Re: WTB: Atari Hard Drive in UK
- From: "techie_alison" <techie_alison@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 25 Oct 2005 00:00:22 +0000 (UTC)
"Dave Wade" <g8mqw@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:4eOdna3hnLcz8sDenZ2dnUVZ8qKdnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> You might also want to check out
>
> http://atari4ever.free.fr/hardware/drives.html
>
> and look at the diagram there. I don't suppose it will work woth modern
> drives that need an initiator ID from the interface, but it might be a
good
> starting point. I checked to see if its the same as my BBDP interface and
> its not. The BBDP interface has 15 LS Ic's on it,
>
> 2 x LS374
> 2 x LS240
> 1 x LS138
> 1 x LS280
> 1 x LS08
> 1 x LS132
> 1 x LS09
> 1 x LS04
> 2 x LS74
> 1 x LS54
> 2 x 7404 (yes not an LS version)
>
> So not sure how you would hide any firmware in those :-) Its dated 1990
and
> works on all the machines I have tried it on , including an old MEGA ST
(NOT
> STE), and standard STE and a TT032. As I said before I did have to have
the
> GAL swapped in the STE but Atari did this without charge (except postage).
> Since I had the IDE interface popped into the STE I have used it mostly on
> Mega with an Seagate ST157N drive in it.
>
> Dave.
>
>
> "Dave Wade" <g8mqw@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:JsydnTSqaLTq9MDeRVnyvg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >> Hi David,
> >>
> >> Nope, definitely need an ACSI drive.
> >>
> >> Not going to get very far in developing what I am any other way. ;-)
> >>
> >> Sowwry, you're the third person to say, ooh have this or that. No, I
> >> definitely want an ACSI drive, preferably a stock Atari.
> >>
> >
> > There is no such thing as an ACSI "DRIVE". There are ASCI to MFM/RLL
> > interfaces (i.e. for non-SCSI drives) and ASCI to SCSI interfaces. Many
> > of the original drives went had two interfaces an ASCI <=> SCSI and then
a
> > SCSI <=> MFM. I used to have one years ago. Can't remember who made it..
> > (Omnitech? I think.) I still have the ASCI <=> SCSI bit which is a BBDP
> > interface but it now has a small capacity SCI drive on it.
> >
> >> There's hidden stuff in the way they behave which I need to find out,
> >> hence
> >> why the STE's wouldn't work with non Atari drives. It's hidden
responses
> >> in
> >> the firmware on the host boards and I need to get a storage scope on
the
> >> thing.
> >>
> >
> > As far as I know there is NO firmware in ASCI interfcaes. Keyboards are
> > programable, but the ASCI interfcaes, no way. In fcat STE's don't always
> > work with ATARI drives never mind third party drives. I think this issue
> > is just a plain and simple noise/buffering/no parity problem. If mnemory
> > serves me correctly the drives usually work fine until things start
> > getting a little warm, when they start to corrupt the directory. In my
> > case it would run for about 20 mins, when it would start too loose data
> > from the drive. If this is undocumented commands/responses I'll eat my
hat
> > (genuine Panama of course). In fact there was a suggestion some where
that
> > if you improved the voltage regulation to the dodgy GAL it would
(usually)
> > work. I bet they didn't design it properley, ignored the noise margins,
> > and then just didn't soak test the thing properly with enough machines.
> > Atari seemed to work like that at the time, no sense of quality...
> >
> >
> >> <smiles>
> >>
> >> Aly
> >>
> >
> > Love and kisses,
> >
> > Dave
> >>
> >
> >
>
>
Hello Dave,
You're gonna love this, one brilliant come back in the right place at the
right time.. Perhaps..
Top side of the Mega STE ACSI host board;
http://www.retro.dial.pipex.com/acsi_ref/images/image1.jpg
Okies;
The 245A is an octal bi-directional switch (would have expected to see 2 of
those if doubling up on pins)
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Media/product_pdfs/ub67.pdf
Those two marked ACSI and SCSI are GALS, so MCUs
The 374A's are octal flip flops
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Media/product_pdfs/ae28.pdf
I'm working out how these are used as am going to need some sort of method
in what I'm trying to design, so as to cut down on main MCU I/O pin usage.
As for those hidden commands, there aren't any, it's that noisy I/O as you
mentioned, have been reading up more through the magazines as time went by.
Some of the HDD manufacturers at the time endorsed modifications to their
kit involving cleaning caps etc. Well, saying that, Uwe has shed light on
some (well 1, 0x1fH), which were used by the ICD/Link host interfaces to
issue real SCSI commands through the ACSI port. The default ACSI
addressable sector count is 2^21 * 512 bytes / 1Gb, these commands allowed
this to be exceeded. Another mention has been made by ijor on another group
that you can switch to 1024 byte sectors etc.
<smiles> and thanks,
Aly
ps. It's a FUJI Finepix S7000 btw..
http://www.retro.dial.pipex.com/acsi_cf/images/image1.jpg
.
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