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XTIDE tech support thread

i have tested serial drive. here is the results.
it communicates at 460 maximum with both 7.3728 or 14.7456.
maybe my cheap usb-serial aren't good enough. anyway 460 feels not so bad :)
 
Thank you for testing!

I see three possible causes for this not working;

The serial cable is too long.
Not counting the USB part of course. Ideally, the USB-Serial adapter would be connected directly to the serial port on the computer (might need a gender changer inbetween).

The processor is too slow.
I guess it's running at 9.54 MHz in turbo mode?

The USB-Serial adapter actually doesn't support transfer speeds of 921600 bps.
Post its brand/model number and I'll try to verify if it does.
 
Hi :)
cable about 50cm only. CPU 9.54, right.
Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port
most cheapest dongle on ebay, blue colored within transparent shrinking tube.
it works on ttl levels, so i have connected tx and rx directly to 16550 pins, and removed max232 from it's socket for better results :)

is it really important to reach 921? does anyone did this before? i can continue to play around with it as i have many tools and adapters, and surely some 775 motherboard with hardware serial... but is it worth it?
 
Sziklai said:
Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port
most cheapest dongle on ebay, blue colored within transparent shrinking tube.
Click to expand...
I can't verify if it supports 921600 bps as it depends on the exact model of chipset used in the adapter. And that's assuming it's not a counterfeit to begin with. :)

I guess the best way to verify is to try it with something else and measure the actual speed. If the driver/software allows you to select 921600 bps then that's a good sign I suppose.

it works on ttl levels, so i have connected tx and rx directly to 16550 pins, and removed max232 from it's socket for better results :)
Click to expand...
Wow, don't go overboard with testing! Anything beyond normal usage is pointless. :)

is it really important to reach 921? does anyone did this before? i can continue to play around with it as i have many tools and adapters, and surely some 775 motherboard with hardware serial... but is it worth it?
Click to expand...

No one has tried it before as far as I know. The virtual serial drive feature is not very popular, mostly because it's so slow. If it can be proven to work (with a certain hardware configuration) then I think more people will try it and hopefully find it useful.

Whether it's important enough or worth it or not, is up to you! ;)

Either way, thanks again for testing!
 
No no.. max232 is level converter so if you use most usb-serial converters you'll need to remove this chip, otherwise adapter will be burned surely. so it's not result enhancer, it does not boost or do even something with speed )

my adapter is PL-2303HX.. as written in datasheet "The flexible baud rate generator of PL-2303HX could be programmed to generate any rate between 75 bps to 12M bps."
according to this adapter can handle 921Kbps easily and it pointless to test asus board with hardware serial as it officially support 128k only.

i think to popularize serial communication server part of software must support "directory sharing" and not .img files.
that way you can manipulate files on server much easily and see changes on-fly with ctrl-R in file manager on client computer.
as for now editing .img are complicated. much faster to place CF in card-reader :)

if someone are doubt about serial communication, 460k is pretty like my CF cards, so it's not so slow like you think :) have a try!
 
Weird behaviour when using XT+ Bios on Lo-tech CF adapter

Weird behaviour when using XT+ Bios on Lo-tech CF adapter

I have a Lo-tech ISA CompactFlash adaptor in an IBM 5160 w/NEC V20 connected to a Hitachi Microdrive.
I am using the BIOS provided here: https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/downloads...ash-adapter/xtide-r566-xt-cf-master-slave.zip

All works great with IDE_XT.BIN, but when I flash IDE_XTP.BIN I get unpredictable behaviour like there's timing-based corruption happening.

For example:
- Sometimes the machine just reboots when attempting to boot from C
- During DOS boot, "SETVER.EXE not found", after a few tries it's OK
- Hanging mid-way through DOS boot
- I had a hang when booting from a floppy too, probably when DOS tried to access the hard drive

Flashing back to IDE_XT.BIN makes everything OK again.
Any suggestions welcome :)
 
You could try a newer Bios and see if that makes a difference, James has r580 on his website, You'll need to configure it first using XTIDECFG.com and then Flash it using the Lo-Tech flash utility.
 
OK, tried the R580 IDE_XTP.BIN but unfortunately it has the same behaviour.

Anything else I can try, is it possible that my V20's got issues? Any good tests for the 186 instruction set?
Alternatively, can anyone else with a V20 verify that the prebuilt XT+ bios works for them?

Thanks
 
I don't have a built lo-tech CF adapter or any microdrives but i just pulled the 8080 cpu out of my 5160 and replaced it with a Sony V20. I flashed a Lo-tech rom board with R566 IDE_XT.bin from the lo-tech site and installed Dos 6.22 on a clean CF card, It went without a hitch and works fine.

I then Re-flashed the rom board with the IDE_XTP.bin and rebooted, It's also working fine, I've not noticed any problems in the half hour i had the machine running. So yes the Prebuilt XT+ R566 bios is working for me.
 
Thanks. I guess I should try with a normal CF card instead of the microdrive.
The problems seem to be centred around booting from C. If I boot from floppy I can access the microdrive without issues.
 
The difference between XT and XTP in the transfer code is REP INSB and REP INSW for XTP.
 
OK, I tried a CF card, different IDE cable and different IDE->CF adaptor. With another CF adapter both CF and Microdrive worked fine with XTP. With the original CF adaptor but another IDE cable, the CF card works fine with XTP.

I think it's a general signal quality problem between the drive and interface card. I've decided to swap in the 1GB CF card anyway and use an 80 conductor cable, so everything should be fine from here.
 
bjt said:
OK, I tried a CF card, different IDE cable and different IDE->CF adaptor. With another CF adapter both CF and Microdrive worked fine with XTP. With the original CF adaptor but another IDE cable, the CF card works fine with XTP.

I think it's a general signal quality problem between the drive and interface card. I've decided to swap in the 1GB CF card anyway and use an 80 conductor cable, so everything should be fine from here.
Click to expand...

I had cable trouble with an XT-IDE in my Tandy 1000HX. It worked fine with the 6" 40 conductor cable that came with the CF adapter, and works fine with an 18" 80 conductor cable, but an 18" 40 conductor cable (tested good in another system with CD-ROM drive) wouldn't work. Since I have plenty of the 80 conductor cables laying around from various PC builds over the years, I just went with what worked.
 
OK, using an 80 conductor cable now and all is good with the XTP bios. Thanks all.

BTW James thanks for your boards - I have the compactflash and 2MB EMS boards working now and both are great.
 
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yes! i got 1.8432mhz crystal!
serial mouse are working good!
don't need an external serial controller anymore!

after that i followed google link for ps/2 to serial adapter made of pic 16f628. and guess what!?
man! i got ps/2 optical(!) mouse to run with mine 8086 cpu! everything works great!
thank you all for such a good board with ide and mouse all within.
cheers
 
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Howdy I have a Tandy 1000 TL with three floppy drives, A,B,C. The rom based dos 3.3 becomes d. The boot up shows the compact flash card as master, but after that it does not show up, even though it's formatted for dos.

If I run the setuptl.exe /a and tell the computer I only have 1 floppy, it will boot from that disk, and then I have access to the compact flash, so installed dos 5.0 on it, but I cannot get the computer to boot from the compact flash. Floppy yes then access the drive but not from the drive itself...

When I did the dos 5.0 install it all went well, no errors, but it will not boot from c.
Only A. I did see that error 1h! At one point but not sure what is going on...

Hoping to have at least 1 3.5" and 1 5 1/4" drive along with the compact flash.

Is it possible to disable the built in dos?

Any help appreciated. :0)

P.s. The boot on the card (isa to compact flash card from Lo-Tech) is at C000 the default and at 0300


Cheers!
 
pearce_jj said:
Boot from floppy dos 622 with CompactFlash connected then run FDISK /MBR
Click to expand...

hmmmm ok i ran FDISK /MBR with my 5.0 dos disk, and rebooted...

at the top of the screen where it indicates the boot options, I dont have a C >>HDD [c] it says D>>HDD[C]

in order for it to boot from the compact flash, i have to hit D on the keyboard, then it will boot from the compact flash,
so we are further ahead... when I hit D then I see the above change to D>>HDD[D] and then it will boot from the compact flash...
once it does boot, the compact flash is C:

so it kind of works, and the MBR trick did allow me to boot from the hard drive, but is there a way to set it so I dont have to hit the D key in order for the tandy 1000 to boot from the compact flash automatically :)

thanks again James, we are definately further ahead :)
 
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I'd probably just hook out one of the floppy drives and disable the ROM drive (which IIRC can be done from SETUPTL utility).
 
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