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Need help when use isa-to-usb card in IBM 5160!

Thought as much. Does this also apply to the card mentioned by OP in post 1 (i.e. so there is still no ISA USB solution)?
 
Yes. This was my first community project attempt, but for whatever reason it's been a struggle to keep it moving.

The prototypes were subsidised and perhaps that was a mistake, I wonder how many were actually built (I know of only one).

But, we are all just hobbyists and these things do take time.
 
I wish pearce_jj's project success. The idea of making an usb adapter for early pc is great, because my card works good,my friends are surprised to see such an old IBM PC booting from an usb drive.
 
Some progress on this project, thanks to Malc and Pietja. The silk text is wrong and the CH375 is - on the Lo-tech r.1 USB board - listening at 2C0h. But it's working :)
 
On the Lo-tech r.1 USB board the connections to IC1 need to change to get it back at 260h if we want to

pearce_jj can you also include an example config.sys and the CH375DOS.SYS driver on your website for the people that don't use the boot rom?
Everything is in this post http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthre...-to-usb-card-in-IBM-5160!&p=378800#post378800

For anyone doing something on the software sides of things here are all the IO address used on the current boards with lots of aliases:
Code: 
China
260 R/W Data
261 R Port Interrupt (b7), W command
262 R HW Interrupt (b0) Status J1 (b6)
263 R HW Interrupt (b0) Status J1 (b6)
264 R/W Data 
265 R Port Interrupt (b7), W command
266 R HW Interrupt (b0) Status J1 (b6)
267 R HW Interrupt (b0) Status J1 (b6)
268 R/W Data
269 R Port Interrupt (b7), W command
26A R HW Interrupt (b0) Status J1 (b6)
26B R HW Interrupt (b0) Status J1 (b6)
26C R/W Data
26D R Port Interrupt (b7), W command
26E R HW Interrupt (b0) Status J1 (b6)
26F R HW Interrupt (b0) Status J1 (b6)

lo-tech - Std
2C0 R/W Data
2C1 R Port Interrupt (b7), W command
2C2 R/W Data
2C3 R Port Interrupt (b7), W command
2C4 R/W Data 
2C5 R Port Interrupt (b7), W command
2C6 R/W Data
2C7 R Port Interrupt (b7), W command

lo-tech - Fast
2C0 R/W Data
2C1 R/W Data
2C2 R Port Interrupt (b7), W command
2C3 R Port Interrupt (b7), W command
2C4 R/W Data 
2C5 R/W Data
2C6 R Port Interrupt (b7), W command
2C7 R Port Interrupt (b7), W command
 
Yes rev2 will be back to 260 (perhaps an option). In the mean time we need to patch the ROM for the port change.

I believe the CONFIG.SYS line as it stands is: DEVICE=C:\DOS\CH375DOS.SYS @2C0 %2
 
My Initial limited testing of my lo-tech USB to ISA adapter:

Test machine is my IBM XT 5160 running DOS 6.22, Using CH375 DOS driver version 1.9A which uses about 2k ram, I tried version 2.0A but was noticeably slower on my XT so went back to 1.9A, I have the iospeed setting set to 0 in config.sys.

I can access / read / write to all my flash drives, 1 / 2 and 4Gb, The 4Gb flash drive is partitioned into 2 partitions but only the first is seen, I also can access CF cards / SD cards in USB adapters, 128Mb - 1Gb. I'm very pleased with the way it's working thus far, Though I would like to see a proper bracket made avaiable and a USB header on board at a later stage. I have done no testing with the Boot Rom yet.
 
Did a little bit more testing, The card works well in slot 8 in my XT 5160 using the DOS driver, Slot 8 functionality can be enabled / disabled via jumper on the card, I can transfer files easily from my XP box to the XT using a flash drive, I connected a known working powered 4 port USB hub to the card and with a flash drive connected to the hub the flash drive is not found, The flash drive must be connected directly to the card.

I have tried the various incarnations of the BIOS posted in this thread, I changed the IO address to 2C0 and amended the checksum byte but could not get any of them to boot into dos via the flash drive, The BIOS that ineverland posted gave me " Missing Operating System ".

I currently have Sergey's floppy bios and the XUB in ROM on the card and it works fine, My free time is very limited at the mo, I'm spending most of it making hospital visits and traveling to and from, So unable to spend the time on this project i'd like.
 
ineverland found that the current BIOS has fixed CHS parameters that have to match the flash drive that your are using.
http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthre...-to-usb-card-in-IBM-5160!&p=386024#post386024
http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthre...-to-usb-card-in-IBM-5160!&p=387540#post387540

The "Missing Operating System" error is read from the flash drive you are using now.
On my flash drives i get the same message only in a different language because the drive was formatted on a non English OS.
This means the current BIOS is partially executing the boot sector on the flash drive.
 
Since the board seems to be basically working, I've gone ahead and laid out a rev.2 which allows for the connection of an internal CompactFlash module and external USB. This PCB will though be a little more pricey as it's 4-layer and much larger than the rev.01.

ISA-USB-r02.png


Performance and stability testing results are back. The driver, as expected, is quite slow (20KB/s) but this is probably enough for file transfer. It can definitely be improved should anyone wish to do so.
 
Yes, In it's current state the BIOS is unusable, To me anyway.

pietja said:
ineverland found that the current BIOS has fixed CHS parameters that have to match the flash drive that your are using.
Click to expand...
 
I assume it will take an easily available bracket ?

As yet i've only tested in my XT 5160 but intend to test in my 486 and early pentium when i get the time.

pearce_jj said:
Since the board seems to be basically working, I've gone ahead and laid out a rev.2 which allows for the connection of an internal CompactFlash module and external USB. This PCB will though be a little more pricey as it's 4-layer and much larger than the rev.01.

Performance and stability testing results are back. The driver, as expected, is quite slow (20KB/s) but this is probably enough for file transfer. It can definitely be improved should anyone wish to do so.
Click to expand...
 
I now have my lo-tech usb - isa card in my 486 box, DOS driver works as it did in my XT 5160, The BIOS that ineverland modified and posted, I could not get to work in my XT 5160. However using the same BIOS ( I changed the IO address to 2C0 and amended the checksum byte ) and same bootable 128Mb CF card in a USB adapter, My 486 boots successfully into DOS, A few quirks i also noticed is after a cold reboot the machine fails to boot again and i have to turn the machine off, But warm reboots results in a successful boot every time, Also my floppy drive activity led stays lit all the time so i disabled them in the system bios. With the machine booted via USB I ran a couple of test's using the lo-tech disktest utility and attached pics.

Boot.jpg test1.jpg test2.jpg

ineverland said:
This is the modified bios rom, it's not perfect but it may work in some situation.
I ran the Disktest.com writen by pearce_jj,but I don't finish the test,it runs for along time.
fdisk.com don't work with this card,it can't detect fixed disk.and if you use a large partition,dir command will take a long time too.
Click to expand...
 
It would be great if the XUB supported this chip, It would be so much better especially on the XT, The DOS driver works OK on my XT 5160 and 486 though a little slow on my XT, " Loadsys " can be used to load / unload the dos driver if needed instead of loading it via config.sys. The BIOS worked(ish) on my 486 with issues so that really needs work, I used an old version of the HP USB drive format tool ( SP27608 ) to make my flash drives bootable, I use the command line version as i have found the windows version can sometimes be unreliable. Looking forward to getting the R2 when it's available.
 
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