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Days like this are truly rare, indeed. Not only did I resurrect both of my dead computers, but I also finally got the audio working again on my shop computer (Dell tech support was no help - I figured it out, myself). And to top it all off, I am now prepared for performing BIOS updates in the event I kill another one in the future. I have a main board (the one I used earlier to restore life to the server) that I can just pull out whenever I need it and plug it in and I've got my BIOS updater/restorer.

I was thinking I might be able to use this method as a low-cost (FREE!) flash programmer for other projects. The beauty of this uniflash utility that I found is that the source code comes with it. I could modify it as needed, if I have some need to program a flash chip for, say, a robotics project.

Hmmm!

Here is a picture of the setup I used to recover my BIOS:


And here is a semi-close-up of the BIOS chip that it runs with (it's the chip with the funny looking AWARD sticker on it):


I am thinking of getting a zero-insertion-force (ZIF) socket to plug into the board to make it easy to swap the chips whenever I do a hot flash. And I have some extra main boards now that don't work, so I could burn a backup BIOS of this board into one of their chips in case I accidentally kill the BIOS of my BIOS burner board. That way I won't lose the ability to burn BIOSes.

Understand?

I'm not sure I do. Anyway, I just tested two other main boards that I picked up today, and they work. They're both old '486 DX 33 MHz boards, so they're not of much use. I wasn't able to test them, earlier, because I didn't have an ISA video card, and these two boards only have ISA slots. But I dug through my boxes and found an ISA video board. I also found another PCI video board. And both video boards work! So, now I have three video boards. Actually, I have three other video boards that are ISA, but they also have a VESA local bus on them. They're not very elegant or useful to me, so they will likely become part of an art project.

But with all these working main boards I have now, it seems kind of a shame to just hang them up somewhere. Seems like I could build something with them. Maybe I will make them functional art pieces. Just plug a serial I/O board in and have them drive some serial devices. Believe me, I have plenty of serial I/O boards.

In fact, I have lots of boards. Look!






I am being overrun with boards! Pretty soon, they'll be coming to take me away, ha ha! To the funny farm, where everything is beautiful.

But not today.

I know, it's late. Time for bed. I hate for days like this to end!