Mitsubishi Electric apricot XEN-LS II Using Setup And Installing Add-Ons
  1. Manuals
  2. Brands
  3. Mitsubishi Electric Manuals
  4. Motherboard
  5. apricot XEN-LS II
  6. Using setup and installing add-ons
Mitsubishi Electric apricot XEN-LS II Using Setup And Installing Add-Ons

Mitsubishi Electric apricot XEN-LS II Using Setup And Installing Add-Ons

Hide thumbs
Table of Contents

Advertisement

Quick Links

Download this manual
USING SETUP AND INSTALLING ADD-ONS
XEN-LS II
apricot
MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC

Advertisement

Table of Contents
loading

Related Manuals for Mitsubishi Electric apricot XEN-LS II

Summary of Contents for Mitsubishi Electric apricot XEN-LS II

  • Page 1 USING SETUP AND INSTALLING ADD-ONS XEN-LS II apricot MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC...
  • Page 2 All rights reserved; no use or disclosure without written consent. Copyright © Apricot Computers Limited 1992 Published by Apricot Computers Limited 3500 Parkside Birmingham Business Park B37 7YS MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC Printed in the United Kingdom Part no. 15028131 Revision 02...

  • Page 3: Table Of Contents

    Contents SETUP Introduction 3 Invoking SETUP 3 The SETUP screen 4 Controlling SETUP using the keyboard 6 System Autoconfiguration 6 Opening screen 7 Change disk types 13 Advanced options 14 Exiting SETUP 20 Installing add-ons Introduction 21 Expansion cards 23 Memory 26 Processor upgrades 32 5.25"...

  • Page 5: Setup

    SETUP Introduction The Apricot XEN-LS II motherboard is fitted with a small area of memory which is used to store information about the configuration of the computer. The computer’s configuration is modified using a SETUP utility provided in Read Only Memory (ROM) on the motherboard.

  • Page 6: The Setup Screen

    The SETUP screen The simplest way to use SETUP is with a mouse, just move the cursor to the option you want to select and click with the left mouse button. The illustration below identifies the elements that make up the SETUP screen. XEN-LS II Setup Memory Disk types...
  • Page 7 Option button These are used for exclusive options. Beside each option is a circle, only one circle is highlighted at any given time. If you point and click on an option the highlight will transfer to Scroll bar Scroll bars behave like slide controls. They are adjusted by pointing and clicking on the arrows at each end of the bar.

  • Page 8: Controlling Setup Using The Keyboard

    Controlling SETUP using the keyboard If you are unable to use a mouse, you can use the keyboard to move around and select the SETUP options. Moves you round the option groups, and buttons. An alternative method is to hold down the key and press the letter which corresponds to the one underlined...

  • Page 9: Opening Screen

    Opening screen Disk Types Hard disk The XEN-LS II supports a maximum of two IDE hard disk drive(s). The type of drive fitted is displayed in these two text boxes. Floppy disk The XEN-LS II can be fitted with one or two floppy drives. These text boxes are used to display the type of drive fitted.
  • Page 10 Local This should be selected if the computer is to boot from an internal hard disk or floppy drive. It should be noted that when one of the remote boot schemes described below is enabled it is not possible to boot the computer from a local device.
  • Page 11 Volume The volume control adjusts the output level of the Power- On Sound. Use it to adjust the volume to suit the computer’s location. Test Use the Test button to preview the Power-On Sound to ensure that you have set it to a suitable level. Set Power-on Password The XEN-LS II supports a power-on password.
  • Page 12 HiVision 14" This option must be selected only if you are using the Apricot HiVision 14" monitor. The HiVision 14" monitor is a dual synchronous monitor capable of displaying 640x480 and 1024x768 video outputs, it is also known as the Apricot High Resolution 14" VGA monitor.
  • Page 13 Notes These modes are displayable on a standard VGA monitor. The higher frequencies are selected when multi-sync [14/17] is selected in SETUP. Higher frequency variants use VESA compliant timings and are displayable on the Apricot HiVision Low Emission 14" and 17" monitors, and other VESA timing compliant multi-sync monitors.
  • Page 14 Ethernet interface These three option buttons are used to select the type of Ethernet the XEN-LS II is connected to. Warning You must select the correct interface. If you choose the wrong one you will not be able to use the network connection.

  • Page 15: Change Disk Types

    Change disk types Change disk types Floppy 1 Hard 1 Save 3.5" 720K None None 3.5" 1.44M Cancel Autodetect 5.25" 360K 3.5" 2.88M User-defined 5.25" 1.2M Default Floppy 2 Hard 2 3.5" 720K None None 3.5" 1.44M Autodetect 5.25" 360K 3.5"...

  • Page 16: Advanced Options

    Advanced options Advanced options Disable motherboard Adapter Memory Save Shadow Wrt.Protect Serial port 1 DC000-DFFFF Cancel Serial port 2 D8000-DBFFF Parallel port D4000-D7FFF Default Digital audio system D0000-D3FFF CC000-CFFFF Hard disk controller C8000-CBFFF Floppy disk controller C4000-C7FFF CD-ROM interface C0000-C3FFF Ethernet coprocessor Motherboard BIOS BIOS copy at 16MB...
  • Page 17 Note This check box disables the Apricot audio hardware, it has no affect on the standard ISA sound capabilities. Disabling the Apricot audio system frees the interrupt, and the DMA channels associated with the audio system. Information on interrupts, DMA channels, and their usage is given in Appendix A at the rear of this guide.
  • Page 18 Ethernet coprocessor Checking this box disables the Ethernet coprocessor. You should only disable the Ethernet coprocessor if you are not using it. Disabling the Ethernet coprocessor in SETUP disables the motherboard hardware and frees the interrupt associated with the coprocessor. Information on interrupts and their usage is given in Appendix A at the rear of this guide.
  • Page 19 Some old software which is speed sensitive may not work properly with the cache enabled. This problem is uncommon, and this option is provided as a safety net. External cache Checking this box disables the external cache, the cache outside the i486. There should normally be no reason to disable this cache, it will result in a performance decrease.
  • Page 20 Write protect Checking this box enables write protection for the associated shadowed address range. The normal state for this option will be disabled, the box not checked. It is extremely rare for software to attempt to write to ROM address ranges, and leaving write protection disabled results in a performance advantage.
  • Page 21 If you enable write protection then shadowed ROM spaces can never be overwritten, this is safer, but results in lower performance. ISA bus Bus speed These two options, in conjunction with a switch on the motherboard, allow the speed of the ISA bus to be varied. When this option is set to Fast, and the switch on the motherboard is set to 8MHz the bus is fully compatible with the ISA specification.

  • Page 22: Exiting Setup

    Exiting SETUP button to close the Change Use either the SAVE CANCEL disk type or Advanced windows. button will implement any changes that you have SAVE made in a screen. The button exits that screen CANCEL without implementing any changes. Selecting Save or Cancel from the opening screen will exit SETUP.

  • Page 23: Installing Add-Ons

    Installing add-ons Introduction This section contains instructions on installing add-ons and upgrades in the XEN-LS II. The areas covered include: * expansion cards * additional memory * processor upgrades * additional drives This document should be your only source of information when installing any of these.
  • Page 24 Inside the system unit The illustration below identifies the major components inside the XEN-LS II system unit that are affected by the installation instructions later in this section. PROCESSOR UPGRADE SOCKET BLANKING PLATES POWER SUPPLY EXPANSION CARD CONNECTORS 3.5" DRIVE BAY CARD SIMM 5.25"...

  • Page 25: Expansion Cards

    Expansion cards Installation The XEN-LS II provides three slots for the installation of expansion cards. These slots are ISA (also known as AT) compatible. Installation of an expansion card in the XEN-LS II is a simple process requiring the removal of only the system unit cover and a blanking plate.
  • Page 26 At the rear of the area are three metal blanking plates, one for each expansion card slot. These plates cover slots in the rear of the system unit which will be used by expansion cards. At the front of the area are three guides. These ensure that the front edge of any full length card is secured.
  • Page 27 6. Position the expansion card alongside the slot in which you wish to install it. Align the rear of the card with the slot in the rear of the system unit, and, if the card is full length, the front of the card with the card guide.

  • Page 28: Memory

    Memory Configurations The XEN-LS II motherboard is fitted with 4 Mbytes of on- board memory, and sockets for two SIMMs (Single In-line Memory Modules). Each socket can be empty, or fitted with a SIMM of 4, 8, 16 or 32Mbytes capacity. The sockets support standard 36-bit, 70ns SIMMs of 4, 8 and 16 Mbytes.
  • Page 29 There are only two exceptions to this. In the two situations given below, although the computer will operate if the SIMMs are swapped it is preferable if the SIMMS are installed as described. If you are installing a 4Mbyte SIMM it should always go in MM1, unless there is a 4 or 32Mbyte SIMM in the socket already.
  • Page 30 The SIMM connectors are located beneath the 5.25" drive bay. In order to install a memory upgrade you must remove the 5.25" drive bay. 5.25" BAY SECURING SCREWS 3. If there is a drive fitted disconnect the power and signal cables from the rear of the drive. 4.
  • Page 31 Removing a SIMM If you wish to install an upgrade in a SIMM socket which is already occupied you must first remove the existing SIMM. 1. Lever the metal clips on each side of the socket gently away from the SIMM using your forefingers. 2.
  • Page 32 Inserting a SIMM From the table of possible SIMM combinations decide which SIMM capacity will be installed in the socket. Then install the SIMM. To fit a SIMM: 1. The SIMM will only install in one orientation. There is a cutout at one end of the SIMM next to the connector strip.
  • Page 33 4. Pushing gently on the top corners rotate the SIMM towards the horizontal until it clips into place. Do not use excessive force. If the SIMM will not rotate easily remove it and start again. 5. If the SIMM is properly located the SIMM should remain in position held by the securing clips, and with a small plastic lug through the holes on either side of the SIMM.

  • Page 34: Processor Upgrades

    Processor upgrades The XEN-LS II motherboard is fitted with a processor socket that supports any Intel486SX, Intel487SX, Intel486DX, Intel486DX2 or OverDrive processor with a maximum external clock speed of 33MHz. Any other Intel processor using the same pinout as one of these processors could also be installed, subject to the same 33MHz maximum external clock speed restriction.
  • Page 35 3. Identify the processor upgrade socket. UNOCCUPIED SOCKET OCCUPIED SOCKET int l e OVER If the socket is not occupied it will look like the close up on the left and you can continue to the installation instructions. If the socket is occupied it will look like the close up on the right, and you will have to remove it before you can install your upgrade processor.
  • Page 36 5. Carefully insert the prongs of the extractor between the bottom of the processor and its socket. You may need to twist the extractor gently from side to side to work the prongs into place. Be careful to ensure that the prongs do not go between the motherboard and the socket.
  • Page 37 Installation You should now have identified the upgrade socket, and ensured that it does not have a processor in it. You are ready to install your new upgrade processor. 1. The upgrade processor and socket are keyed to ensure that the processor can only be installed in one orientation.
  • Page 38 2. Carefully position the upgrade processor above the socket with the positioning guide on the processor over the keyed corner of the socket. If the upgrade processor does not occupy all four rows of holes it should be positioned centrally as shown below.
  • Page 39 Configuring the motherboard The XEN-LS II motherboard supports a range of processor speeds and the upgrade socket supports a range of processor types. The motherboard clock speed and the upgrade socket are configured using four switches in a set of six by the socket. It is vital that both the system clock speed, and the upgrade socket configuration are set correctly.
  • Page 40 2. From the table below, and the label on your upgrade processor or its packaging, decide which processor type you have installed. Since the Intel487SX and OverDrive upgrade processors require the same configuration you will normally set switches 4 and 5 to the Off/Off position. The other selections are for processors normally installed during manufacture.
  • Page 41 If you have installed an OverDrive processor you should set the system clock speed to match the external interface speed of the processor. OverDrive processors use Intel’s clock doubling technology and the processor runs at twice the speed of its interface to the motherboard. The labelling on the OverDrive processor or its packaging should make it clear what its external interface speed is.

  • Page 42: Drives

    5.25" drives The 5.25" drive tray in the XEN-LS II system unit can contain any standard size half height 5.25" device. Apricot supplies a range of tape and CD-ROM drives, and a 5.25" floppy drive, for this bay. The following instructions describe the installation of a drive in the bay.
  • Page 43 4. Lift the bay out of the system unit. 5. The front of the bay is fitted with a blanking plate. Turn the bay over and remove the two screws that secure the blanking plate. The blanking plate is no longer required, but you may wish to store it somewhere safe in case you wish to remove the drive later.
  • Page 44 10. With the drive bay upside-down place it over the drive. The front of the drive must be at the end where the blanking plate was fitted. SECURING SCREW HOLES A C T C O M P...
  • Page 45 11. Line up the holes in the underside of the drive with those in the base of the drive bay. SECURING SCREWS A C T C O M P 12. Insert the four drive securing screws, and tighten them until they are finger tight. 13.
  • Page 46 17. Behind the 5.25" drive bay is an unused power cable from the power supply. Connect this power cable to the power connector on the drive. 5.25" DRIVE POWER CABLE int l e OVER 18. The drive has now been installed and connected to a power cable.
  • Page 47 5.25" floppy or Irwin FTD Cabling The 5.25" floppy and Irwin FTD drives supplied by Apricot come complete with a suitable signal cable. The signal cable must be connected between the signal connector on the rear of the drive, and the socket marked PL38 on the motherboard.
  • Page 48 Configuration There are no configuration options on the SLCD CD-ROM drives. DOS drivers for the SLCD CD-ROM drive are described in help files on a diskette supplied with the drive. SCSI drives Cabling Apricot upgrade kits are supplied with a suitable signal cable.
  • Page 49 Configuration Each SCSI drive is assigned an identity on the SCSI bus, these are known as SCSI IDs. All Apricot SCSI drives for XEN-LS II are supplied configured with SCSI ID 2. All Apricot SCSI drives are supplied without termination. SCSI bus termination is provided by the SCSI card and the termination assembly in the last connector at the drive end of the cable.

  • Page 50: Hard Disk Drive

    3.5" hard disk drive The XEN-LS II supports one 1.6" high or two 1" high, 3.5" hard disk drives. Preparation To install a hard disk drive you must first remove the 3.5" drive bay: 1. Power the system down. 2. If there is a diskette in the 3.5" floppy drive, remove it. 3.
  • Page 51 5. Remove the two screws that secure the 5.25" drive bay and slide the bay backwards. 6. Lift the 5.25" bay out of the system unit and put it down on a safe flat surface. 7. Disconnect the cable from the rear of the 3.5" floppy drive.
  • Page 52 Drive configuration The XEN-LS II 3.5" drive bay supports two 1" high hard disk drives. In order for the drive or drives to operate they must be correctly configured. The IDE interface supports a maximum of two drives. These drives are known as Master and Slave. A single drive, or the boot device in a dual drive system, must be configured as Master.
  • Page 53 Installing the drive 1. Having configured the drive, turn the drive bay upside-down and rest it on a flat surface with the front of the floppy drive towards you. 2. Slide the hard disk drive you are installing into the bay from the front, with the drive circuit board up, and its connectors away from you.
  • Page 54 Note If you are installing a hard disk drive in a system that previously had only a floppy drive there will be two sets of holes available in the bay. Install the hard drive in the position closer to the floppy drive. 4.

  • Page 55: A: Configuring Expansion Cards

    Appendix A: Configuring expansion cards Many ISA expansion cards have a number of configurable options. These options can include items such as: the interrupt used, the DMA channel used, where any ROM on the card will appear in the processor’s memory map and the address of any I/O ports used to control the card.
  • Page 56 Interrupts (IRQ) The XEN-LS II (like every other ISA compatible PC) supports 15 hardware interrupts. These interrupts are used to alert the processor that a peripheral (e.g. the keyboard controller, or an expansion card) requires a particular piece of software to be executed. This piece of software is known as an interrupt service routine .
  • Page 57 Interrupts Default Notes Function IRQ9 Video IRQ9 is not normally used in the XEN-LS II implementation and can be used by an expansion card. IRQ7 Parallel port IRQ7 is not normally used, and can be used by expansion cards without affecting the operation of the parallel port. It is possible for software to enable the parallel port’s use of IRQ7.
  • Page 58 DMA channels ISA compatible PCs are equipped with a seven channel DMA (Direct Memory Access) controller. This DMA subsystem allows peripherals to access motherboard memory directly. Without the DMA subsystem every memory access would have to involve the processor. Using DMA, peripherals can access memory without stopping the processor executing its current task.
  • Page 59 Expansion card memory Some expansion cards are fitted with ROM. Typically expansion card ROM contains extensions to the motherboard BIOS providing additional functionality. Expansion card ROM (sometimes known as slot ROM) must be addressed somewhere in the processor’s memory map. An area of the memory map of an ISA compatible PC is allocated for expansion card ROM.
  • Page 60 As we have no single character to represent the numbers 10 to 15, we substitute the first six letters of the alphabet, so that: A represents 10 B represents 11 C represents 12 D represents 13 E represents 14 F represents 15 The example number 1019 can then be represented in hex 4096 (16x16x16)
  • Page 61 Another commonly used notation is to describe numbers as x K or x M. Where 1K=1024 and 1M=1048576 (1048576=1024x1024). In this notation 655360 (that is A0000h) is 640K. Memory maps All memory, whether it is on the motherboard or an expansion card, is accessed somewhere in the processor’s address space.
  • Page 62 When installing expansion cards it is the first (bottom) Mbyte of address space that is of most interest. The following diagram shows how the bottom 1M of address space is used in a XEN-LS II. Diagrams like these are called memory maps, and are a convenient way of representing processor address space.
  • Page 63 The region from 0 to 640k-1 (00000h to 9FFFFh) is used by DOS. The operating system is loaded at the bottom of this area and it uses the remainder to load applications and data. Motherboard video adapter memory is accessed between 640k and 768k-1 (A0000h to BFFFFh).
  • Page 64 This will leave the maximum amount of memory free for use as UMB space. For information on UMB space refer to your DOS documentation, and the help files supplied with your computer. I/O ports I/O ports are used by the processor to control the operation of peripherals.
  • Page 65 Expansion Card Configuration...

  • Page 66: B: Video Feature Connector

    Appendix B: Video feature connector The video feature connector on the XEN-LS II motherboard uses a non-standard pinout. In order to use the connector you will have to make up a special cable. The pinout of the motherboard connector is given in the following table. Function Function Ground...
  • Page 67 APRICOT COMPUTERS LIMITED 3500 PARKSIDE BIRMINGHAM BUSINESS PARK BIRMINGHAM B37 7YS. MITSUBISHI ELECTRIC Part No 15028131 Revision No 02...

Table of Contents