    AST RESEARCH, INC.        TECHNICAL BULLETIN # 1595          09/24/96

    TITLE:  Ascentia J and PC Card Point Enablers

    SUMMARY

       Ascentia J may not be able to use PC Card point enablers.

    ISSUE

       The Ascentia J system may be unable to use PC Card point enablers.
       When a point enabler is used to initialize a PC Card, the software
       may report that the PC Card slot is not present or defective.

       This issue affects the following systems: 501788, 501945, 501946,
       and 501947.

    BACKGROUND

       The Ascentia J mobile systems were designed with several
       enhancements for PC Card support.

       1. The system was designed to Plug-and-Play specifications.

       2. The system uses a PCMCIA to PCI bridge and the Cirrus Logic
          PD-6729 PC Card controller to allow PC Cards to use the 32bit
          PCI bus instead of a traditional 16bit ISA bus.

       The PC Card controller is located at address FCFCh instead of the
       traditional ISA bus address of 3E0h. This can present a problem
       for some PC Card point enablers. Point enablers do not usually
       provide Plug-and-Play support for PC Cards and are generally
       written to address the PC Card controller at address 3E0h.

    ACTION

       Download BIOS version 1.09 (AST part number 905577-035) for the
       Ascentia J10, J30, and J50. File 05577035.EXE is available from
       any of AST's On-Line! services as follows:

          AST WWW Site: http://www.ast.com
          AST On-Line! BBS*: See IB0001.TXT
          CompuServe: GO: ASTFORUM
          Prodigy: Jump: astsupport

          * Refer to IB0001.TXT for a list of AST's international BBS numbers.

          To decompress this file, create a temporary directory on your
          hard drive, copy the downloaded file to that directory, and run
          the file.

       This version of the BIOS will remap the PC Card controller to
       address 3E0h which will allow PC Card point enablers to work with
       the Ascentia J. The readme file included with the BIOS contains
       the installation instructions.

    NOTES

       BIOS version 1.09 is for the Ascentia J10, J30, and J50 models
       only. If you have an Ascentia J20, this issue does not apply.

    TAN 004033GW

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