Bull Micral 200

Pour tout ce qui touche au PC d'IBM et ses nombreux descendants. Attention tout de même, au delà de quelques MHz la discussion devient vite hors sujet.

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Vanzen
Messages : 4
Inscription : 21 mars 2021 21:49

Bull Micral 200

Message par Vanzen »

Hello to everyone, I'm a "lucky" owner of a Bull Micral 200, I got it 15 years ago from a friend and at that time it was working perfectly, but recently when I tried to turn it on again I found several issues with it.
The first one was the RTC's battery discharged (error 71), I used one of those tutorial on Youtube to apply an external battery and the operation was successful.
The remaining errors are 72-Checksum Error, 73-Memory Size Error, 74-Configuration Error which I believe it's because of the CMOS left without power for too long and lost its settings.
As far as I know, I need an bios/setup floppy to set up correctly the machine again, but after a week of searching on the net I didn't find it. I tried to use the bios/setup available on this forum but no luck (the installer says it's unable to write something on the floppy and it ends there, I tried several .img, with different formats, nothing to do) it looks good just for the Micral series with two digits.
Does anyone know where to find the installer for the 200 series? Or has it buried somewhere? The PC is in excellent conditions and dismantle or trash it would be a real crime in my opinion.
Thanks in advance to everyone.
Have a nice day.
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fneck
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Re: Bull Micral 200

Message par fneck »

It's a very rare computer, I've never seen one and don't know anyone who has one. Indeed the "setup" floppy disks that I made available do not concern the 200. I still wonder, given the generation of the machine, if there would not be an integrated "setup" like the CMOS plus recent, accessible by a key or a key combination at startup.

Could you take some pictures of the computer for us?
Fabien https://www.system-cfg.com
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gilles
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Re: Bull Micral 200

Message par gilles »

it seems to be the last Bull BIOS machine :
http://pixnet.fr/guillaume-chulio/mirro ... l200.2.JPG
Probably very close to Micral 40.

[edit]
seen here : http://www.win3x.org/win3board/viewtopi ... 7&start=20
=> Generic CMOS setup GSETUP.EXE on a msdos 4.0 should work. It's not a big surprise because Bull BIOS is very close to IBM BIOS.
Vanzen
Messages : 4
Inscription : 21 mars 2021 21:49

Re: Bull Micral 200

Message par Vanzen »

Hello everyone, good and bad news.
But before I wish to answer a couple of things, no the Micral 200 hasn't a bios who can be seen pressing a key or combination of them at the bootstrap, I've tried for a whole afternoon any possible known and unknown combination, nothing to do.
As far as I know exists the Micral 500 as well (seen on ebay)
The good news is that I figured out how to start it with the guide Gilles suggested me, Ms-Dos 4.1 + Gsetup (after several faulty floppies), and now the bad funny part, I set up my floppy with Gsetup at 1.44 and when I restarted the machine the floppy couldn't read the OS again, so, what to do? I removed the RTC to clear the CMOS again and then I got the battery error again!!! ARGH!
Now I detached any cable and RTC and I'm waiting, hoping the situation get better, but I don't think so. Maybe the RTC is gone now, seriously gone, or maybe the CMOS.....
Anyway, I want to thanks everyone for the support, I will keep you updated if things get better.
If anyone has some suggestions as always they are welcome!
Cheers!
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fneck
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Re: Bull Micral 200

Message par fneck »

Vanzen a écrit : 22 mars 2021 22:48 As far as I know exists the Micral 500 as well (seen on ebay)
Are you sure it was not the Micral 600 instead?

For BIOS problems, the symptom makes me think that Gsetup is not writing the correct information expected. There are other generic programs, I have a few here .... to test: https://software.system-cfg.com/bios/generique/

Are you sure the drive is 1.44MB, maybe try it with 720KB.

For my information, can you tell me the speed of the processor, thanks. And thanks for the pictures 8)
Fabien https://www.system-cfg.com
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gilles
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Re: Bull Micral 200

Message par gilles »

1.44Mb floppy type was not present in 1st AT class bios from IBM, so it may have evolved with different values in CMOS => try configuring a 720k floppy
Vanzen
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Inscription : 21 mars 2021 21:49

Re: Bull Micral 200

Message par Vanzen »

Well, after a night without power cord and battery the situation came back to normal, battery error disappeared, checksum error disappeared, remains the configuration error and the memory size error.

@fneck, on ebay there's a 500 for sale
https://www.ebay.it/itm/Bull-Micral-500 ... %7Ciid%3A1

from the photo, that looks a 5 and not a 6, and wikipedia lists BM200, BM600, but not a BM500, strange.....maybe it's a fake to lure people to buy a rarity ahahaha.

I not even knew there was a 600 in the series, and mine is a 200 as the case shows.
The cpu speed is unknown within the machine, but I checked on wikipedia it ha s 12 Mhz cpu and I have read somewhere it's possible to enable a "Turbo mode" with the original bios setup disk.

FLOPPY: the floppy onboard is a Bull DFP723G01A, looking for specifications I found nothing, currently set on 720k and works fine but the thing that confuse me is that once I tried to load MS-DOS 6.22 from a 1.44Mb floppy and on the screen appeared "Starting Ms-Dos..." and then nothing else. Can a 1.44Mb floppy be read by a 720k floppy reader????? I start to think it's a 1.44Mb floppy reader. Any idea?

HARD DISK: IBM WDA-L80 and on its label written with a pen there are some numbers (47-984-10-17-82 and 80Mb) which I figured out looking at the specification: 47=unknown 984=logical cylinders 10=logic heads 17=sectors/track 82=capacity? 80Mb="raw capacity for human eyes?"

Gsetup gives me a set of 26 preloaded specifications for hard disks but no one of them match with the WDA-L80 specs (for a reason or another, size mismatch, cylinder mismatch, logical head mismatch etc etc) and I can't even modify them.

Setup21 gives me pretty much the same thing a I get with Gsetup and it shows a 387Kb extended memory while on boot says 384Kb (384K is not included in the list of the memeory sizes available)

Cmoser11 says hard disk is ok, batteries ok, checksum ok, memory size info ok??? (now is it ok? why?), configuration info invalid (I suspect that floppy reader is a 1.44Mb)

MEMORY: On bootstrap it says: 640K Test Base OK, 384K Test Extension OK, each memory stick mounts 3 chips, KM44C256AJ-10 (x2) and KM411256AJ-12 8X1), the KM44 looks to be a 256K x 4 bit module, and the KM41 256K x 1 bit, so I guess each memory stick is a 512 Kb module for a total of 2Mb. Is it right? I've tried to put in Gsetup a base memory of 640K and an extended one of 1411K but no luck, I still get the memory error.
If I put the base memory to 512K and the extended to 1539K I not even get the memory test at boot and the usual memory error!!!

So I plan to change the floppy reader set up from 720K to 1.44Mb to maybe get rid of the configuration error, considering Cmoser11 said the hard disk is fine, but before do that I wish your advice.
The memory error is driving me crazy, and I have no idea of what is going on.
The hard disk is working, I can navigate inside it even if sometimes going in some directory I get a sector error message.
Co-processor not installed, as the socket close to the cpu is empty.
Cheers!!!!!
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gilles
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Re: Bull Micral 200

Message par gilles »

RAM config is 1Mb
2x 44c256 + 1x41x256 => 256Kbyte + parity

Bull part number is just a part number but Bull did not produce floppy drive (it never happened, even for R2E micral), there should be another name and model somewhere.

You can look if there is a sensor for HD on the drive (but if it partly boots on a real 1.44Mb floppy it is a 1.44Mb drive and 1.44Mb compatible floppy controller (if the msdos message is for floppy, it may also be a partial HDD boot...)).
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fneck
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Re: Bull Micral 200

Message par fneck »

This Bull 500 find is interesting. In fact 200, 500 or 600, we don't really have a lot of information about them.
There is another 500 here: https://www.adverts.ie/desktops/bull-mi ... em/9039359

Rather than relying on Wikipedia for frequency it would be interesting to find what is written on your processor. Otherwise what is on the quartz or oscillator.

I think the IBM hard drive is not the original one from the computer. But maybe I'm wrong.
Fabien https://www.system-cfg.com
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Vanzen
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Inscription : 21 mars 2021 21:49

Re: Bull Micral 200

Message par Vanzen »

Great Gilles!!!! Your knowledge is better than my "butcher's calculations"!!! I was too optimistic thinking to have 2 Mb. :D
Yeah you are right, the manufacturer is Alps Electric and finally we know for sure is a 1.44Mb.
.....(if the msdos message is for floppy, it may also be a partial HDD boot...).....what do you mean? I can't get it.

@Fnec, apparently exist a BM400 too, OMG! I just closed the case and put it in a uncomfortable location with keyboard, kvm switch, and monitor on it. Next time I will open it I will take a photo of the cpu to reveal the arcane.
Yes I suspect too that the HD is not the one delivered with the machine at the time of purchasing, but the thing that make me angry is that I never removed or added any hardware to it and the first time I turned it on it didn't show any error of any sort, maybe it really need its own setup/bios disk, the generic ones maybe are too much generic.
Anyway, 2 out of 4 errors are solved and in the next few days (I don't have much time at the moment) I will keep trying to get rid of the other 2.
Thank you guys for the wonderful support !!!!!!
alfzmelmack
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Re: Bull Micral 200

Message par alfzmelmack »

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fneck
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Re: Bull Micral 200

Message par fneck »

Nice computer 8)

Can you tell us which processor is mounted in your Bull Micral?
Fabien https://www.system-cfg.com
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alfzmelmack
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Inscription : 20 déc. 2021 14:46

Re: Bull Micral 200

Message par alfzmelmack »

Probably on Saturday, when I have more time, I will check it and upload photos.....
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