Existing CARDREAD.EXE drives Documation reader properly, formatting mistake in returned data; P390 minor issues

 FLASHED INTERFACE BOX WITH SKETCH SANS BOOTLOADER

I brought my Arduino loader over to the external interface box I made, wired the two Arduinos together and downloaded the sketch without bootloader. As expected, the original CARDREAD.EXE program, written by Brian Knittel, could now faithfully communicate with and control the card reader.

Interface reading cards controlled by this application

I had it read a couple of cards into a file in binary mode, but the resulting file was garbled. After examining it for a bit, I realized that it was my error in how I returned the data from my interface controller up to the PC.  The fix is easy, just a tweak to the sketch and reload it without a bootloader.

Data as passed to the application

Actual cards being read

Brian had his controller return the lower four rows of the card in the first word, padded at the end with four zero bits, then followed it with the word reflecting card rows 12, 11, 0 down to 5. I unfortunately reversed the order of the two words. It was easy to spot when reviewing the pattern of the data in the file. 

Brian's protocol document excerpt

P390 SMALL ISSUES TO WORK ON LATER

The P390 booted up with a post-BIOS error 184, which states that the startup password was corrupted. Since I have not set a password, this suggests I still have some issue with the CMOS battery and storage for configurations. Perhaps it is caused by damage from the twisting that the motherboard sustained. 

OS/2 reports that the gigabit ethernet NIC card is not found, although it is sitting in slot 3. This could be caused by many things. The planar could be damaged causing that slot to not work. The card itself might have been damaged in the twisting. Just as likely, the IRQs and other configuration details were lost when the CMOS lost its data and the default way it was configured is blocking access to the card.