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Compaq Portable, Portable Plus, and Deskpro BIOS ROM J, 106265-002

jafir

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So after a while of searching for a copy of just the bits, I decided to buy an entire motherboard to find this BIOS. I've got an O.G. Deskpro that's not exactly happy right now, so I can use it for troubleshooting that too.

As far as I know, it should work for Compaq Portable, Portable Plus, and Deskpro, and I believe it is the last version. I have not tested it in any of my systems, I just wanted to dump it and get it online because of Murphy's law.

View attachment compaq portable and deskpro 106265-002 Rom J.zip

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Will this work on original Deskpro 286? The 8/6MHz, 2550 model? It has two EPROM chips on the Magnus memory board.
 
I don’t believe so.

Can I ask for a favor while I have your attention? I started cleaning a very nasty mold infested Deskpro 286 model 2550 (6/8MHz). It now starts and tests the entire 2MB + 128KB, but complains about battery. I'll address that shortly.

What I need is a service manual of some sort if there is one. I didn't find anything on zero degrees or elsewhere.

My deskpro came with one floppy drive and the other 3 drive bays are empty. How can I cover them? How does the original Compaq cover looks like?

The floppy is on some rails, but it doesn't stop when pushed in. What would in normal conditions make it fixed in a position? Right now if I push it, it goes all the way in until it hits PSU.

Also, can I buy some compatible rails somewhere? How do people solve this?

Thank you for your help :)
 
Wish you would have said you were looking for just the bios. I have a spare portable plus board i could have read out the bios rom.
 
Wish you would have said you were looking for just the bios. I have a spare portable plus board i could have read out the bios rom.

Does it have version J? My portables had B and C, and I think my deskpro has E or F, something like that.

I thought I posted here asking for it, but it may have just been on a facebook group instead :( I guess that will teach me to be more thorough. But having a spare system board isn't that bad of a thing, so I'm not too sad about it. Thanks for the offer!
 
I don't know of any manuals for the Deskpro online. I'm hoping someone that goes to Computer Reset will find one and upload it. There were LOTS of compaq portables and Deskpros when I went, and a fair bit of software too.

Assuming they didn't change anything from the original Deskpro to the 286, the floppy drives should be on massive metal rails. They are threaded in one spot to hold them in place. The original blanks are big trays with a faceplate on the front. You could probably try something generic, but it might require a little work to make everything line up.

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The best way is to look inside and see the part number of the ROM. Other ways might be to run MSD or something like that and check the date of the BIOS. Sometimes they will list a version there, but sometimes they lie to maintain compatibility with IBM or whatever.

rom versions.JPG

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Of course you might not actually NEED to upgrade past C, which is required for expansion BIOS, such as hard drive controllers. C also supports 640K of RAM insteadk of 544K or whatever it was previously.

I'm interested in the later version because it says that the compaq EGA card requires G or higher:

ega requires G.JPG
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In my Compaq Deskpro 286 model 2550, I have two ROM chips 105620-001 and 105622-001. I wonder what BIOS versions that is.
 
In my Compaq Deskpro 286 model 2550, I have two ROM chips 105620-001 and 105622-001. I wonder what BIOS versions that is.
Yours is revision D.

It looks like Revision K marks the introduction of the 12MHz Deskpro 286 because that was the first available ROM available for it, and all ROMs after that were available for both the 8MHz and 12MHz models (same part numbers): K, M, N.3, P.1, R.2, and S.1. The 8MHz lists all those, plus these earlier revisions: A B C D E F G J.
 
Yours is revision D.

It looks like Revision K marks the introduction of the 12MHz Deskpro 286 because that was the first available ROM available for it, and all ROMs after that were available for both the 8MHz and 12MHz models (same part numbers): K, M, N.3, P.1, R.2, and S.1. The 8MHz lists all those, plus these earlier revisions: A B C D E F G J.

This is awesome, thank you! Where did you find this information?

Also, where can I find a later version of ROMs? Like this S.1 version?

And last question: is it possible to replace 2 roms in my magnum card with the AMI/AWARD/Quadtel ROMs from -0c site? http://minuszerodegrees.net/bios/bios.htm#5170
 
It looks like those are the same as the portable II. If you look on the link above from modem7 you’ll see a couple of newer versions for that system.
 
Yes, just like with the original (8086) Deskpro and the Portable, the list of ROMs is the same for the Deskpro 286 8MHz and the Portable 286 (also commonly known as the Portable II). I have this information from the Compaq "Service Quick Reference Guide" which is a small spiral-bound book. I understand there was also a version of this available in PDF format at one time (several hundred small files, one file per chapter) but which I cannot now find online. Perhaps it was on a Compaq support CD.
 
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