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WTB: 8 bit ISA Floppy controller

lucasdaytona

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 23, 2011
Messages
560
Location
Brasil
Hello guys, I'm in need of a 8 bit ISA Floppy controller, any brand, but working. Need it to be shipped to US. Please send me offers by PM.

Thank you!

Lucas
 
I have 2 of them, both from XT machines, one is a full length card the other is a short card.

What kind of drives are you going to hook up to them?
 
I never had a XT board, always used those super ide 16 bit cards, with 3 1/2 (1.44MB) and 5 1/4 (1.2MB) without problem.

I don't know what type of card should I use =\

thank you!
 
Hmm, some more details about what it is you are trying to do would help us recommend something for you.

1. What type of machine is it going into?
2. What drives do you hope to hook up to it (360k, 1.2Mb, 720k, 1.44Mb or some other type)?
3. What is your ultimate goal here (eg "Trying to read some 360k floppies on my 8088 based 8 bit PC)?
 
Hmm, some more details about what it is you are trying to do would help us recommend something for you.

1. What type of machine is it going into?
2. What drives do you hope to hook up to it (360k, 1.2Mb, 720k, 1.44Mb or some other type)?
3. What is your ultimate goal here (eg "Trying to read some 360k floppies on my 8088 based 8 bit PC)?

Ok:

1. It is going into a Turbo XT 8088 (mounted in a regular AT case) ,I still didn't get the MB, but I think it's from NEC.
2. I plan to hook two drives, one 1.44Mb(3 1/2), and one 1.2Mb(5 1/4)
3. My ultimate goal is to read 1.44Mb and 1.2Mb disks and play Prince of Persia on my first XT!
4. Thank you :D
 
Last edited:
OK, so you don't want an ordinary 8 bit ISA floppy controller which will only handle DD drives (360 & 720K). Either one of the relatively rare multi-format 8-bit FDCs or a 16-bit multi-I/O that will fit.
 
OK, so you don't want an ordinary 8 bit ISA floppy controller which will only handle DD drives (360 & 720K). Either one of the relatively rare multi-format 8-bit FDCs or a 16-bit multi-I/O that will fit.

Not sure, but would this work?

Board.jpg


It's a half length card.
It's got an IDE connection, a floppy connection (cable leaving goes to two floppy drives with a wye in it to also go to a tape drive). And then it's got four other connectors of various sorts.
I've no idea what it does - I tried to give it away a year ago, no bites, so it's sat the drawer.
I think it came out of a generic Taiwanese 486 but I'm not sure.
 
Ok:

1. It is going into a Turbo XT 8088 (mounted in a regular AT case) ,I still didn't get the MB, but I think it's from NEC.
2. I plan to hook two drives, one 1.44Mb(3 1/2), and one 1.2Mb(5 1/4)
3. My ultimate goal is to read 1.44Mb and 1.2Mb disks and play Prince of Persia on my first XT!
4. Thank you :D

Perfect, now we are all on the same page.

You will need one of 2 solutions to get that machine to use HD drives/disks (1.2 and 1.44mb floppies).

Option 1: A floppy drive controller with it's own BIOS. They are out there, but are a bit hard to find and may be quite expensive. Here is one on ebay (as near as I can tell this a floppy controller w/ a BIOS). This option allows you to boot from HD floppies.

Option 2: You get a standard EIDE controller (like the one Lorne is offering), plug it into a slot that allows for the back end of the 16 bit ISA connector to not hit anything (like a capacitor) and then you run a piece of software to allow for HD drive support. 2M-Xbios is what I used. Check out here for some info. *NOTE* You won't be able to boot off of HD disks w/ this option, it also will chew up more memory than option 1. If you machine has a hard drive I recommend you load 2M, copy the game to the HDD then unload it to free up the memory and run the game from the hard drive.
 
Perfect, now we are all on the same page.

You will need one of 2 solutions to get that machine to use HD drives/disks (1.2 and 1.44mb floppies).

Option 1: A floppy drive controller with it's own BIOS. They are out there, but are a bit hard to find and may be quite expensive. Here is one on ebay (as near as I can tell this a floppy controller w/ a BIOS). This option allows you to boot from HD floppies.

Option 2: You get a standard EIDE controller (like the one Lorne is offering), plug it into a slot that allows for the back end of the 16 bit ISA connector to not hit anything (like a capacitor) and then you run a piece of software to allow for HD drive support. 2M-Xbios is what I used. Check out here for some info. *NOTE* You won't be able to boot off of HD disks w/ this option, it also will chew up more memory than option 1. If you machine has a hard drive I recommend you load 2M, copy the game to the HDD then unload it to free up the memory and run the game from the hard drive.


I think I get it, I have 15 cards like that from the picture(standard EIDE), one should work. I still don't have a hard drive, I'm waiting the new XT-IDE cards get finished...

thank you for the info!
 
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