Supersoft/Landmark Diagnostic ROM's for IBM 5150/5155/5160/5162/5170
Source: The ROM's and manual were supplied by Chuck(G) at the VCF
Introduction
These are best described as ROM hosted motherboard diagnostics.
ROM HOSTED - Instead of the diagostics being on a floppy disk, or on a hard drive, they are on a ROM chip. You pull out the motherboard BIOS chip, and substitute the diagnostic ROM.
MOTHERBOARD DIAGNOSTICS - These are essentially, motherboard diagnostics - tests of the motherboard.
When to Use Them
Refer to the diagram at here. The diagnostics are good at detecting the situation where the motherboard's POST is actually starting, but failing on one of the very early tests, one where the POST gives no indication that the test failed.
I have seen these diagnostics do some weird things (example), some illogical things (examples), and sometimes present results that are completely misleading (example).
That said, these diagnostics have their place in the range of tools and procedures used to identify a problem cause.
Personally, there is only one scenario in which I would use these diagnostics:
• IBM 51xx motherboard that appears to be 'dead'; and
• I know that the motherboard has no short circuits on it (which would overload the power supply); and
• I know for fact that the power supply is good.
Just be aware that the weird/illogical/misleading things that I referred to earlier can lead you to incorrect deductions.
Video Card Requirements
These diagnostics primarily require a CGA or MDA/MGA video card (although, strangely, an IBM MDA card does not work for the 5170 version of the ROM).
EGA cards will work, but poorly.
Only some VGA cards are expected to work (more information here).
If you do not have a suitable video card, you will be forced to rely on error beeps that the diagnostics send to the speaker. See 'Speaker' section below.
Speaker
Be sure to connect up a speaker to your motherboard. Why? Because these diagnostics send error beeps to the speaker.
If the diagnostics have a problem initialising your video card, the error beeps will at least inform you that the diagnostics are running.
A description of the error beeps is in the user manual (link below). Beeps for the PC/XT version of the ROM are on pages 38 and 39. Beeps for the AT version of the ROM are on pages 40 and 41.
Notes
• Addresses shown on-screen are in hexidecimal and are absolute. Example: "10000" = 64K (10000 hexidecimal --> 65536 decimal --> 64K)
• If a test fails, do not take the test's description literally. For example, failure of the '8253 TIMER' test may not be due to a faulty 8253 TIMER chip, but instead, due to failure of something that supports TIMER chip operation (e.g. other chips, circuit traces, ...) The best analogy that I can think of is: On the dash of my car, a red 'battery' light is flashing. Yes, the battery may be faulty, but perhaps the problem is that the alternator is what is faulty, not charging the battery.
• If these diagnostics show no problems, you must not take that to mean that all motherboard hardware is good. Not all motherboard hardware is being tested, and some hardware cannot be fully tested by software.
Landmark and Supersoft
So, why does the user manual indicate "Landmark Research International" but the ROM's display "Supersoft Inc"? Easy. The Landmark company took over the Supersoft company.
User Manual
Click here for the user manual.
ROM Images
These are images that you use with an EPROM programmer to create the diagnostic ROM/s.
Click here for the IBM 5150.
Click here for the IBM 5155.
Click here for the IBM 5160.
Click here for the IBM 5162.
Click here for the IBM 5170.
Who can burn an image to a ROM/EPROM for you
Some possibilities are shown at here.