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Someone regonize this PC XT IDE controller card with Super FDC controller?

R

Robin4

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Sep 25, 2011
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A few weeks ago i found a PC XT hard drive set..

It came with an very rare PC XT-IDE controller interface card and a super FDC controller on one controller board..
For archive purpose i had to backup the onboard rom (before using this board) Which i did..

I dont have any manual for it, and also the FDC part doesnt seems to work strangely..
I also had to look in the bios rom to see if there was anything mentioned by manufacturer or other important clues which could help to clearify who made this pcb controller board and how to know to set it up..

I had some problems with the included seagate ST 325x hard drive it came with.. It didnt spin on could boot.. So i had to lift the controllerboard by hand and also free-ed up the engine by rotate it both sides..
After i did this. I mounted the controller board back and the drive spon up again (came back to live)
And connector the 40 pin ide cable to it and the drive booted up till the C: prompt..

For all i could see in the rom that something says `al corp`

Does anybody knows what the jumper setting are for (only know that there is a jumper for 27c64 and 27c128 roms and that there is a way to set the roms addres..


I like to know how to set up the floppy drive types.. (it seems it cant set it normally like with the regular jumper block.)
Anyone know what HDC jumper is for> i guess its for enable and disable the harddrive part. Ive already put a jumper on in horizontal position, but that seems to do anything..
What is DGSEL for?? (SEL should stand for `select`i guess)
 

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The FDC part looks like it's not working because the necessary chips, including the FDC controller, were removed. It would be interesting to provide hi res scans of this board. I might have a go at tracing it for practice.

I'm also looking for hi res scans of a Rancho RT1000B so that I can make replicas as well. SCSI cards seem to be getting more rarer these days...
 
Thats bizarre, they installed the FDC header and sockets for the FDC chip, but it looks like it is missing some other components used by the FDC.
 
If the silkscreening is to be believed, the contacts in the top left-hand corner ought to be populated with a jumper block, and that's how the floppy drive types are set.
 
SomeGuy said:
Thats bizarre, they installed the FDC header and sockets for the FDC chip, but it looks like it is missing some other components used by the FDC.
Click to expand...

Is this done by the factory? Or maybe did one of the previous owners modified the board?

Kazblox said:
The FDC part looks like it's not working because the necessary chips, including the FDC controller, were removed. It would be interesting to provide hi res scans of this board. I might have a go at tracing it for practice.

I'm also looking for hi res scans of a Rancho RT1000B so that I can make replicas as well. SCSI cards seem to be getting more rarer these days...
Click to expand...


How to make high reso scans of the board? I dont want to dissamble all the parts so i cant use it anymore.. If the board goes bad then it shouldnt matter, but for this instance i rather keep it like its now.

JohnElliott said:
If the silkscreening is to be believed, the contacts in the top left-hand corner ought to be populated with a jumper block, and that's how the floppy drive types are set.
Click to expand...


Normally it should, yes.. But maybe this one works different with a drive auto detect system.. Some of those older Super FDC cards do.. Like the ST JUKO m16.
 
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Robin4 said:
How to make high reso scans of the board? I dont want to dissamble all the parts so i cant use it anymore.. If the board goes bad then it shouldnt matter, but for this instance i rather keep it like its now.
Click to expand...
With a higher resolution camera kept at a still angle? :rolleyes: The board does not have to be disassembled, it can be just left as is.
 
Robin4 said:
Is this done by the factory? Or maybe did one of the previous owners modified the board?
Click to expand...
My guess would be the factory. Some of these low-volume Taiwanese parts from this era were pretty sloppy. Parts were probably bought and used by a cheap OEM that didn't care if some were goofy.
 
Anybody perhaps knows what DGSEL means on the card?

The card also need 5x 150 Ohm resistors?
 
By process of elimination, I would suspect that might be a selection for the IDE's IO port address and/or IRQ. But then I don't know what the DG stands for.

Then, that might mean "Drive Geometry" select, if the BIOS is hard coded to certain drive types or geometry translation.

If you are thinking about populating the rest of the board, I'd suspect you might need whatever chip is supposed to be in U10. Are any traces even going to U1? But keep in mind, unless there is evidence that it was actually used as an FDC before, I would suspect that the PCB might have faults that could affect the FDC potion.
 
Or it could be that the board was designed as a HDD controller/FDD controller and then different models were created that supported higher functions at higher price. I.E. the same circuit board when fully populated from the factory w/ the correct chips, jumpers, etc. would work as both a HDD and FDD controller. However, this may be the low end version hence the missing chips/parts. This was relatively common practice. Take a look at Adaptec SCSI cards (e.g. AHA-1740 vs AHA-1742) the silk screen showed the place for the FDD connectors on both boards but on the 1742 they were populated.

1740.jpg

1742.jpg
 
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