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AST Premium/286  -  Motherboards


Motherboard versions

Based on information found online, there are at least five versions of the motherboard.

Part number 202143-001 ( Information at here. )
Part number 202143-002 ( Information at here. )
Part number 202143-003 ( Information at here. )  ( Slight differences to the -001 and -002. )
Part number 202143-004 ( Information at here. )  ( Slight differences to the -001 and -002. )
Part number 202143-006 ( Information at here. )  ( Slight differences to the -001 and -002. )

Early motherboards appear to contain a Phoenix BIOS (Phoenix Technologies Ltd).
Later motherboards appear to contain an Award BIOS (Award Software).


BIOS versions

Online, I see three BIOS versions.

Version ???:  ROM's labelled 107000-499 B and 107000-500 B.  Contents contains: "Phoenix Technologies Ltd" "08/07/87" "please run SETUP program"
Version 1.1:  ROM's labelled 107000-583 B and 107000-584 B.  Contents contains: "Award Software" "PREMIUM/286 BIOS VERSION 1.1" "04/08/88" "PRESS F1 KEY TO CONTINUE OR CTRL-ALT ESC FOR SETUP" "AST SETUP UTILITY"
Version 2.0:  ROM's labelled 107000-656 and 107000-657.  Contents contains: "Award Software" "Premium 286 BIOS Rel 2.00" "08/25/89" "PRESS F1 KEY TO CONTINUE OR CTRL-ALT ESC FOR SETUP" "AST SETUP UTILITY"

There may have been other BIOS'.  For example, the document at here suggests that there was a model released as early as January 1987.

Images for programming into EPROM's are at here.


CMOS SETUP

Phoenix

For the Phoenix BIOS listed above, blumaxii of the VCFF reported, "When I try to run the ASTSETUP prog from the floppy disk, it just hangs on a blinking cursor. Whereas, when I ran the SETUP prog from the xFormer 286 utility disk it detects the hardware and allows me to set the bios options. Weirdly, it detects the MB as an 'XFormer System Board'."

Award

For the Award BIOS listed above, there are two options:
- Press CTRL-ALT ESC if you see the prompt to do so; or
- Run the ASTSETUP.EXE that is found in the 'Premium/286 Utils&Diags v5.00' package, the package available for download at here.