Thanks!
This wasn't a typo, I also noticed that strange fact. The card is jumpered to IRQ10 and in the BIOS I reserved that IRQ for exclusive use by this card. So as you said, aspi2dos.sys reports the card as having IRQ11 whereas after subsequent boot of Windows 98 SE it comes up as IRQ10. Tried to manually assign IRQ10 and port 340h like so:
device=c:\ez-scsi\aspi2dos.sys /d /l /q10 /p340
which resulted in pausing, possibly for over 10sec, when executing this line with a 'installation failed' notice thereafter. Removing /q10 and IRQ11 gets assigned before Windows starts up. /d prints more details during boot, /l scans the LUNs, /p assigns the I/O port. I also put this line from end to beginning of my config.sys, but no change. (I grew up with DOS!)
The first version of EZ-SCSI aspi2dos.sys I tried was 3.68. Then tried the old one you suggested which is v3.55, but there was no change.
Regarding the DOS-Version of the programmer software that you pointed me to:
1) It included the correct version of 'autodll.dll', so actinit.exe runs, but asking to add its path to the PATH variable, which I already did, but it's *still* asking for it!(?)
2) autoexec.bat to be added:
set ALSDIR=C:\APSDOS\
set PATH=C:\APSDOS\BIN\;%PATH%;
3) APS1.exe is for Activator1, APS2.exe is for Activator2
Most APS2.exe commands request a 'design name' - which I don't have. Unless these are the *.lib/*.def/*.ddf/*.afm/*.68k files under the windows version's \apsw\data\ folder? I do have an ACTEL FPGA in the socket right now of which I would like to know whether it works or not, if it's empty (blank) or not.
aps2 -actst
> 1 (Analog Board Test)
This should output some test signals, whereby Pin 14 & 16 on the module socket are DGND. But all I see in fact are DC voltages. For example socket pin 27 changes from 5.4 to 9.5Vdc when activating the test, so there is definitely a communication PC<->programmer going on! I just can't get any AC signals out, on none of the socket pins from the table. Now it *might* be that my supply voltages are still wrong/too low. Will have to figure that out.
> 4 (Blank Check)
Wants me to enter several pins???
The questions remains, why the software won't work at all in Windows 98 SE and Windows 2000?
And why I don't get any AC/clock signals out?