From: ekblaw@vnet.ibm.com   
      
   On Thursday, August 31, 2023 at 11:47:04 PM UTC-4, moussa wrote:   
   > On 1/9/23 08:39, Michele Carlo wrote:    
   > > Did valuepoints use reference disks in the 486 era?   
   > no    
   >    
   > IIRC, Valuepoint came in different models for the same model number    
   > depend on the country region factories they where assembled in,    
   > including the ones assembled here in Australia.    
      
   The BIOS of the Panasonic CF-32GP may be more closely related to the IBM   
   Aptiva BIOS than the Valuepoint, but of course I'm just speculating.  All of   
   the IBM Japan PCs were "odd ducks", why Panasonic decided to use an IBM BIOS   
   in 1995 is hard for me to    
   fathom.  If this machine was delivered to my doorstep, I'd be inclined to   
   simply junk it -- but if you'd like to play around with it and not have to   
   press the F2 key each time to be able to boot from a 3.5-inch floppy disk, I'd   
   replace the IBM BIOS with    
   a 486 Phoenix BIOS (one with SETUP built-in) so that you can easily set the   
   NVRAM values and go from there.  If you're not a fan of the Phoenix BIOS sets,   
   an Award BIOS from that vintage would probably work just as well.  Either of   
   these can be easily    
   harvested from old 486 era motherboards that continue to find their way into   
   the e-waste stream.  If you're really looking for a long-term project, you   
   could read the BIOS module with an EPROM programmer and start disassembling   
   it, or just look at the    
   text strings in it for clues.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)