IZBIOS Configuration Panel Guide

This page describes each screen of the Del setup panel, the graphical configuration tool of the Izarra-BIOS. The user manual gives a short description of the panel. This page gives more detail.

Press Del during POST to open the panel. The panel uses the same Margo linear frame buffer mode as the POST screen, and thus the same colors: a cream field, near-black text, and red titles. Each change that you make goes into a working copy. Nothing goes to CMOS until you select Save and Exit.

The main menu has eight rows. Up and Down move between them. A two-line help string below the box describes the selected row.

Row	Key(s)	Help text shown
TIME	Enter	`Enter: set clock` / `Up/Dn move Esc back`
KEYBOARD	Left/Right/Enter	`Left/Right: change keyboard` / `Enter: open`
CPU MODE	Left/Right/Enter	`Left/Right: change CPU speed` / `Enter: open`
DEBUG ON COM1	Left/Right/Enter	`Left/Right: toggle debug output` / `Enter: toggle`
PERIPHERALS	Enter	`Enter: check devices` / `Up/Dn move Esc back`
REPAIR TOKA-DOS	Enter	`Enter: reinstall Toka-DOS` / `Up/Dn move`
SAVE AND EXIT	Enter or F10	`Enter/F10: save and reboot` / `Up/Dn move`
DISCARD AND EXIT	Enter or Esc	`Enter/Esc: discard and reboot` / `Up/Dn move`

KEYBOARD, CPU MODE, and DEBUG ON COM1 are inline rows. The panel draws the current value to the right of the label. Left and Right change the value in position. Enter has the same effect as Right. These three rows do not open a sub-page. The other rows with an Enter action open a full sub-screen.

TIME

Title: SET TIME AND DATE. Hint: L/R field Up/Dn change Esc back.

The screen has six fields, in this order: Hour, Minute, Second, Day, Month, Year. Left and Right move between the fields. Up and Down (or Enter) increase or decrease the selected field by one. Each field returns to its first value after its last value. The panel edits the clock as a binary 24-hour value, which is the format of the machine real-time clock. A change to any field marks the time as changed, and Save and Exit then writes it to the RTC. If you do not use this screen, the clock does not change.

KEYBOARD

This row selects one of the 17 keyboard layouts of the machine (US, UK, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and others). It does this on the main menu, without a sub-page. The selected layout becomes active immediately, so that you can test it. Save writes it to CMOS, together with the boot code page for the characters of that layout.

CPU MODE

This row selects the boot-time CPU speed on the main menu, in the order 386, 486, 586, 386-slow, and then 386 again. The value sets the speed class for the next boot, and Save writes it to CMOS. The classes and the stored value are the same as those of the Tab boot menu. This row is the same control inside the setup panel.

This row does not change the speed of the running machine. To change the speed now, use the Tab boot menu at the next boot, or run GSWMODE inside Toka-DOS. See the command reference.

DEBUG ON COM1

This row sets the BIOS debug output to Enabled or Disabled, on the main menu. Enabled sends the POST messages to the COM1 serial port as text. Disabled sends no POST messages there. The UART itself stays available to software in both states. Save writes the value to CMOS.

The IzarraVM GUI has a COM1 log window. That window shows this output. See the GUI guide.

PERIPHERALS

Title: PERIPHERAL CHECK. Hint: Esc: back to menu.

This screen does seven of the POST hardware checks again. The checks do not change the hardware. The screen shows PASS or FAIL for each check, in a boxed table:

LOTURA      PIT TIMER    SB DSP     MARGO VGA
8042 KBD    COM1 UART    OPL FM

PASS is sage green and FAIL is red. This screen is a diagnostic screen only. It has nothing to configure. It does the checks again without a full restart.

REPAIR TOKA-DOS

This row installs the Toka-DOS system files again, from the copy in the ROM. When you select it, the BIOS sends a request to the service port of the emulated Lotura chipset. It then waits for a status. After a successful repair, it shows:

Toka-DOS repaired

See Repair Toka-DOS for the files that the repair replaces and the files that it keeps.

SAVE AND EXIT / DISCARD AND EXIT

Save and Exit writes the working copy. The keyboard layout, the CPU mode, and the debug setting go to CMOS. The clock goes to the real-time clock if you used the Time screen. The BIOS then calculates a checksum over the saved settings and restarts the machine.

Discard and Exit discards all changes and restarts the machine with the saved settings. Esc on the main menu has the same effect.

The settings that CMOS keeps

This panel writes three settings: the keyboard layout (CMOS offset 0x10), the CPU mode (CMOS offset 0x12), and the debug on COM1 setting (CMOS offset 0x14). The clock goes directly to the real-time clock hardware, and not to CMOS, when you use the Time screen. The Tab boot menu writes the CPU mode and the primary boot device (CMOS offset 0x11), which is independent of this panel. The two entry points use the same CMOS fields where they overlap.

A checksum protects the saved block. If the checksum does not agree at boot, the BIOS applies no setting from that image. IzarraVM keeps the default settings, records the CMOS diagnostic indication, calculates a new checksum, and saves the repaired image.