 is indeed the bios, 32kbyte in size from 0xF8000 to 0xFFFFF. This system is able to use 128K extra memory enabled by executing an executable COM file from the p2120 utilities. This maps 0xD0000 to 0xEFFFF to the RAM chips.

about the 27c64. I dont find any clue yet. Most likely the video bios at 0xC0000 for the onboard hercules/mda/cga card. I dont see any strings in it. Otherwise this can also be just character ROM as auggested by hkzlab, with video interrupts already defined in the BIOS itself, have to find out.

EDIT: This 27C64 IS from begin to end a character ROM for the onboard CGA Card, have checked it.

P.S. For setup the BIOS, you need external utilities. You can find them here:

https://forums.techarp.com/threads/c...rror.76/page-2

Regards,

Mathijs
Click to expand...
Hello.

Well, unfortunately enough, this is a dead forum regarding the new subscriptions.

However, are those "p2120utilities" mentioned there:


still available somewhere else ?

Sincerely,

Petros
 
pez said:
Hello.

Well, unfortunately enough, this is a dead forum regarding the new subscriptions.

However, are those "p2120utilities" mentioned there:


still available somewhere else ?

Sincerely,

Petros
Click to expand...
- S O L V E D ! -

And I would like to express my appreciation to Gino:

PHILIPS P2120

groups.google.com groups.google.com

who kindly sent me a partial set of these utilities!

B U T.

They were affected by a virus, found and cleared by the Defender of Windows 10.

So, although I don't know if and which of them is still operates normally, the necessary one by which the ROM Bios can be changed, was tested and works, so I shall upload all the cleared ones to [archive.org] soon.

Thank you all.

Petros
 
Upload an image of the disk and let's have a look at it. Pretty much most of the early viruses are boot sector, so pretty easy to figure out.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Upload an image of the disk and let's have a look at it. Pretty much most of the early viruses are boot sector, so pretty easy to figure out.
Click to expand...
Thank you very much Chuck(G)!

Here they are:

archive.org

Philips P 2120 SU (Partial) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Philips P 2120-024 PC-XT compatible - two of its System Utilities, which are proved as definitely the most useful nowadays, as they are successfully used on...
archive.org

Kind regards,

Petros
 
Looking at SPEED.COM and SETUP.COM, I see nothing that indicates a virus. It would be pretty difficult to infect SPEED.COM, given its 537 byte size.

If you're uploading disk images, we're going to have to see the image file.
 
Are you sure? Where would you like to upload it? Here? Well, I don't want to do that, because it contains 4 infected files. Is there any way to stop it before its publishing and get it only you?
 
Chuck(G) said:
I'm sure--I run a linux system. Viruses don't mean a thing to it. Put it wherever you want. Box, Google Drive. Icedrive...
Click to expand...

Hello,
Oh, now I see... I much appreciate that, since despite of my repeated efforts, for so many years -or I have to say decades? - I didn't managed to stick to Linux...

Anyway, meanwhile Gino:

PHILIPS P2120

groups.google.com groups.google.com

finally achieved to remove all the viruses from the full package -that is the one including the missing Video settings- using Norton Antivirus 2003.

Thank you very much for your time!

I owe you a favor,

Sincerely,

Petros
 
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