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Anyone Selling XT-IDE Cards?

As per RetroHacker_'s request on #vc IRC, J1 has been moved so it's not possible to accidentally put the IDE connector in its position during assembly!

Also prevents J1 being blocked if you decide to fit a boxed 40 pin connector for the IDE.

Cheers.

Phill.
 
Yup, much better to move it to the new position -- but that's one of the great things about an open dev process, this was caught before I even ordered prototypes.

I also caught a clearance issue with the card bracket and the 74LS138, so everything in that area got nudged left and rerouted:

moqQ2Ub.png
 
Would probably also be useful to have a jumper so you could have the LED on the front of the case.

Cheers.

Phill.
 
Would probably also be useful to have a jumper so you could have the LED on the front of the case.

The intent is to replace the LED with a jumper header when this is desired. I'll probably ship a Molex KK-100 2-pin connector in the parts kit so the assembler can choose.
 
Is the kit parts and pcb or parts only? Do you have any idea what the price would be, somewhere around 10-30$ or more?
 
Is the kit parts and pcb or parts only? Do you have any idea what the price would be, somewhere around 10-30$ or more?

Kit does not include PC board; however, if I find preorders with only a kit value filled in, I'll assume they wanted an equal number of boards too.

Bare board should cost between $10-15, parts kit will probably be $25-30. There's no financial commitment with the preorder, strictly for size estimating purposes.
 
- Decoding an extra bit on the I/O port, gives more possible port options
I believe this change would require a modification to the BIOS and/or xtidecfg to allow for the additional IO options. Are the universal BIOS folks aware of this?

Love to see the XT-IDE project living on!
 
Re D7 PD, this is for device detection. CSEL should be tied directly to ground (sorry if this is already caught). Nice PCB layout (and colour!).

There is a Lo-tech full IDE PCB too btw.
 


I have a few question about your XT-ide board..

1. Is it possible to get this PCB in a different color ( i would prefer green instead)

2. Is it possible to edit /move some of the tekst on the PCB.

3. Like to know if you can make the kit somewhat cheaper to only provide the parts that are hard to get (seems that the IC chips easilly could be bought by the buyer on ebay or so. (like the bracket)

4. Which ROM / bios are you going to use?

5. Why is interrupt 2 right behind interrupt 7 ? and not 2,3,5,7


I really have intrest to order 5 boards, but before that i really would like see a working example. Maybe i could buy a bigger lot from you.. (20 and or 30 pieces) but i really need think about that.
 
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1. Is it possible to get this PCB in a different color ( i would prefer green instead)

The purple is just a prototype rendering from OSH Park. The final boards will be deep cyan blue. You are of course welcome to run them in a color of your choosing, but I'll be doing a single run of a single color to keep costs down.

2. Is it possible to edit /move some of the tekst on the PCB.

Yes, but I've placed the current text where it is to try and keep the board self-documenting. What do you think should be moved?

3. Like to know if you can make the kit somewhat cheaper to only provide the parts that are hard to get (seems that the IC chips easilly could be bought by the buyer on ebay or so. (like the bracket)

The short answer to this is, "probably no." I will likely pull parts for a number of kits and bag them up. Splitting out parts and figuring out what the remaining kit bits should cost is more work for me. Besides, I doubt the average person, buying quantities of 2-3 ICs at a time, will be able to beat my kit costs if purchasing from reputable suppliers (i.e. actual parts suppliers, not some random guy on eBay).

4. Which ROM / bios are you going to use?

Assembled boards will probably ship with the 1.x series Universal BIOS. I will be using Atmel 28C64B 8K EEPROMs unless there's a lot of demand for 28C256. The board can of course use any of the available BIOSes since I've left the jumpers for the Chuck Mod on.

5. Why is interrupt 2 right behind interrupt 7 ? and not 2,3,5,7

Because that was the easiest way to lay it out. If this actually bothers people I'm sure I can put them in order. As pearce_jj said, interrupts aren't even used on this board.

I really have intrest to order 5 boards, but before that i really would like see a working example. Maybe i could buy a bigger lot from you.. (20 and or 30 pieces) but i really need think about that.

And before any one individual decides they want 20 or 30, they'll need to put cash up front! I got stuck with a huge surplus of various expensive components (anyone need Eurobus connectors?) after a previous failed kit project, wherein many people said they wanted kits, but no one wanted to pay for them when I'd gotten all of the components together. Lesson learned.
 
Re D7 PD, this is for device detection. CSEL should be tied directly to ground (sorry if this is already caught). Nice PCB layout (and colour!).

There is a Lo-tech full IDE PCB too btw.

Thanks for the clarification! I'd figured out CSEL needed to be tied to ground, but I'd left the pull-down on D7 just because I wasn't 100% sure about its function.
 
Isnt a production run on a green pcb not cheaper then deep cyan blue, because green was the basic color back then and was used for a lot of ISA card.. Deep cyan blue would be a more special color to me so it would be more expensiver.

At question 3: I presume that you going to sell a full kit then? So the buyer dont have to look after the right parts.

Why are there interrupt settings on the board if the universal bios dont use them at all? And does this adapter then works faster without these interrupt settings? (faster transfer rate)
 
The IRQs can be removed, all the BIOS does is request a transfer then poll the status bit, then rep INSW to transfer the sector (with chuck mod). Writes are slower with this MUX design, of course writes are less frequent in practice.
 
Isnt a production run on a green pcb not cheaper then deep cyan blue...

Not necessarily. Individual board houses (mostly all in China now) base their raw PCB prices very close, irregardless of silk-screen color. Personally I'd prefer any blue board over a green one since soldering issues are far easier to inspect on a blue board than a green one.
 
Isnt a production run on a green pcb not cheaper then deep cyan blue, because green was the basic color back then and was used for a lot of ISA card.. Deep cyan blue would be a more special color to me so it would be more expensiver.

With the board house I use, solder mask costs the same regardless of color. The fact that the board is an ISA card has no bearing on its cost, other than the added expense of having the edge connector plated with hard gold.

Not to be flippant with anyone, but I do have extensive experience in managing small production runs of PC boards. It's part of what I do for a living. I'd like to think I'm decent at it!

At question 3: I presume that you going to sell a full kit then? So the buyer dont have to look after the right parts.

Yes, there will be a full kit, and I'll probably take the time to write an assembly manual, or at least do a writeup on my assembly of an example board.

Why are there interrupt settings on the board if the universal bios dont use them at all? And does this adapter then works faster without these interrupt settings? (faster transfer rate)

They exist because someone might want to use them in the future, and they're not hurting anything by being there but not being used. I see no reason to remove functionality and limit potential

Personally I'd prefer any blue board over a green one since soldering issues are far easier to inspect on a blue board than a green one.

I also find the contrast to be better with blue boards, as long as they're not too dark. The board house I'm working with has a very nice deep cyan which really makes the traces stand out. Plus I like to think it differentiates my projects a little bit :)

It just dawned on me, this won't work on dodgy systems like the AT&T PC 6300. If the "Chuck Mod" is permanent, then this board has no chance of working in those systems, does it?

This and BIOS compatibility is why I chose to leave the Chuck Mod as a jumperable option.
 
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