DREM HDD & FD emulator on the TI

[+retroclouds]

I’m considering getting a DREM 3 and connecting it to my TI-99/4a PEB.

Main reason is I want to use it to emulate a HDD. I have a shift 838 IDE card that I want to use it with.

 

Is that supported? I’m currently using the IDE with an old seagate drive. But the drive is starting to fail and is not reliable (and it’s also very loud). 

Can I use a DREM with a Geneve as well? And if yes what controller is required for this to work.

 

[+InsaneMultitasker]

5 minutes ago, retroclouds said:

I’m considering getting a DREM 3 and connecting it to my TI-99/4a PEB.

Main reason is I want to use it to emulate a HDD. I have a shift 838 IDE card that I want to use it with

The DREM emulates an MFM hard drive; you'd use DREM only with a Myarc HFDC.   The IDE card is not compatible with a DREM; the IDE card uses simple compact flash cards. 

 

7 minutes ago, retroclouds said:

Can I use a DREM with a Geneve as well? And if yes what controller is required for this to work.

Yes.   @9640News has a lot of experience using the DREM/HFDC combo with a Geneve.

 

You can also use an IDE card with the Geneve;  @Shift838 and I did some testing for MDOS 7.30, and there may be a few enhancements when I get back into the Geneve DSR code cleanup work next year.

[+9640News]

I have the DREM 2.  I haven't looked at the DREM 3, but I would not expect any issues with MFM hard drive emulation.

 

Some of the later DREM 2 firmware upgrades broke the floppy disk drive emulation, however if you are looking for straight hard drive emulation, you should not go wrong with the DREM.  I have two of them in my Geneves.

 

As I mentioned in my Chicago User group presentation last month, the speed of the DREM versus's Matt's TIPI is running neck and neck with Matt hinting a month or so ago he may be able to speed things up even faster at a future date.  The cost of a PI/TIPI is cheaper than the DREM, and you can do more with the TIPI than you can with the DREM.  Also, for Geneve use, the Geneve can boot from the TIPI with the latest eprom upgrade.  I think current boot speed of the Geneve with a TIPI is slower than the DREM, but that is about the only spot you really notice much difference.

 

Beery