The regular Intel utility listed on the first page. Once flashed they lose any COMPAQ branding and behave just like Intel Pro/100+ (V:8086h D:1229h).
Just a though but it might be a good idea to include this note in the instructions when flashing: Once you have flashed your INTEL network card reboot your computer, you should see 'WINSLIC' during the boot process and listed in the BIOS boot order screen, if you see 'INTEL BOOT AGENT' or similar you have not flashed your NIC correctly.
This stuff was added so that while you're flashing using IBAUTIL, you now get a friendly display that it has flashed "RPL v10.1.20" instead of it saying "Flash not programmed" as it has done in the all previous versions. So, when you use IBAUTIL, you should definitely see "v10.1.20" near the lower right part of the output. This gives you an indication, before even rebooting, that you have successfully flashed your NIC. This is a vital step. WindSLIC must be listed first in the boot order or the Activating WindSLIC... phase will never be executed. You might see the first "Initializing WindSLIC (blah)..." screen, but if you don't see the "Activating" screen, nothing is being applied. On Intel Boards, They seem to load WindSLIC fine, but on mine, at least, the activation phase gets completely hidden/obscured by all the graphic-mode-screen-clearing mess that Intel BIOSes like to do. So, once you've flashed the nic, using IBAUTIL, and seen the RPL v10.1.20 success message, reboot and press <DEL> a lot until you get into the BIOS. Once in the BIOS, go to the <Boot> section. Find the entry labeled "Boot Menu Type", and change that to <Advance>. Then, set the "Boot Device Priority" entry so that <WindSLIC> is at the top of the list (You can push the NumPad "+"/"-" keys to move whatever entry is highlighted up and down). Once "WindSLIC" is at the top, save and exit the BIOS. Hopefully, if WindSLIC is at the top, you'll get the proper SLIC insertion. Good luck! And another comes on, -tij-
Technically, if you have a built-in Intel NIC (as almost all of the Intel-made boards do), you might see both WindSLIC and INTEL BOOT AGENT (IBA). With all of the screen-clearing mess that Intel-made boards do, you'll likely ONLY catch the INTEL BOOT AGENT display, since WINDSLIC doesn't sit there wanking-about on-screen for 30 seconds looking for a network connection like the IBA does. Thanks for the note, though. I'll take a look at the included instructions again. They tend to get out of date as I make changes since I never read them. -tij-
bad and good news Finally found backup CD with my very old ASM x86 COM port related fiddling code! It’s 15 years old! The bad news – there is no any code backups on it… Just few old programs. I must have putted wrong CD in that cage long time ago… And had discarded the one with backups... And the good news – it’s still readable! But useless still… If we ever need it, I'll have to write it from scratch.
No reason they have to be -- the SPI interface specs out a series of signals that can fit into an 8-pin package, and keeping the pin count to a minimum helps keeps costs down -- and board designers appreciate a conservative use of real estate when floorplanning. Once a package is defined and in use, it seems that everyone piles on to that pinout so they can compete as drop-in replacements. Re-spinning a board layout to accomodate a sub-one dollar part is an exercise in frustration -- I've been there!
The closest I ever got to executing PCI commands was briefly using the 16-bit PCI BIOS api to change the chipset register 90h on the PCI Bus 0,Dev 0, Fn 0 device (northbridge) of the Intel chipset boards. Later I realised that it was easier and smaller to avoid the PCI BIOS and just use the PCI root device registers to read a byte, change it, then write it back. That code is in some of the older WindSLIC versions, if that's all the functionality you require, which it may be, I guess.. -tij-