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8-Bit IDE Controller

Great to hear that an ID command is working!!! that's a great birthday gift in itself.

In about 24 hours I'll have time to fix ATA, and I will likely be able to fix the BIOS that I released earlier for you to try as well. It's really only the data read/writers that need to change, so it's probably only a 30 minute job. I may even have time to start wire wrapping my own prototype tomorrow.

The BIOS I send out tomorrow will be hard coded to a base address of 300h though; I'll add a scanning routine to it later on, as well as some other features. I'm going to have a lot of fun with this BIOS.

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Costs: - We don't really have an idea yet as to the costs. The 2 prototype cards+components+wire wrap sockets ended up costing me about $100 total.
Once the thing is prototyped though, we can start to look for cost saving things we can do, for example, the ROM currently is a DIP package, and cost me like $6 each. I've seen the same part in a PLCC package for less than $4. As long as we can find sockets for less than $2, we can save some cash there. All of those changes need to be tested out and adjusted in the design layout, but I've got to think we will eventually get these things down to $20 or less. At the moment I'm so happy that I don't care how much these things cost.
 
Hi All! Hargle is busy working on modifications to the ATA program and that is good.

I cannot get xtide.c to compile after much experimenting in both Linux and MSDOS DJGPP. I think the program is using an old version of libraries or something and I am not familiar enough with it to figure out what's wrong.

Are there some Linux/C gurus who would be willing to modify xtide.c so it will compile with Linux and/or preferrably DJGPP? Even if you are not interested in the 8 bit IDE project this would be very helpful. The source mentions Linux so I assuming it uses GCC.

Thanks and have a nice day!

Andrew Lynch
 
Just to let everyone know what's going on here, Andrew has gotten an ID command to work successfully in my ATA program, which means the drive is alive and talkable behind the controller itself. He's also dropped in the option ROM and gotten the drive to identify during POST, which means that the ROM portion of the design is also working as expected! First try too!

I'm going to be writing a suite of software tests to verify the IO functionality across a series of write/read/compare tests and working on upgrading the option ROM to support all the eINT13 routines that I'd finished recently.

So I guess what I'm saying is that we're making huge progress.

Once the regression testing is complete, I think we can work on some parts locating and getting a bill of materials set up, and see about reducing some of the parts cost.
 
Couldn't you get a 8-bit USB 1.0 host project started once you finished this?

Isn't USB host concept real simple it is the software device drivers that maybe the hard part?

Just dreaming:rolleyes:
JT
 
Hi! An 8 bit ISA USB adapter may also be possible but now is not a good time. Hargle and I are up to our eyeballs in this project and it needs time to settle out first. Hopefully that will be soon but you never know.

In the meantime, I would consider an ISA board with an 8255 connected to one of these. That is assuming you are or can find someone as motivated as Hargle to push the design from dream to reality. Hargle deserves credit for persistence and tenacity which is a major factor in making things happen.

Thanks and have a nice day!

Andrew Lynch
 
Hi! The 8 bit IDE controller prototype is working. Thanks and congratulations to Hargle for all his hard work in making the BIOS. It works amazingly well. It is just like any other IDE hard drive and can boot, be partitioned, formatted, etc.

See photos of the first boot here

Thanks and have a nice day!

Andrew Lynch
 
Congratulation! Please let us know the detail about what type of ide harddisk that supported by this card. Thankyou
 
lynchaj said:
Hi! The 8 bit IDE controller prototype is working. Thanks and congratulations to Hargle for all his hard work in making the BIOS. It works amazingly well. It is just like any other IDE hard drive and can boot, be partitioned, formatted, etc.

See photos of the first boot here

Thanks and have a nice day!

Andrew Lynch
Click to expand...

But... Isn't that a WD drive?

(I thought you had problems getting them and the Quantum ones to work with the card...)
 
per said:
But... Isn't that a WD drive?

(I thought you had problems getting them and the Quantum ones to work with the card...)
Click to expand...

Hi! Thanks! Yes, that is a WD drive. The XT-IDE has never had any problems with the WD drives. They have always worked just fine with the XT-IDE prototype.

My other project, the N8VEM Disk IO IDE, has problems with WD drives. Those problems have been resolved as of last night. There is a timing issue that can be corrected using a modified cable and a small PCB which qualifies reads and writes. Last night I installed a WD drive on my N8VEM system and performed the IDENTIFY command, formatted the drive, accessed the C: drive, copied files, etc. There are probably still some residual issues left but I think we have a handle on the major timing issue.

Thanks and have a nice day!

Andrew Lynch
 
rangga said:
Congratulation! Please let us know the detail about what type of ide harddisk that supported by this card. Thankyou
Click to expand...

Hi! Thanks! So far I have only tested it with the one WD drive. I'll be building another wire wrap prototype for Hargle for his additional testing and software development. I have a few IDE drives around and may try some more drives for curiosity sake.

Thanks and have a nice day!

Andrew Lynch
 
So are you going to start selling them someday?
Click to expand...
Yep. The next step is verification that it really is doing what we hope it's doing.
Then we need to see if we can reduce the price somewhat by using parts that are easier/cheaper to locate. That'll require a bit more rework and regression testing. (I discussed this earlier in the thread) Currently costs are over $20 per board just in ICs, and I want to see if we can shave off at least 1/4 of that.
My target price was ~$20 per card, full assembled, with PCB and a slot bracket.

I may be optimistic, but I'd like to start selling by May of this year.

Please let us know the detail about what type of ide harddisk that supported by this card.
Click to expand...
It should work with any IDE drive that supports LBA access methods. In other words, any IDE drive that you've picked up since about 1992 should work. Currently the size limitation is at 137G, (28Bit LBA limits) but you will bump into operating system limits before that, likely in the 8.4G range, with several partitions. Hope that's big enough!

I'm also targeting full support for CF cards and CD-ROM support. (completely untested so far)

For software, I'm going to be writing a BIOS flash upgrade utility, and will need to write a CD-ROM driver too. I'm going to try and put as many bells and whistles into the BIOS itself, stuff like being able to boot to different drives (B: drive for example) would be pretty cool if I can do it.

All of it is open source, and gerrydiore has promised a nice PDF manual to go with it.

It'll have a website to download software and stuff from, but I'm wondering if I should ship a 5.25" floppy with it with all the drivers on it? That would be kinda funny.
 
@lynchaj & hargle
Wow.. Pretty Cool ... Salute with all your effort to make our xt machine compatible with the 'modern' peripheral. To be honest..I can't wait to plug this new card on my old 8 bit isa slot.
 
Whoa Big Fella! Lets hold on a moment here and consider some facts. First, the prototype has just started working and is a long way from done. Second, it is very premature for discussions on pricing the unit. Very little testing has taken place and although the software is feature complete *with a specific hard drive* but is not done yet. Who knows what other issues remain? Regarding IDE hard drives there are *lots* of variations to consider and throwing CF and CD-ROMs into the mix further complicates the matter.

When a project is done "at cost" that has to realistically include more than just the sum of the costs to purchase the components. There are legitimate costs associated with development as well. Hargle has personally put in at least $100 into just prototype parts, shipping, etc and I have put in my own as well. Selling them "at cost" should include *all* the expenses and some margin for unknown expenses. Pricing too low makes the project "at a loss" for development which dooms future projects. I believe few if any hobbyists realistically expect their purchase price to be subsidized by the developers.

A realistic estimate should take into account some actuals plus some legitimate margin in my opinion. On the N8VEM project, I set my PCB price at $20 because by the time a manufactured PCB arrives and taking in to account all the expenses such as tooling fees, shipping, PCB features, parts consumed, etc which is about what my costs are. I do include a small margin for unknown costs which basically allows me to gather enough funds to reorder additional PCBs without raiding the grocery money. Its non-profit thats for sure but at least I am not losing money with every PCB.

I appreciate the excitement and don't want to be a buzzkill here but people need to have some realistic expectations. $25 assembled and tested is no where near realistic, IMO. Not even close. I doubt very much you could buy even the parts for that much less with the PCB.

Remember, this board has gold fingers on it for insertion into a ISA card edge connector. That fact alone makes it more expensive than a similar sized PCBs. Also, please don't confuse advertised PCB "unit costs" with real expenses. "Unit costs" are what you pay *after* you pay for everything else up front. Real "unit costs" have to amortize the overhead costs of tooling, shipping, etc.

Thanks and have a nice day!

Andrew Lynch

PS, just for discussion purposes and to double check my assumptions, I did a quick check at Jameco to make a parts list and get a first estimate of cost to purchase the components, not including the PCB. My initial parts list cost estimate comes out to be about $28 per board. I suppose that could be improved somewhat with multiple combined orders but probably not a whole lot. The parts list is for just the cheap "valuepro" and generic parts. Nothing fancy like machine pin sockets or name brand parts. Just the basic stuff needed to get it to work and does not include solder, cables, etc. Some parts have slightly higher than necessary minimum order quantities which does affect total price but it does not include shipping, handling, or sales tax if applicable. I think $25-$30 for parts *alone* is probably in the realistic range. The cost estimate for PCB is TBD and will be in addition to that and assumes no further respins. I uploaded the initial parts list on the N8VEM wiki so feel free to double check. I welcome if anyone would like to do their own cost estimates for the parts for comparison purposes. Check with other vendors such as Digikey, Mouser, JDR, etc for a single build so we can have a similar list for comparison.
 
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Cost

Cost

Hello Mr. Lynch

I agree with your assessment. On Cost. ( And everything else for that matter.)

Before hargle, you, and others project is over, I am pretty sure costs will go up substantially, and the main proponents of this project also deserve to be paid.

I'm quite sure at the end the cost will be reasonable, but people should probably expect previous estimates to be low, possibly real low. :p

I forget what I originally paid for that Acculogic sIDE card many years ago, brand new, but I'm pretty sure it was darn cheap, probably a NOS piece that I found at either a computer show, or at a computer shop.

I have been following this project closely, and am very impressed by what you and others have accomplished. Looking forward to the finished product, should one come out of this. I know that a lot of testing and "polishing" have yet to be done, and wish you continued success.

bobwatts
EartH
 
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