Olivetti · M
Olivetti M380 / M380 C
Sixteen-megahertz 80386DX desktop family with proprietary Olivetti logic, external controllers and local 1.09 firmware.
PARTIAL EMULATION: POST, video, floppy boot, RTC, the keyboard-controller NVRAM and installing and booting MS-DOS 3.30a from a disk on the GO717 are recorded as passing. Warm reset is still pending. The GO717 is emulated with the WD1003 without its jumpers; PVGA1A, floppy and AT services are compatibility approximations, not models of the backplane or the IF614.
History
The M380 (BA806) and the compact M380 C (BA818) share the documented 16 MHz 80386DX platform. The M380 C NEW adds the GO723 and GO470/481 VGA options; BluMach does not quietly replace them with generic devices.
Hardware
- Processor
- Intel 80386DX, 16 MHz
- Memory
- Expansion-board memory; ME908/916/919 1 MB, ME912/927 4 MB, ME923 16 MB; 1–48 MB documented
- Chipset
- Olivetti proprietary BA806/BA818 PAL logic
- Video
- External EGA or monochrome adapters; M380 C NEW VGA GO470/481 remains unavailable
- Floppy drive
- External IF614 U-TURN board with floppy controller
- Hard disk
- External GO717 MFM or GO720 ESDI controller; M380 C NEW GO723 combo remains unavailable
- Clock and CMOS
- 64-byte MC146818-compatible CMOS RAM
- Expansion slots
- Two 8-bit ISA, two 16-bit ISA and three proprietary 32-bit positions
Catalogue classification
- Form factor
- Desktop
- Mobility
- Stationary
- Processor generation
- 80386 class
- Storage interface
- Floppy drive, MFM
Research
This page separates documented hardware facts, behavior observed in original firmware, and the current fidelity of BluMach emulation.
Sales and commercial configurations
Evidence: documented or confirmed hardware
- Commercial models
M380 is the BA806 desktop and M380 C the BA818 compact model. The documented M380 C NEW adds GO723 storage/floppy and GO470/481 VGA. This is an options matrix from the service guide, not a recovered price list.
Architecture and memory
Evidence: documented or confirmed hardware
- CPU and bus
Intel 80386DX at 16 MHz with proprietary BA806/BA818 PAL logic; this is not the Headland PCS 386SX platform.
- Memory
Memory is entirely on expansion boards: ME908/ME916/ME919 are 1 MB, ME912/ME927 4 MB and ME923 16 MB. The 384 KB behind the hole between 640 KB and 1 MB is dedicated memory: the BIOS looks for it at the 32-bit address 800A0000h and adds it to the total when present. Its top 128 KB shadows E0000h-FFFFFh, which register 2 of the keyboard controller switches between RAM and ROM. With 4 MB, POST shows 640 KB base, 3072 KB extended and 384 KB dedicated: 4096 KB. BluMach reproduces the dedicated memory and the shadow; the rest of the board and backplane logic is still linear RAM.
- Video
M380/M380 C use external EGA or monochrome adapters. M380 C NEW's GO470/481 VGA is documented but unavailable; the selectable PVGA1A is an explicit compatibility approximation.
- Storage
M380 and M380 C use external controllers: GO717 (WD1003-WAH, ST506/MFM) or GO720 (WD1005-WAH, ESDI). Creation offers the GO717 with the four drives in its Olivetti table (types 6, 7, 12 and 13); the GO720 is not emulated. The GO723 RLL board with floppy belongs to the M380 C NEW.
BIOS and firmware
Evidence: observed in preserved firmware and boot testing
- Known revisions
Local PBUQ/PBUZ 1.09 is a verified 64 KiB byte-interleaved pair. The service guide documents later 1.13 and 1.14 pairs, which are not locally preserved.
Emulation status
Evidence: current BluMach status; not necessarily a description of the original circuit
- Verified
Recorded with local firmware 1.09 and the 4 MB/PVGA1A profile: POST, video, floppy boot, RTC, 4096 KB including dedicated memory, valid NVRAM after saving with the M280 SETUP, and MS-DOS 3.30a booting from a type 7 disk on the GO717 (2026-10-16).
- Pending or approximate
Still not modelled: the proprietary board and backplane logic, the IF614 floppy path, the floppy bits of register 0 and the bank-test bit of register 2 of the keyboard controller. Warm reset needs repeating: the GO717 now resets on a soft reset, which used to leave a controller error until a cold reset. LPT1 (378h/IRQ7), LPT2 (278h/IRQ5), COM1 and COM2 are modelled as fixed standard ports per CAP7; Resident Diagnostics still has to be repeated with them. The GO717 is emulated with the WD1003: its jumpers are not modelled and it stays at the primary address 1F0h with IRQ 14. The GO720 ESDI is not emulated. The M380's own Customer/System Test disk is missing.
Sources
Preserved research material
Evidence: primary sources and research notes