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XTIDE Universal BIOS

My bad, It's the blue Glitch Works kit (rev 4), that I bought from him/them on Ebay. (labled 'Seller you bought from)

I've never had the ROM error out when writing it, but I suppose I could try buying another one.
 
Moogle! said:
My bad, It's the blue Glitch Works kit (rev 4), that I bought from him/them on Ebay. (labled 'Seller you bought from)

I've never had the ROM error out when writing it, but I suppose I could try buying another one.
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Well, I was going by what was on his site. No idea what's on eBay.

Check the ROM Enable switch, and try testing the ROM in the programmer. I haven't tried the 2.0.0B3 R602, but 1.1.5 r566 does have problems recognizing some CF cards, I've noticed (or maybe that was just where I had the '245 buffer located on my protoboard). R601 solved the problems I was having.

Also, what mode are you using to program the BIOS? If you're using PIO-8 mode, it probably won't like it.
 
I have no idea what mode the GQ-4x4 uses. It's been pretty successful in the past with other EPROMS, Flashchips, and OTPs.

I pulled the 8K EPROM from my Hedaka 919 to test with. Erasing it in the UV box now.
 
Make sure you have a backup of that BIOS before you wipe it. Once you have a clean EEPROM chip use the XTIDECFG.COM utility to flash it. Make sure you're programming it as "XT-IDE" or "XT-IDE rev.2 (or modded rev.1)," whichever matches the Chuck-mod settings.
 
Well, EPROM idea was a dud, but I tried flashing it using XTIDECFG with the original 8K flash chip in it*, and it actually worked. I used r602. It still will not acknowledge any drive though, but I can at least boot from a floppy properly. (However that fails the first time, every time, after it looks for the hard disks and then tries the floppy.)

I am still playing with it. Thanks for the advice. :)

*ironically this sort of thing was the reason I bought that programmer, to avoid in-PC flashing
 
As you now know you *Must* configure the XUB for your particular system using XTIDECFG.COM first and then flash / burn to E/Eprom, Glitch Pre-flashes the EEproms in the kits with XUB v1.1.5 so if you originally setup a CF / hard drive using XUB v1.1.5 and upgrade to a recent newer revision of the XUB you will likely have to wipe / clean the CF / hard drive and re-partition / format the drive. It's probably a good idea to wipe / clean the hard drive in any case.You shouldn't really need a programmer to flash the EEprom in the XTIDE cards, XTIDECFG.com has gotten a lot better over the years.
Modem7 has some info on the XTIDE on his site http://minuszerodegrees.net/xtide/rev_4/XT-IDE Rev 4 - general.htm
 
I ultimately think you and blackeypon were correct about using XTIDECFG.

In the meantime, I just sat down and with my iron and re-flowed every single joint on that board. It looks a lot better now. I also moved the jumpers from compatibility to hi speed, and now it's ID-ing and booting from the drives again, and even seeing that 64MB compact flashcard.

Thanks for all the help guys.
 
Moogle! said:
Well, EPROM idea was a dud, but I tried flashing it using XTIDECFG with the original 8K flash chip in it*, and it actually worked. I used r602. It still will not acknowledge any drive though, but I can at least boot from a floppy properly. (However that fails the first time, every time, after it looks for the hard disks and then tries the floppy.)

I am still playing with it. Thanks for the advice. :)

*ironically this sort of thing was the reason I bought that programmer, to avoid in-PC flashing
Click to expand...

Well, that's progress, at least. That other chip you tried might have a different pinout than the Atmel the kit came with.

It's not necessary to use the FLASH utility; XTIDECFG can flash within the program itself. At least, it works for me. There's a data-protection flag you gotta set properly when flashing it, otherwise you can't re-flash in the utility without using a programmer to wipe it, and I'm still trying to figure out which way it's supposed to be set. But these programmers have other uses, so worth keeping around regardless.

You can hold down the [A] key at POST to make it boot straight to A:, and in the in XTIDECFG, once you have the BIOS loaded, before you flash it, under "Configure XTIDE Universal BIOS" > "Boot Settings," you can set the default boot device to 00h if you want first floppy, or 80h for the first hard drive.

What are J1 and J2 set to on the card? If it's configured for "high-speed mode" then under "Configure XTIDE Universal BIOS" > "Primary IDE Controller" > "Device Type" you'll need to have it set as "XT-IDE rev.2 or modded rev.1" when you flash the ROM, but if set for compatiblilty mode, then set for "XT-IDE rev.1". And of course, make sure the "Base (cmd block) address" is set for "300h," if that's what your card is set for. The ROM address switches can be changed at any time, but whatever the I/O switches are set for must be programmed into the BIOS when you flash it.
 
Moogle! said:
I ultimately think you and blackeypon were correct about using XTIDECFG.

In the meantime, I just sat down and with my iron and re-flowed every single joint on that board. It looks a lot better now. I also moved the jumpers from compatibility to hi speed, and now it's ID-ing and booting from the drives again, and even seeing that 64MB compact flashcard.

Thanks for all the help guys.
Click to expand...

Sweet! Glad we could help!
:D
 
blackepyon said:
....There's a data-protection flag you gotta set properly when flashing it, otherwise you can't re-flash in the utility without using a programmer to wipe it, and I'm still trying to figure out which way it's supposed to be set. But these programmers have other uses, so worth keeping around regardless...
Click to expand...
I've never set the data protection flag in XTIDECFG one way or the other, I always leave it enabled, As far as i know XTIDECFG will set the flag accordingly while erasing and reset it when finished depending on if it's set or not in XTIDECFG. The only times i have had to use a programmer to erase the EEprom is when i had a bad flash, That was back in the early days i got the bad flash every so often, I have not had one of those in a very long time. Yes well worth having a programmer or two, I have 6 of em.
 
Malc said:
I've never set the data protection flag in XTIDECFG one way or the other, I always leave it enabled, As far as i know XTIDECFG will set the flag accordingly while erasing and reset it when finished depending on if it's set or not in XTIDECFG. The only times i have had to use a programmer to erase the EEprom is when i had a bad flash, That was back in the early days i got the bad flash every so often, I have not had one of those in a very long time. Yes well worth having a programmer or two, I have 6 of em.
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Huh. Never worked for me. I could flash it once, and that was it, then I had to wipe it with the programmer. Which card do you have? It kept giving me a timeout error, when I tried reflashing it, but I've since moved the '245 buffer on the protoboard card closer to the bus (it's based on the XT-CF rev.2) and that cleared up some other issues I was having, so I could try again and see what happens.

If you're wondering why I built it on a protoboard instead of buying one of Lo-Tech's boards, it's cause my Tandy 1000HX only has so much room, and I had mo more space for another ISA-PLUS adapter, so I had to build it as a PLUS board. I'm trying to figure out if something in the construction might be causing that timeout error when re-flashing.
 
I have original VCF revision 1 - 2 and Glitch's R4 XTIDE cards, I also have a couple of lo-tech ISA - CF cards, When you say (it's based on the XT-CF rev.2) do you mean the lo-tech ISA - CF card or the VCF XTIDE R2, What EEprom is it using.
 
Sometimes you have to futz with the SDP setting. I haven't dug into why it's an issue with XTIDECFG. I've used the AT28C64B in several other projects, along with other EEPROMs that use SDP, and never had a problem with it. You just send a specific byte sequence to a specific set of addresses before writes to "unlock" SDP. There's a sequence you can send to completely disable it, too, but I always use it as a backup safeguard, in case someone leave the write switch on.
 
-Continued-

Aaaaand.... It seems to be behaving itself now. Go figure. Perhaps it was the location of the '245 after all. It lets me re-flash within the XTIDECFG now.

It also had trouble recognizing all but one 16MB CF card before I moved the '245 (see first picture). I figure that having all the signal wires bundled together originally might have been too much noise for it. Any ideas?

XT-CF PLUS show back.jpgXT-CF PLUS show front.jpg
 
I'm no fan of those cheap CF adapters, Over the years i've found them to be the cause of so many problems, They either don't work or work and fail after some use, They all ended up in the bin, I'd rather pay a bit more and get a decent one or more recently i've been using SD card adapters and a couple of DOM's i removed from a couple of thin clients i upgraded with SD card adapters for more storage space. I don't own any Tandy's so don't know how much room you have to play with.
 
Malc said:
I'm no fan of those cheap CF adapters, Over the years i've found them to be the cause of so many problems, They either don't work or work and fail after some use, They all ended up in the bin, I'd rather pay a bit more and get a decent one or more recently i've been using SD card adapters and a couple of DOM's i removed from a couple of thin clients i upgraded with SD card adapters for more storage space. I don't own any Tandy's so don't know how much room you have to play with.
Click to expand...

Actually, this is one of the CF adapters that I've had the least problems with. I'm curious to know what goes wrong with them. The only thing I can think of is that some of the cheaper ones don't have any decoupling caps.

For an example of how little space this machine has, take a look at this:
IMG_20190101_164410058.jpg
These picture were taken before. There's a total of three slots. The RAM card beneath has the riser headers for the next two cards, and I've got an I/O card on top for the use of it's serial port, because this Tandy doesn't come with one with which to use a mouse. PLUS cards are more or less electrically compatible with the XT/ISA bus, so a simple adapter can be used to plug in an ISA card, but that usually takes up space, forcing the card to misalign with the slot, or you need to use a ribbon adapter, which itself takes up considerable space.
CAM00390.jpg
This is with the ISA I/O card installed on top.

Another interesting thing I discovered, is that before I moved the '245, with that ribbon adapter installed, regardless of whether the I/O card was present, I had trouble recognizing certain CF cards other than that 16MB card, but as soon as I moved the '245, the issues disappeared. So I think the issue was related to signal noise.
 
I see, Not a lot of room, I've had CF adapters with crap solder joints, bridges in the trace's which burn after some use, Grounded pins that stop a computer from booting when connected to certain IDE/Floppy adapters, CF card corruption, Intermittent CF detection and lost a couple of CF cards when the adapter failed. etc etc, I don't buy them anymore, The only one's i like are the rear accessible type, never had a problem with those.
 
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