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Olivetti M24 video problem

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InsanityMoose

New Member
Joined
Sep 2, 2021
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2
Hi,

I'm in the process of restoring my old Olivetti M24, was hoping you guys could help with some troubleshooting.
It boots and runs fine, except for when the cursor reach the bottom of the screen, screen turns grey and it will only show text on the bottom most line. CLS clears it up until I reach the bottom again.
I'm using the original color monitor.
Also has issues when scrolling in Norton Commander file list.

I've repaired the PSU, all voltages look correct.
 
Did you loaded an ansy.sys driver? Which one? And which DOS version?

Note, there is nothing broken in hardware, that is software issue.
 
What version of DOS are you using?

You might try something simple such as cleaning the monitor DB-25 connection both on the monitor cable and video card. Also, there should be software made for Olivetti that could test the video card. Check it will test the video if you don’t have the Olivetti software. The ftp site ftp://ftp.oldskool.org/pub/drivers/O.../M24/Software/ has some problems to test the hardware. Check it out.
 
I'm using DOS 3.2 at the moment, not sure what exact version, I last used it about 25 years ago. Need to find a clean bootdisk to test with as well.
Tried bypassing autoexec.bat and config.sys, so no drivers are loaded.
 
Another possibility might be the ROM version that is on your machine. I have AT&T 6300's which has the same motherboards are the M24. In fact the boards are labeled Olivetti M24. The earlier ROM versions that I am aware of were 1.18, 1.19, and 1.21. The 1.21 was the stable version for both machines however a new ROM was published labeled 1.43. You can get the 1.43 from http://olivettim24.hadesnet.org/doc.html .Getting the binary is easy but you need a ROM burner to get it to work. You can get a ROM burner from Amazon for about $50 and ROMS for the motherboard from eBay.

Did you clean your monitor after you got it out of storage? I bought AT&T monitors one being a 319, which came with a machine and the other being 318H, which I got from eBay; both color monitors needed to be blown out because of dust. I then used the software that came with my machine to check them out.
 
Olivetti is the original company for the M series personal computer. AT&T partnered with Olivetti to get into the computer business to compete with IBM, Kypro, Commodore, and others. The DOS included with your machine is the same as mine version 3.2 I don’t use it because I find it limited to the functionality I need. Now ansi.sys can be a problem. One of my 6300’s rejected my using ansi.sys while another 6300 is okay with it. Both are essentially the same in terms of the hardware and software; but one is newer than the other so something is different. A PAL may be different; I don’t know right now. I suggest you send a private message to Trixter. He’s had a lot of experience with XT machines such as the M24/6300. He may offer a different approach.
 
Trixter said:
Any download locations for Olivetti-branded MS-DOS 5?
Click to expand...

This is german version, so not big help for you, guys. But I use ansi.sys from Olivetti DOS 3.20 on M24, if I need it. I also have the same DOS versions, all files are exactly the same, except of branding in command.com, from Triumph Adler, which was owned by the italians by that time.
 
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