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8-Bit IDE controller pre-ordering poll

8-Bit IDE controller pre-ordering poll

  • 1

    Votes: 17 30.9%
  • 2

    Votes: 25 45.5%
  • 3

    Votes: 7 12.7%
  • 4

    Votes: 5 9.1%
  • 5

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 6

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 7

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 8

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 9

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 10 or more!

    Votes: 1 1.8%

  • Total voters
    55
I agree, I think it should be done in a hardcard format with CF or anytype of drive, I know for a fact when I retire my working ST-412, It's going to stay right in the drive bay!

Just leave the hard drive in there, unplug the power, remove the mfm card, put in the ide card with CF and pretend its still the st-412, I won't tell if you don't....;)
 
I put down two, but would probably order 3. Would the IRQ be selectable so we could use these in Tandy units?

Thanks,
Kelly

Hi! The current design is fixed at IRQ 5. I would have to do a PCB respin to change it or make it selectable. That may happen anyway as a result of what comes out of testing but I'd like to avoid it if possible. It takes ~3 weeks for the PCB to finish trace routing optimization.

Thanks and have a nice day!

Andrew Lynch
 
Seconded that it support IRQ 2. Putting a modern hard drive in a Tandy would solve a lot of problems, and would also enable creating "the perfect Tandy 1000 setup": Every single game ever released with Tandy graphics or sound support on a single Tandy 1000 machine!
 
Just leave the hard drive in there, unplug the power, remove the mfm card, put in the ide card with CF and pretend its still the st-412, I won't tell if you don't....;)

You'd need a TSR that plays ST-412 sounds to the speaker then...

If I'm counting correctly there's 47 options already, nice!
 
Seconded that it support IRQ 2. Putting a modern hard drive in a Tandy would solve a lot of problems, and would also enable creating "the perfect Tandy 1000 setup": Every single game ever released with Tandy graphics or sound support on a single Tandy 1000 machine!

Hi! Well there is always the good old reliable "cuts and jumpers" method. Use your razor to cut the trace and solder a wire to the proper pin on the ISA connector. If we do a PCB respin I'll consider it as there are other things in the queue but there are no show stoppers yet to force the issue.

As a PCB respin takes three weeks to produce a decent trace routing I am reluctant to do it more than absolutely necessary. In addition, the machine I use for PCB routing is already fully loaded doing another N8VEM board. Adding configuration jumpers also increases part count, trace complexity, etc which increases cost, complexity, etc. I know it may seem like a "little thing" but believe me these little tweaks, especially late ones, make a *big* difference.

Thanks and have a nice day!

Andrew Lynch
 
Hi! Well there is always the good old reliable "cuts and jumpers" method. Use your razor to cut the trace and solder a wire to the proper pin on the ISA connector.

Cuts and jumpers don't scare me. I used to have to do field mods to model 6000 computers all the time.

Do all the ISA pads have foil so we can solder to that or do we have to kludge something on there? That being asked, I think there would be more to it than just this for a Tandy conversion or we'd have used the old WD boards more readily. I think there was some other issue and the ROM on the HD controller needed to be of a certain version or higher.

I'd be willing to try it any way. If it doesn't work, I'll think about make copies of the ADP boards I do have that work in the 1000 series.
 
Cuts and jumpers don't scare me. I used to have to do field mods to model 6000 computers all the time.

Do all the ISA pads have foil so we can solder to that or do we have to kludge something on there? That being asked, I think there would be more to it than just this for a Tandy conversion or we'd have used the old WD boards more readily. I think there was some other issue and the ROM on the HD controller needed to be of a certain version or higher.

I'd be willing to try it any way. If it doesn't work, I'll think about make copies of the ADP boards I do have that work in the 1000 series.

Hi! Thanks! Yes, there are metal fingers on male edge connector part of the PCB. Adding a cut and jumper to do what you are proposing would be trivial.

The ROM and IO port locations are both user selectable options. I don't know the full span of locations for either off the top of my head but it was a significant range.

What I'd like to know is where were all these helpful comments during the design phase? I appreciate constructive feedback but its awfully late in the development cycle for such basic requirements. I implemented a number of suggestions based on feedback at the time such as the ROM, the pull up resistors on the 74LS688s, and such.

Thanks and have a nice day!

Andrew Lynch
 
Small WORKING laptop drives are very hard to find, there are still plenty of smaller IDE desktop drives around.

They SURE are! I have 2 or 3 early laptops sitting around, unable to be used. Can't find a small capacity working drive to go in there. As we all know, even if a 10GB drive fits into the space, the bios on the laptop is clueless, most of the time doesn't even know a drive is there.
 
They SURE are! I have 2 or 3 early laptops sitting around, unable to be used. Can't find a small capacity working drive to go in there. As we all know, even if a 10GB drive fits into the space, the bios on the laptop is clueless, most of the time doesn't even know a drive is there.

I removed two hard drives from obsolete laptops, one was 2 gigs the other 40, the 2 gig hard drive worked fine with my Acculogic, the 40 gig one wouldn't work at all even though it worked in a modern age computer.
 
What I'd like to know is where were all these helpful comments during the design phase? I appreciate constructive feedback but its awfully late in the development cycle for such basic requirements.

Having always worked on machines that required oddball IRQ settings I had assumed (fatal mistake there) that with all the other jumpers in the design a selectable IRQ had been thought of. Cut and jumper works for me.

If it is just horsepower you need to respin the boards and it is possible to do so, tell me what I need to download and install. I have gobs of computing power sitting around. Everything from 486s up to single core Pentium 4 machines. Think of it as your own personal SETI at Home.

If not feasable, then don't even bother responding to the above. Don't want to waste any of your time explaining why. And no, that was not sarcasm, if it ain't worth it it ain't worth it...
 
Ide irq

Ide irq

I think if the first revision of this card supports only IRQ 5 than that is ok, as with most things, improvements come with revisions.
 
Agreed. 100%. I'd still buy 2 for my non tandy stuff.

Speaking about Tandy, I remember the good old days, when you would walk into a RAD Shack store and see all them Tandy IBM Compatibles with their own Tandy sound and Tandy graphics, at that time my IBM XT had 4 colors CGA which was puke compared to a Tandy IBM Compatibles with their 16, Kings Quest :>

Roll ahead 25 years or so, Tandy is in the toilet and IBM doesn't even sell personal computers nemore..

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
 
Speaking about Tandy, I remember the good old days, when you would walk into a RAD Shack store and see all them Tandy IBM Compatibles with their own Tandy sound and Tandy graphics, at that time my IBM XT had 4 colors CGA which was puke compared to a Tandy IBM Compatibles with their 16, Kings Quest :>

Roll ahead 25 years or so, Tandy is in the toilet and IBM doesn't even sell personal computers nemore..

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Do you know if the EGA is hardware-compatible with the Tandy graphics?

I also got a feeling that the Plantonics color+ is hardware-compatible with Tandy graphics, even the standard CGA is, but it only got half the RAM to take advantages of it (lot's of pixels/scanlines missing).
 
Speaking about Tandy, I remember the good old days, when you would walk into a RAD Shack store and see all them Tandy IBM Compatibles with their own Tandy sound and Tandy graphics, at that time my IBM XT had 4 colors CGA which was puke compared to a Tandy IBM Compatibles with their 16, Kings Quest

Good memory; I had a similar one. Imagine how elated I was to discover the 160x100x16 mode (through Round 42), and composite color graphics mode in the same month. I didn't have a composite output port, but I took my store-bought Starflight over to a friend with a compaq luggable, and we hooked it up to a TV and hit the magic keyboard combo to enable composite output. We played that (and a bootleg Flight Simulator) for hours.
 
Do you know if the EGA is hardware-compatible with the Tandy graphics?

I also got a feeling that the Plantonics color+ is hardware-compatible with Tandy graphics, even the standard CGA is, but it only got half the RAM to take advantages of it (lot's of pixels/scanlines missing).

EGA is not hardware compatible with Tandy in pretty much every sense of the word (memory organization, palette, ports, all different)

I hear that the Plantronics *is* somewhat compatible -- the colors and memory organization is the same (interlaced) but the ports are not. But I am not sure, so ask around.
 
EGA is not hardware compatible with Tandy in pretty much every sense of the word (memory organization, palette, ports, all different)

I hear that the Plantronics *is* somewhat compatible -- the colors and memory organization is the same (interlaced) but the ports are not. But I am not sure, so ask around.

My ATI is Plantonics compatible, so maybe if I try to run a program with Tandy graphics but not Tandy sound... Then we'll see if it is the same or not. Anybody knows of any program that talks to the Tandy graphics controller directly (without using the BIOS) and uses the enchanted feautres?
 
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