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8-Bit IDE Controller

Are there any cards/kits left?

Are there any cards/kits left?

I had forgotten to look at the progress for some time. You have made great progress I see. Are there still some boards/kits available for purchase? If so what is the procedure to get one?
 
I had forgotten to look at the progress for some time. You have made great progress I see. Are there still some boards/kits available for purchase? If so what is the procedure to get one?

PM Hargle about getting one, but remember that these are pre-release cards and we need to collect data about what works and what does not work with them and in what systems it works or does not work.

We are hoping to have a final product by December.
 
Can you add a flag to flash.com to force generating checksum byte without any other modifications?

That's in fact the default setting.

It will only add the I/O port to offset 0x18 only if the /B:#### parameter is present. The checksum is however generated in any case, so the image you release doesn't really need to contain the checksum byte as long as offset 0x1FFF is unused.

However, I still see no problems to use offset 0x18 as the location for the constant determining the base-port number, unless your BIOS uses fixed I/O-port instructions or require more than one I/O-base port number to be present.
 
Picked up card last night

Picked up card last night

I got in touch with Hargle and paid for a card. He actually lives close to me so I stopped by and picked it up. Now I need to assemble it.

PM Hargle about getting one, but remember that these are pre-release cards and we need to collect data about what works and what does not work with them and in what systems it works or does not work.

We are hoping to have a final product by December.
 
All soldered up

All soldered up

Ok, tonight I finally dusted off the soldering iron and soldered up my XTIDE kit. Now all I need to do is find me three jumpers, and I can test it (why are there no jumpers around when you need them?).

Question: is there a specifications / usage page for XTIDE on the wiki or somewhere else?
I am going to use the card in a machine that has a WD1003-WA2 controller, and that also controls the floppy drive. So I need to be sure that the XTIDE doesn't conflict woth the WD1003.
 
Is setup smart enough?

Is setup smart enough?

If I run setup (for XTIDE) and it doesn't show an error mesage for the addresses I select, is it safe to use them then?

I just ran 'setup' on my IMC Traveller 286 (which already have a WD1003-WA2 installed), just selected the default (io: 0200, base segment: c000) nd got no error messages. Cand I just install the XTIDE card, or will it conflict with the WD1003?

BTW, it would be nice to have a utility that would "inventory" the machine and print out any cards and the resources they use. It seems like findcard just finds xt-ide cards.
 
If I run setup (for XTIDE) and it doesn't show an error mesage for the addresses I select, is it safe to use them then?

I just ran 'setup' on my IMC Traveller 286 (which already have a WD1003-WA2 installed), just selected the default (io: 0200, base segment: c000) nd got no error messages. Cand I just install the XTIDE card, or will it conflict with the WD1003?

BTW, it would be nice to have a utility that would "inventory" the machine and print out any cards and the resources they use. It seems like findcard just finds xt-ide cards.

The reason it shows 200 availible is that "autodetecting" empty I/O ports is rather impossible to do while keeping support for all machines. Make absolutely sure there are NO conflicts manually.

Making an utility for all cards is also almost impossible. There are thousands of different cards from different manufacters, and a lot of those are highly nonstandard. Some are even impossible to detect under certain circumstances, like the joystic port if nothing is connected. The IBM Diagnostics disk is the closest you get, even it's only for IBM-compatible cards.
 
The reason it shows 200 availible is that "autodetecting" empty I/O ports is rather impossible to do while keeping support for all machines.

Could you not simply show what is present at the various IO ranges? That way a user could then determine what range to use manually, or better yet pull the card and work out where the conflict use by simply running the utility.
 
So I have my Rev 1 card. It looks great. I still need to do some work on it, but I have just not had the time. Hopefully this long weekend will give me the time.

My one comment about the silk screen is the table on the back, I think it needs to be moved, as the solder points make it very difficult to read.

So my suggestion is to move it so that it is centered from left to right, and move it down about 1/2". This gets it off of the major solder points (especially the 40 pin connector).

Andrew can you see on the PCB layout where the solder points are? If so maybe try to position it so as little of the text is actually over a hole, this should make it a ton more readable and functional.
 
Could you not simply show what is present at the various IO ranges? That way a user could then determine what range to use manually, or better yet pull the card and work out where the conflict use by simply running the utility.

nope. I thought we could too, but old machines, especially tandy machines, have no pullup or down values on unclaimed IO cycles. That essentially means that the *entire* IO range looks to software as if something is returning data. (it doesn't return 00 or FF when you read it) My tandy HX gave me random values on reads where no hardware was decoding. It's crazy.
 
nope. I thought we could too, but old machines, especially tandy machines, have no pullup or down values on unclaimed IO cycles. That essentially means that the *entire* IO range looks to software as if something is returning data. (it doesn't return 00 or FF when you read it) My tandy HX gave me random values on reads where no hardware was decoding. It's crazy.

Is this the difference between plug and play vs non-plug and play?
 
Is this the difference between plug and play vs non-plug and play?

PnP didn't appear before around the middle 1990's. This card is mainly targeted to machines as old as 1981, and we simply can't relay on PnP (as it doesn't exist on those old PC's).
 
ok, looks like we're rolling ahead with things. thanks for the push lutiana.

Things for testers to do:

1) test the external LED connection. Is the + on the silkscreen correct? does it light an LED with proper brightness?
2) test cable select with a drive or two and the CSEL jumper.

Things for andrew to do:
1) move the silkscreen on the back
2) add 2 holes for bracket mounting. I've got 100 (actually 120) of the brackets now, all of them the keystone 9502 or whatever part number that we had before. I was thinking that it would be a huge timesaver if andrew could modify the design slightly to add 2 holes to the PCB for mounting. It took me an embarrassingly long time to get the bracket mounted on my card, since I didn't drill the hole at exactly the right spot.
[if anyone out there needs a bracket, let me know]

Things for me to do:
1) source screws for the brackets.
2) get back on CD-ROM driver coding.
 
Things for testers to do:

1) test the external LED connection. Is the + on the silkscreen correct? does it light an LED with proper brightness?

I don't think it's a too good idea to parallel-connect leds like on the design. Why can't there just be one pad, where the buyer decides if he/she wants to solder a header for an external led or solder the led directly on?
 
PnP didn't appear before around the middle 1990's. This card is mainly targeted to machines as old as 1981, and we simply can't relay on PnP (as it doesn't exist on those old PC's).

Well I did not mean to make this card PnP that would be pointless. I was just wondering if the fact that random data is returned had something to do with pre-PnP systems only or if it also happens on PnP machines.
 
I don't think it's a too good idea to parallel-connect leds like on the design. Why can't there just be one pad, where the buyer decides if he/she wants to solder a header for an external led or solder the led directly on?

So leave the on board LED off all together? This would save a few cents per card, so maybe not a bad idea. Probably no need to change the design.
 
I don't think it's a too good idea to parallel-connect leds like on the design. Why can't there just be one pad, where the buyer decides if he/she wants to solder a header for an external led or solder the led directly on?

Hi! I think the builder should choose one or the other type of LED and install it. If you want a local to the board LED, use those pads. If you want one on a wire for case installation, then use those pads.

I don't recommend installing both LEDs at once but if you do and use them simultaneously you should pick matched LEDs. Otherwise the one with the lower voltage drop is going to use up its life quickly if it works at all.

The circuit is meant for installing one or the other but I don't recommend both. Has anyone tried installing both LEDs? What happened?

Thanks and have a nice day!

Andrew Lynch
 
Interesting.
Most plug in IDE controllers that I've ever seen have both an onboard LED and a header to drive an external one. I'd never even given a 2nd thought to having to match voltages or do anything special.

Is there a way around this? Considering we're already installing the LED on the board, but I suspect that most people will want the external connector. Can we drive them separately? or yet another jumper to select which one to use? that seems clunky though.
 
From what Andrew is indicating it sounds like the worst thing that is gonna happen here is you burn out an LED, not a train smash I don't think. So is it worth changing the design to only allow one LED? I doubt it at this point, just add a note on the silk screen that says "Not meant for 2 LEDs" or something like it.

Then we simply don't include and LED in the kit or on the assembled card, LEDs are easy to get just about anywhere so end users can decide which works best for them.
 
How does the EEPROM flashing work? I have almost completed the setup program for XTIDE Universal BIOS but i'd like to include flashing to it.
 
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