IBM Token-Ring Network 16/4 Adapter/A

TRM164.EXE  Drivers/Diagnostic/Option disk v2.0 
Many adapters use "E001" adf. But there are different versions of the adfs to choose from. 

@E001.ADF - IBM Token-Ring Network 16/4 Adapter/A (Tropic based) 

   There are a few differences between cards that I haven't a explanaition for. If you have a better answer (or just an answer) send it to ME. 

Short 16/4 Token Ring Adapter (74F9415 or 74F9321)
   02G1394ESD vs. 50G6144ESD
   Tokin' Madness
16/4 Long Token Ring Adapter 
   53F7748
   16F1144
Short 4MB Token Ring Adapter 25F7540
Identifying the Tropic Chipset
OEM Tropic chipset list
Registers on Screen?
ADF Settings
   Primary or Alternate Adapter
   Adapter Data Rate
   ROM Address Range
   RAM Size and Address Range
   Interrupt Level
   Memory
Adapter fails to insert on ring
Promiscuous Copy and Promiscuous Mode 
Trace and Performance Adapter Hack


Short 16/4 Token Ring Adapter (74F9415 or 74F9321)

U09 02G1394ESD
U13 Toshiba TC55329J-25 
U15 Toshiba TC55329J-25 
U18  74F9686 Even, 1991 
U19 74F9687 Odd, 1991 
Y01 32.000MHz 

U09 50G6144ESD
U13 Toshiba TC55329J-25 
U15 Toshiba TC55329J-25 
U18  74F9686 Even, 1991 
U19 74F9687 Odd, 1991 
   -OR-
U18  60G2484 Even, 1991 or 1993 
U19 60G2483 Odd, 1991 or 1993 
Y01 32.000MHz 

Most short 16/4 have the RPL-code integrated in the ROM-code - the 4Mb/s and the long 16/4 adapters have a separate ROM for it - and the chip needed to be purchased separately. 

02G1394ESD vs. 50G6144ESD
  Win95 can detect the difference between the two. Install a 16/4 with main chip 02G1394ESD. W95 is happy. But install a 50G6144ESD, up comes the familiar "Your IBM 16/4 Token Ring is not set up correctly..." 
   W95 will continue to load and the TR works on an 8228. Must be the chipset is close enough to complain about, but also close enough to work. 

Tokin' Madness
  I got a few more short 16/4s. I noticed some (to me) interesting factoids. The 02G1394ESD chipset cards' bios chips do not change their dates. The 50G6144ESD have two sets of bios dates, some are 1990 and some are 1993. I have one 50G6144ESD card that has the bios chips from the 02G1394ESD card. 
   Postulate- The 02G1394ESD chip is OK, but the 50G6144ESD had a problem, they issued a new bios for it. They even tried the bios off the 02G1394ESD. I don't have a large enough population to derive a high correlation, but... My wild SWAG is as good as yours... 


16/4 Long Token Ring Adapter 53F7748 / 93F0331
ZM9 51F1439ESD/63F7704ESD
ZM11 25F7335 
ZM13,15 M5M5256BP-10L 
            or  CXK58257AP-70L		 ZM18 25F9524 
ZM19 25F9523 
Y1 32.0000 MHz 
RPL RPL 

16/4 Long Token Ring Adapter 16F1144

ZM3 64D7274ESD 
ZM7 02F8442ESD 
ZM9 25F7335 
ZM11 NEC D43256AC-19LL 
ZM13 NEC D43256AC-19LL 
ZM16 25F9532 
ZM17 25F9531 
ZM19 RPL Chip 
Y1 32MHz 

   Differences between the 53F and 16F adapters are the addition of a 64D7274ESD and different ROM (25F9532 and 25F9531). They are basically the same - however the one with the 64D7274 at ZM3 is the later revision. This chip contains the output drivers and some "corporate logic", which was the 2 14-pin ICs on the elder version (ZM1 & ZM4). 

The P/N for the RPL-ROM is 25F8923 by the way. 


4MB Token Ring Adapter  25F7540

With the infamous Tropic chipset 
ZM1 25F7335 
ZM4 51F1439ESD 
ZM5 Mitsubishi M5M5179P-55 
ZM7 Mitsubishi M5M5179P-55 
ZM9 25F9158, Even 
ZM10 25F9157, Odd 
ZM11 BIOS (RPL) 
Y1 32MHz

Identifying the Tropic Chipset
Hi Louis ! 
>Is the 51F1439ESD and 25F7355 the Tropic chipset? 
  If the card-ID = E001 (or E000 for the 4Mb/s) then - Yes. This chipset is also used by all E000 / E001 compatible cards from Madge, Compex, Hypertech, Kingston etc. pp. ... some cards use different card-ID however. 
   IBM came "out of the TROPICs" for MCA with the LanStreamers (MC16 - 8FA4/ MC32 - 8FA0 & 8FA2). The TR Server Busmaster adapter (8FC8) bases mainly on the Tropic architecture as far as I know. 

OEM TROPIC chipset list
Listed below is the TROPIC chip set that IBM licensed from National Semiconductor. 
     DP8025   Token Ring Interface Controller 
     DP802511 TROPIC RAM Relocation Register Decoder 
     DP802512 Upper Memory Decoder 
     DP802513 Memory MEMCS-16 Signal Decoder 
     DP802514 TROPIC REEF 
     DP802515 TROPIC PELE 

  The DP802514 and DP802515 are Microcode ROMs for the TROPIC Token-Ring Network Controllers and   they feature an interface that is compatible to DP8025 Interface Controller to allow direct interfacing without the use of GLUE logic. 

Peter sez:
   If you look at the Madge "True Blue" 16/4 card you will find the same silver capped NatSemi chip there. Card has ID E001 - and works with the same "Tropic" drivers under Linux. NatSemi was a second source manufacturer of the Tropic chipset for quite some time. Other customers were e.g. Hypertec in Australia, which used IBM and NatSemi chips. At least I have seen Hypertech E001 cards with both sorts of chips.
   In the pictures database there is a Madge TR with the NatSemi and a Hypertech (long card) with the IBM chip. Later -on the Auto-TR 16/4- IBM switched to an all-plastic chip.

David Beem sez:
    My "Networking the Desktop, Cabling, Configuration, and Communications" (Deni Conner/Mark Anderson, Academic Press, 1995) explains the various TR chipsets in a couple of paragraphs. The NS chip is refered to in the second:
    "Texas Instruments (TI) announced an agreement with IBM to develop a
token ring chipset called the TMS380 based on the IBM token-ring
specification. This chipset had technological and performance advantages
over the IBM chipset that allowed increased data buffers for data transfer
and also allowed direct memory access (DMA) transfers, in which an onboard controller managed access to memory. Later, TI enhanced the TMS380 chipset to accomodate 16Mbps token-ring networks, resulting in the TMS380C16. Recently [to when the book was written], TI announced an advanced token-ring chipset using the TMS380C26 chipset, which integrates more functionality than the previous two.
    While the TI chipset is 100-percent compatible with the IEEE 802.5 and
802.2 token-ring specifications, it is not 100-percent compatible with IBM's LLC protocol implementation. As a result, IBM developed the Token-Ring Protocol Interface Controller (TROPIC) chipset for third-party vendor use, ensuring register-level compatibility for all IBM applications. Marketed by National Semiconductors under licence from IBM, TROPIC manufacturers include vendors such as Madge Networks, Proteon, Thomas-Conrad Corp., Cabletron Systems, and 3Com.....".


Registers on Screen?
  This is new- I got a few lines in the upper left eigth of the screen. They were registers- AX, BX... They didn't change... There was a top line with an ET that actually counted the seconds... Up to 26 by the time I gave up on rebooting... 

Peter-
   That's a TR adapter trying to RPL..... check startup sequence. 


ADF Settings

Primary or Alternate Adapter
    Up to two Token-Ring Network adapters may be installed in a computer, either as  Primary, (accessed at 0A20 through 0A23), or Alternate (accessed at 0A24 through 0A27). If one Token-Ring Network adapter is installed, it may be either Primary or Alternate. If two are installed, one must be Primary and the other Alternate. 

Adapter Data Rate
   The data rate must be set to the same rate (4 or 16 Mbps) as the Token-Ring Network to which you are connecting the adapter. The 4MB TR card doesn't have a choice, it's 4MB only. If you attach a 4MB adapter to a 16MB network, the network will automatically drop to the 4MB/sec rate. In short, don't mix speeds! 

ROM Address Range
   There are 12 possible 8K blocks of memory that can be assigned for accessing the ROM area of the Token-Ring Network adapter. The preferred ROM address is CC000-CDFFF. 

RAM Size and Address Range
    There are 30 possible blocks of memory that can be assigned for accessing the RAM located on the 16/4 Token-Ring Network adapter. The preferred RAM Size and Address Range for the adapter, which allows RAM Paging, is: 16 KB / D8000-DBFFF. 

Interrupt Level
   This Token-Ring Network adapter can operate on one of four interrupt levels: 2, 3, 10, or 11.  The preferred interrupt level is 2. 

Memory
  It has 64 KB of random access memory (RAM), of which 63.5 KB are available for use by an application program and 512 bytes are reserved. 


Adapter fails to insert on ring
   A Token-Ring adapter may fail to insert on the ring due to adapter congestion. Adapters entering the ring send a request to the Ring Parameter Server (RPS) address to learn ring parameters, such as ring number.  If the RPS exists on this ring, which is usually the case only if the ring is bridged to another segment, this RPS request frame returns to the originating station with the Address Recognized Indicator (ARI) set;  ARI set  informs the inserting station that the RPS exists on this ring and that the station should wait for the RPS response before completing its insertion on the ring.  The RPS returns its response to the inserting station as a normal Token-Ring frame.  If the inserting station's adapter has begun to experience significant congestion by this time, it may not be able to process the frame.  The adapter driver then will stop the adapter's insertion because the adapter  was unable to process the RPS response. 
   This problem is more likely to occur on multistation access units (MAUs)  with  electronic relays that do not disturb the ring during an adapter insertion; the adapter  may have to wait seven seconds to participate in the neighbor notification process.  In units without electronic relays,  the relay disturbance causes  the active monitor to start a new neighbor notification process and the adapter does not have to wait as long to insert.  The longer insertion time increases the probability that the adapter will become congested. 
   The 802.5 Standards Committee recommends that the RPS send two frames to the adapter: one normal frame and one frame with the express, buffer-bits set.  The inserting adapter will then copy the express frame into its express buffer.  This information is documented in the errata sheets from the 802.5 Standards meeting V. 

Promiscuous Copy and Promiscuous Mode
    NOT supported on the 16/4 Token-Ring Network Adapter/A with RPL, 16/4 Token-Ring Network Adapter/A or the Token-Ring Network Adapter/A 

Trace and Performance Adapter
   I thought these were special adapters. Turns out that it's just a special BIOS for the short and long 16/4 TR adapters... 

From Peter 

 You need the two .BIN files for burning two Eproms. These replace the two Eproms on the 16/4 card. The "analyzer" machine needs to run a generic DOS with the modified adapter installed. 
    Then extract the TAP20.BIN ... at the C:/ Dos-prompt type TAP ... then "Measure Ring Performance" - enter any file name for storing the performance data, [ENTER], then select "Start measuring" from the menu ... and if you did it all right you get a nice bar graph with the TR network load. Mine never reaches values over 65% - even when I have all workstations running and do large copy and backup jobs. 
    There are other functions as well. You could build a "traffic matrix": simply spoken "who talks with whom ?" - the program shows the burn-in adresses (these 12-digit codes burned in the adapter) - here it pays to overwrite these internal adresses with own ones ... my server for example has 4000 0001 CAFE (hex numbers only).
 Or having a list which computer has which burn-in adress. WINIPCFG  (under 95/98) shows the burn-in adress, some cards have stickers at the rear (LanStreamer, modern cards). 

  Hmmm....I am not quite sure at the moment if you need any of the DOS LAN support drivers (DXMA0MOD.SYS / DXMC0MOD.SYS / DXMT0MOD.SYS) in your CONFIG.SYS. My P70 has at least the DXMA0MOD.SYS ... but the TAP opens and closes the adapter during operation. 

3 files. 
1. TAP20.ZIP (The software) 
2. TAP164O.BIN (Odd Eprom, 27C256-20, Checksum 518E) 
3. TAP164E.BIN (Even Eprom, 27C256-20 Checksum 9B14) 

I tried them with the "long" 16/4 and the two short ones (with and w.o. RPL). Currently they are running with a 93F0179 - which is the short 16/4 with RPL. 

Feelin' like TAP Dancing?
  If you have a eprom burner, send me a message for the BIN files and TAP Program! 
 
 

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