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Re: [TCLUG:2679] PC error message



Tim Wilson wrote:
> 
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I'm trying to get an old 486 running but I get the following message after
> it does its memory check:
> 
> NO ROM BASIC
> SYSTEM HALTED
> 
> I can get into the bios setup program, but I don't see any problems there.
> Am I hosed?

Wow! I read an article in Salon about this awhile ago (the article was
about the dumbing down of programming and rebelling against Microsoft
and it's wizards; Including praise of the rm -rf * command :). The
article is at

http://www.salonmagazine.com/21st/feature/1998/05/cov_12feature.html

It's worth reading, but here's the relevant part:

What I had now was a bare machine, just the hardware and
its built-in logic. No more Microsoft muddle of operating
systems. It was like hosing down your car after washing it:
the same feeling of virtuous exertion, the pleasure of the
sparkling clean machine you've just rubbed all over. Yours.
Known down to the crevices. Then, just to see what would
happen, I turned on the computer. It powered up as usual,
gave two long beeps, then put up a message in large letters
on the screen: 

NO ROM BASIC

What? Had I somehow killed off my read-only memory? It
doesn't matter that you tell yourself you're an engineer and
game for whatever happens. There is still a moment of panic
when things seem to go horribly wrong. I stared at the
message for a while, then calmed down: It had to be related
to not having an operating system. What else did I think
could happen but something weird? 

But what something weird was this exactly? I searched the
Net, found hundreds of HOW-TO FAQs about installing
Linux, thousands about uninstalling operating systems --
endless pages of obscure factoids, strange procedures, good
and bad advice. I followed trails of links that led to
interesting bits of information, currently useless to me. Long
trails that ended in dead ends, missing pages, junk. Then,
sometime about 1 in the morning, in a FAQ about Enhanced
IDE, was the answer: 

8.1. Why do I get NO ROM BASIC,
SYSTEM HALTED? 

This should get a prize for the PC compatible's
most obscure error message. It usually means
you haven't made the primary partition
bootable ... 

The earliest true-blue PCs had a BASIC
interpreter built in, just like many other home
computers those days. Even today, the Master
Boot Record (MBR) code on your hard disk
jumps to the BASIC ROM if it doesn't find any
active partitions. Needless to say, there's no
such thing as a BASIC ROM in today's
compatibles....