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New IDE/Compact Flash interface for ADAM


jblenkle

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Well, I'm sure those of you who are on the ADAM mailing list have seen the announcement:

 

The ADAM News Network announces the addition of NEW ide interface cards to the ADAM community. MicroFox Technologies has mastered a new design of an ide card which fits into slot 1 of the ADAM, just as the MI card did. This card can use an ide hard drive; a compact flash card; a Sparq drive; and a zip drive. ANN has produced a run of cards to make available to the ADAM community . Also available is a package containing a 60mb compact flash card preprogrammed with CV games, calc, basic & powerpaint; an ide cable; a power supply; a power adapter cable; and the boot ddp (or disk) to access the ide device. Goto http://ann.hollowdreams.com and follow the “ANN catalog” link to see what ANN has to offer the cummunity.

Also available are the ColecoVision Technical Manual; the Coleco ADAM Technical Manual; the Coleco Programmers Manual; and The Coleco ADAM computer schematics. Free for downloading. they are large compressed (7 zip) files and will take some time to download; but these are the clearest schematics we have seen. They came to us from a long time ADAMite who also donated some goodies awhile back, and we hope some more in the future. Goto http://ann.hollowdreams.com and follow the “ColecoVision Programming” link to see what ANN has to offer the community.

 

Ordinarily, I'd be jumping up and down, but all I've saved for is the SGM...can't afford both. Hopefully these will be available into the future and aren't just a limited run.

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Cool stuff! :)

 

Also available is a package containing a 60mb compact flash card preprogrammed with CV games, calc, basic & powerpaint; an ide cable; a power supply; a power adapter cable; and the boot ddp (or disk) to access the ide device.

 

The "power supply" powers what, exactly? The 60mb compact flash card? Or are we talking about a replacement for the printer's power supply?

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Well, I'm sure those of you who are on the ADAM mailing list have seen the announcement:

 

The ADAM News Network announces the addition of NEW ide interface cards to the ADAM community. MicroFox Technologies has mastered a new design of an ide card which fits into slot 1 of the ADAM, just as the MI card did. This card can use an ide hard drive; a compact flash card; a Sparq drive; and a zip drive. ANN has produced a run of cards to make available to the ADAM community . Also available is a package containing a 60mb compact flash card preprogrammed with CV games, calc, basic & powerpaint; an ide cable; a power supply; a power adapter cable; and the boot ddp (or disk) to access the ide device. Goto http://ann.hollowdreams.com and follow the “ANN catalog” link to see what ANN has to offer the cummunity.

Also available are the ColecoVision Technical Manual; the Coleco ADAM Technical Manual; the Coleco Programmers Manual; and The Coleco ADAM computer schematics. Free for downloading. they are large compressed (7 zip) files and will take some time to download; but these are the clearest schematics we have seen. They came to us from a long time ADAMite who also donated some goodies awhile back, and we hope some more in the future. Goto http://ann.hollowdreams.com and follow the “ColecoVision Programming” link to see what ANN has to offer the community.

 

Ordinarily, I'd be jumping up and down, but all I've saved for is the SGM...can't afford both. Hopefully these will be available into the future and aren't just a limited run.

 

They will be available for the foreseeable future. The design is in-house and sold only by the ADAM News Network. Currently we have a dozen available and can order and manufacture and populate more cards as needed. The accessory package can be broken up for what you want to buy, and if you want only the card it will come with docs and software.

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Cool stuff! :)

 

Also available is a package containing a 60mb compact flash card preprogrammed with CV games, calc, basic & powerpaint; an ide cable; a power supply; a power adapter cable; and the boot ddp (or disk) to access the ide device.

 

The "power supply" powers what, exactly? The 60mb compact flash card? Or are we talking about a replacement for the printer's power supply?

 

Luc, the power supply powers only the ide interface card so that the ADAM does not have to supply power to it in any way. The only thing the user needs to supply is a standard compuer supply cord to plug into the mini card power supply................or we can supply that also for $2

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OK, so what are we looking at cost-wise for just the bare bones to run the thing with a flash card?

 

Does the flash card plug directly into the interface card itself? Can we supply our own flash card or does the provided one include software that is needed to run with the interface?

 

 

Well, I'm sure those of you who are on the ADAM mailing list have seen the announcement:

 

The ADAM News Network announces the addition of NEW ide interface cards to the ADAM community. MicroFox Technologies has mastered a new design of an ide card which fits into slot 1 of the ADAM, just as the MI card did. This card can use an ide hard drive; a compact flash card; a Sparq drive; and a zip drive. ANN has produced a run of cards to make available to the ADAM community . Also available is a package containing a 60mb compact flash card preprogrammed with CV games, calc, basic & powerpaint; an ide cable; a power supply; a power adapter cable; and the boot ddp (or disk) to access the ide device. Goto http://ann.hollowdreams.com and follow the “ANN catalog” link to see what ANN has to offer the cummunity.

Also available are the ColecoVision Technical Manual; the Coleco ADAM Technical Manual; the Coleco Programmers Manual; and The Coleco ADAM computer schematics. Free for downloading. they are large compressed (7 zip) files and will take some time to download; but these are the clearest schematics we have seen. They came to us from a long time ADAMite who also donated some goodies awhile back, and we hope some more in the future. Goto http://ann.hollowdreams.com and follow the “ColecoVision Programming” link to see what ANN has to offer the community.

 

Ordinarily, I'd be jumping up and down, but all I've saved for is the SGM...can't afford both. Hopefully these will be available into the future and aren't just a limited run.

 

They will be available for the foreseeable future. The design is in-house and sold only by the ADAM News Network. Currently we have a dozen available and can order and manufacture and populate more cards as needed. The accessory package can be broken up for what you want to buy, and if you want only the card it will come with docs and software.

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OK, so what are we looking at cost-wise for just the bare bones to run the thing with a flash card?

 

Does the flash card plug directly into the interface card itself? Can we supply our own flash card or does the provided one include software that is needed to run with the interface?

 

 

Well, I'm sure those of you who are on the ADAM mailing list have seen the announcement:

 

The ADAM News Network announces the addition of NEW ide interface cards to the ADAM community. MicroFox Technologies has mastered a new design of an ide card which fits into slot 1 of the ADAM, just as the MI card did. This card can use an ide hard drive; a compact flash card; a Sparq drive; and a zip drive. ANN has produced a run of cards to make available to the ADAM community . Also available is a package containing a 60mb compact flash card preprogrammed with CV games, calc, basic & powerpaint; an ide cable; a power supply; a power adapter cable; and the boot ddp (or disk) to access the ide device. Goto http://ann.hollowdreams.com and follow the “ANN catalog” link to see what ANN has to offer the cummunity.

Also available are the ColecoVision Technical Manual; the Coleco ADAM Technical Manual; the Coleco Programmers Manual; and The Coleco ADAM computer schematics. Free for downloading. they are large compressed (7 zip) files and will take some time to download; but these are the clearest schematics we have seen. They came to us from a long time ADAMite who also donated some goodies awhile back, and we hope some more in the future. Goto http://ann.hollowdreams.com and follow the “ColecoVision Programming” link to see what ANN has to offer the community.

 

Ordinarily, I'd be jumping up and down, but all I've saved for is the SGM...can't afford both. Hopefully these will be available into the future and aren't just a limited run.

 

They will be available for the foreseeable future. The design is in-house and sold only by the ADAM News Network. Currently we have a dozen available and can order and manufacture and populate more cards as needed. The accessory package can be broken up for what you want to buy, and if you want only the card it will come with docs and software.

 

Compact flash card uses ide cable to hook into interface card. The cf card in the parts package includes10-3 mb EOS partitions with almost all CV games known in 2 partitions, SmartBasic is on a partition, ADAM calc is on a partition, Powerpaint is on a partition and various boot blocks for Coleco programs such as SmartFiler are on block 0 for booting once the program is copied to a partition. And TDOS is installed on the CP/M side of the cf card with 4 partitions (30 mbs) for programs..............pricing is on the ANN website for the card only (with software and docs) and the "package" is all the parts at cost to add to the interface card. (the cf adapter card NEEDS power which explains the power supply pictured)

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Compact flash card uses ide cable to hook into interface card. The cf card in the parts package includes10-3 mb EOS partitions with almost all CV games known in 2 partitions, SmartBasic is on a partition, ADAM calc is on a partition, Powerpaint is on a partition and various boot blocks for Coleco programs such as SmartFiler are on block 0 for booting once the program is copied to a partition. And TDOS is installed on the CP/M side of the cf card with 4 partitions (30 mbs) for programs..............pricing is on the ANN website for the card only (with software and docs) and the "package" is all the parts at cost to add to the interface card. (the cf adapter card NEEDS power which explains the power supply pictured)

 

I have posted pictures on the ANN website showing the various pieces and how they hook together to make up and IDE storage system. I hope that this will help show just what is entailed in making the IDE storage media a reality. Check it out

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  • 4 months later...

I just bought my first Adam and I wish I had seen this before buying an Ultimate SD cart as this is more like what I wanted.

Well, except it doesn't have a boot ROM.

 

One thing... are you sure you can't power the CF card from the connector?

CF cards are very low power.

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I just bought my first Adam and I wish I had seen this before buying an Ultimate SD cart as this is more like what I wanted.

Well, except it doesn't have a boot ROM.

 

One thing... are you sure you can't power the CF card from the connector?

CF cards are very low power.

Yes, it can be powered from the ADAM, IF your ADAM power supply can handle the extra power needed. On the rare occasion we will find a power supply that is marginal or won't even run the data drive, but will run the ADAM. That is why we also provide an external mini power supply, so you do not need to worry about available power. We do have a boot rom for the IDE cf setup, but it requires you to buy a specific parallel printer card with boot prom socket on it- and they can be hard to come by, if not impossible.

Edited by adamcon
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Yes, it can be powered from the ADAM, IF your ADAM power supply can handle the extra power needed. On the rare occasion we will find a power supply that is marginal or won't even run the data drive, but will run the ADAM. That is why we also provide an external mini power supply, so you do not need to worry about available power. We do have a boot rom for the IDE cf setup, but it requires you to buy a specific parallel printer card with boot prom socket on it- and they can be hard to come by, if not impossible.

 

I'm out of my league with the hardware aspects of the ADAM computer, but couldn't the boot sequence for the IDE CF setup be done via a game cartridge? All inner components of the ADAM are available to any cartridge plugged into the cartridge port, are they not?

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I'm out of my league with the hardware aspects of the ADAM computer, but couldn't the boot sequence for the IDE CF setup be done via a game cartridge? All inner components of the ADAM are available to any cartridge plugged into the cartridge port, are they not?

I think I'd just copy the stuff to RAM from the cart and go from there.

 

It would be nice to have an Ultimate SD image to boot from. :D

I wouldn't cry about replacing a certain word processor ROM either. I know I'd miss it terribly but I think I could make do without it.

 

The ideal solution would be to have a single board for CF, boot ROM, a 2nd sound chip, and RAM... but I notice the middle slot is missing a signal used on the RAM slot.

And the RAM slot doesn't have the sound input... and the I/O slot doesn't have all the address lines...

Seriously, wouldn't it have been easier to run everything to all the slots? Where is a facepalm emoticon when you need one?

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To answer PixelBoy first... indeed the IDE CF/Hard Drive Boot software could be burnt to a prom and placed on a cartridge PCB with the idea to boot-up the IDE device... although I don't know for sure if the program would have to be modified or not. Back in the day, Walters Software Co. provided numerous programs such as SmartBASIC, SmartDSK (ramdisk program), ADAM's Desk Top and SmartMATE (MFM/RLL Hard Drive boot software) on cartridges as well as Disk, Data Pack and (E)Prom. The (E)Prom version was installed in one of the Parallel Interface or Addressor Cards that supplied an open socket for this chip AND it took precedent in the ADAM's bootup hierarchy... which was a nice side affect.

 

Also, if you wanted to replace the SmartWRITER prom chips on the ADAM Logic Board, you could go this route as well. There are four sockets on this PCB that are designated with a "U ##" if I recall correctly. One of the proms is the ADAM's operating system (E.O.S. 5) and then in early ADAM's, the other three sockets contained the SmartWRITER proms. After the first wave of systems, Coleco reduced by one the number of Proms needed for SmartWriter to 2 and this left one of these sockets open/available. You can't place a Prom in this open socket that you want to bootup upon turning on the system that I am aware of as SmartWriter will probably take precedent (anyone???). What a lot of ADAM owners used this open socket for was a Clock Chip sold by Syd Carter that could be accessed by CP/M and numerous EOS programs.

 

A rom image of the IDE/Hard Drive boot software to place on one of the AtariMax MultiCarts would be ideal !!!

 

Indeed JamesD, there are some "facepalm" things to be aware of with the ADAM like EXPANSION SLOT #3 being only able to address 64K of Expansion RAM. For any Memory Expander that was developed BITD with 128K on up to 2MB of RAM a Parallel Interface with memory addressing capability or simply an Address Card for the Expansion Ram would have to be bought and installed in EXPANSION SLOT #2 and a jumper wire installed between the two boards. Without it, any Memory Expander you install in Slot #3 will be recognized as only 64K.

Edited by NIAD
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As near as I can tell from the docs...

the expansion ROM and cartridge ROM are located at the same address but the bootup procedure is a bit different.

 

If you reset to game mode the cart is loaded in the upper bank and OS + RAM is in the lower bank.

Your cart is then booted.

 

In computer mode Smartwriter ROM is in low mem and intrinsic RAM is in the upper bank.

The Smartwriter ROM checks for a boot ROM and transfers control to it if one is found.

 

You might have to duplicate what the Smartwriter ROM does before it jumps to the boot ROM and you might have to alter the memory setup, but that shouldn't be a huge deal if you have the source code. If not you might be reverse engineering things.

 

The only real difference I see after the boot is any code that needs to access the EPROM later would have to select a different memory bank with port $7F.

It's a change of 1 bit but it's still a change.

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I'm out of my league with the hardware aspects of the ADAM computer, but couldn't the boot sequence for the IDE CF setup be done via a game cartridge? All inner components of the ADAM are available to any cartridge plugged into the cartridge port, are they not?

The IDE setup could indeed be via a game cartridge. Walters did just that many times with various programs; much the same as booting a cart, or SmartBASIC, or CP/M, or any other ADAM program. Now we just need someone to put it on an eprom and stick it into a cartridge shell. ;)

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Unless me mind is playing tricks on me, I think the boot is only a 1k file, so it would not take a very big eprom :grin:

Yes, the boot program is only 1K and as you know, all it does is initialize communications with the IDE card and load the HARDDRIVE file that is on the IDE device (CF, Hard Drive, Zip Drive, Sparq Drive). Something tells me that it will need to be disassembled and patched to work correctly as a rom image file or cartridge... but thankfully it's only 1K of code to look at for a person with the skill set.

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just posting so I can stay subscribed to this thread... someone tipped me off to http://ann.hollowdre...supplies.html great site, very fair prices. the Adam computer is one of the few holes in my collection, looks like I could buy a complete setup from there.

 

There are two extra spaces in your URL that mess it up. Try this instead:

 

http://ann.hollowdreams.com/adamsupplies.html

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Yes, the boot program is only 1K and as you know, all it does is initialize communications with the IDE card and load the HARDDRIVE file that is on the IDE device (CF, Hard Drive, Zip Drive, Sparq Drive). Something tells me that it will need to be disassembled and patched to work correctly as a rom image file or cartridge... but thankfully it's only 1K of code to look at for a person with the skill set.

Well, I have some other things I'm working on but I want an IDE board for myself so I have selfish reasons to do this.

Be aware that I'm still flying blind on a lot of things about the Adam and I'm trying to learn just enough so I can do this.

 

I've been looking through the Adam docs I downloaded and it looks like booting up with a test cart would be the preferred method.

When the boot ROM identifies a cart as a test cart, it skips all the logo stuff and jumps right to the start address indicated in the cart header.

There are a few holes in the docs and I'd need to look at the boot code in the smartwriter ROM to verify what I think goes on unless someone knows already.

The docs didn't fully describe how it identifies a test cart... at least not what I've read so far. Is there a disassembly of the boot code somewhere I could look at?

If not, what Adam emulator has the best debugger that I could use to look at the code? Should I just break out MESS and use it?

 

If I could get a copy of the IDE boot EPROM I could relocate the code to the proper address for a cart.

Worst case I could just move the lower code to the end of the EPROM image and have it jump back to where the code can continue after the test cart header.

That might be the easiest approach. If the code switches the boot EPROM in and out I'd have to patch the value written to $7F but that's a minor patch that could be done with a hex editor once the locations are identified. It all depends on what's in the EPROM though.

 

I could look at a boot tape but that would be much more difficult since I'd have to do more from a debugger.

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I disassembled the Adam boot code.

So a valid expansion ROM starts with $6699 in the first two bytes followed by the code and HL is loaded with the address to continue with after the expansion ROM does it's thing?

; startup code
l0080: ld	 bc,(00cch) ; $7F memory map control $04 = expansion ROM
 out	 (c),b ; - set the memory map

 ld	 a,(8000h) ; is it a valid boot ROM? (starts with $6699)
 cp	 66h
 jr	 nz,l009a ; branch if not
 ld	 a,(8001h)
 cp	 99h
 jr	 nz,l009a ; branch if not
 ld	 hl,l009a ; put continue to boot address in HL
 jp	 l8002 ; jump to boot ROM

<edit>

The code at HL copies EOS to RAM and continues the boot process.

l009a: ld	 bc,(00ceh) ; $7F memory map control $00 SmartwriterROM, EOS ROM, 32K intrinsic RAM
 ; no EOS enable strobe
 out	 (c),b ; - set it

 ld	 hl,l0000 ; copy from ROM to RAM
 ld	 de,8000h
 ld	 bc,00ffh
 ldir
 jp	 l80ae ; continue execution from RAM?

; code to be executed from $80ae in RAM
 ld	 bc,(80c8h) ; $3F $02 - EOS_ENABLE
 out	 (c),b ; Strobe

; copy EOS to RAM
 ld	 hl,6000h
 ld	 de,0e000h
 ld	 bc,2000h
 ldir

 ld	 bc,(80cah) ;$3f $00 = Deselect EOS ROM
 out	 (c),b ; -

 jp	 lfc30

Edited by JamesD
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I still need to look through the docs to figure out what I'd have to change from the cart bootup and what a test cart header is like.

I would need an image of the expansion ROM image to go much further.

 

<edit>

Checking for test cart header? (sorry this isn't as pretty, I have to figure out some disassembler settings)

 

2a0080 ld hl,(8000)
7d	 ld	 a,l
fe55	 cp	 55h
c28100 jp	 nz,0081h
7c	 ld	 a,h
feaa	 cp	 0aah
c28100 jp	 nz,0081h
2a0a80 ld	 hl,(800ah)
e9	 jp	 (hl)

So a test cart starts $55aa?

 

<edit>

I think a different person wrote the Adam code.

The Adam programmer didn't LD HL,(8000H) and then LD A,L LD A,H to do the tests of the header.

like this:

; startup code
l0080: ld	 bc,(00cch) ; $7F memory map control $04 = expansion ROM
	 out	 (c),b ; - set the memory map
	 ld	 hl,(8000h) ; is it a valid boot ROM? (starts with $6699)
	 ld	 a,l
	 cp	 66h
	 jr	 nz,l009a ; branch if not
	 ld	 a,h
	 cp	 99h
	 jr	 nz,l009a ; branch if not
	 ld	 hl,l009a ; put continue to boot address in HL
	 jp	 l8002 ; jump to boot ROM

Edited by JamesD
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