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Xt-ide

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bugman2112

Experienced Member
Joined
Jan 7, 2008
Messages
180
Location
Clifton Park, NY
Hey guys,

Please dont shoot me for asking a question that i am sure is covered somewhere in this forum. Feel free to direct me to the right thread. I have an unbuilt xt-ide that i want to implement in a 5170. I had two, the first one i got up and running in an XT that i sold. I beleive it is one of hargle's last boards with his last official bios .11? Any help or direction is appreciated.
 
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I see that Maverick1978 already stated that (about the wiki)! He is the fastest shooter in the West.
I love the XT-IDE board!

If you still need some help, just ask ;)
 
bugman2112 said:
Hey guys,

Please dont shoot me for asking a question that i am sure is covered somewhere in this forum. Feel free to direct me to the right thread. I have an unbuilt xt-ide that i want to implement in a 5170. I had two, the first one i got up and running in an XT that i sold. I beleive it is one of hargle's last boards with his last official bios .11? Any help or direction is appreciated.
Click to expand...

I think it was me you sold that board too. I still have it.. For a while I was using the newer rev 2 board, but since it failed I'm back to using the one you sold me.. Works great still to this day. Had to make a small modification to it, wiring VCC up to the pin on the IDE header to allow me to use my disk on module without a power header.
 
I did a quick search under 5170, and only found one entry that seems to be indicating that there might be some BIOS incompatabilities? My newly purchased 5170 is on its way, and the seller told me it had one of the later 3rd party BIOS installed. Perhaps that will help. Also, I need to read more about this "universal BIOS" that now exists for the XT-IDE to see if it is compatable with my board. That wasn't around before when I was working on my first XT-IDE project.
If anyone has some ideas on what I might be up against, let me know. Otherwise I'll post again once I have everything and give it a try.
 
bugman2112 said:
I did a quick search under 5170, and only found one entry that seems to be indicating that there might be some BIOS incompatabilities? My newly purchased 5170 is on its way, and the seller told me it had one of the later 3rd party BIOS installed. Perhaps that will help. Also, I need to read more about this "universal BIOS" that now exists for the XT-IDE to see if it is compatable with my board. That wasn't around before when I was working on my first XT-IDE project.
If anyone has some ideas on what I might be up against, let me know. Otherwise I'll post again once I have everything and give it a try.
Click to expand...

The universal BIOS works fine on the XT-IDE card you sold me, so it works fine on the old models.. I have to actually use the universal BIOS to access my ROM BASIC.
 
Glad you are getting good use out of that card. I thought I was done with early IBM's, but I am back again. Thanks for the info on the Universal BIOS, that is exactly what I was looking for.
 
bugman2112 said:
Glad you are getting good use out of that card. I thought I was done with early IBM's, but I am back again. Thanks for the info on the Universal BIOS, that is exactly what I was looking for.
Click to expand...

Not a problem. For FYI, I am using the last stable version of the universal BIOS, not the BETA one.
 
For an AT you'd better use a regular 16-bit IDE card (not an XT-IDE) such as this one. In case you'll be using a disk bigger than 528 MB you'll need either a disk manager program or a BIOS extension ROM that supports LBA, such as Universal BIOS. Now for hosting the BIOS extension ROM you can use an XT-IDE card (just the ROM and the 74LS688 that generates ROM /CS), or a network card with an available ROM socket.
 
sergey said:
For an AT you'd better use a regular 16-bit IDE card (not an XT-IDE) such as this one. In case you'll be using a disk bigger than 528 MB you'll need either a disk manager program or a BIOS extension ROM that supports LBA, such as Universal BIOS. Now for hosting the BIOS extension ROM you can use an XT-IDE card (just the ROM and the 74LS688 that generates ROM /CS), or a network card with an available ROM socket.
Click to expand...

After reading the new sections on the universal BIOS, I thought the XT-IDE would work fine in an 5170?
Furthermore, if I decide to go the route of the 16bit card as you suggest, can I use a hard drive or CF adapter that is larger than 528 and simply live with the size limitation (i.e. can I trick the adapter/pc into thinking it is a smaller drive)?
 
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>After reading the new sections on the universal BIOS, I thought the XT-IDE would work fine in an 5170?
It will work just fine. Your performance will suck, since you're only using 1/2 of the 16bit bus in your 5170, but it will do what it is supposed to do-give you lots of cheap storage.

>Furthermore, if I decide to go the route of the 16bit card as you suggest, can I use a hard drive or CF adapter that is larger than 528 and simply live with the size limitation (i.e. can I trick the adapter/pc into thinking it is a smaller drive)?

Likely, yes. the 528mb limit is a software limit.
A better solution would be to find a 16 bit IDE controller that has a BIOS chip you can replace. Pop in the Universal BIOS in AT mode and you'll get your 16 bit performance, and storage sizes that will blow your mind.
 
Since you mention Compact Flash, my forthcoming board might be of interest. Although it's 8-bit like the original XT/IDE, with memory-mapped IO it will do about 1MB/s on a 12MHz AT.
 
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