IDE interface to go for

[Wrathchild]

Hi,

 

I could be getting hold of a 2.5" hard-drive and wondered if

there's a good comparison of the available IDE controllers

for the A8? I have a spare 800XL that I'd like to install this within.

 

What experiences do AtariAge readers have with these?

 

Thanks,

Mark

[Goochman]

I got MyIDE but havent used it much - Biggest issue for me with this is without getting the 'MyIDE OS' upgrade the drivers interfere with too much. I cant get it to work with Diamond nor BOSS nor Sparta DOS. MyDOS worked fine with it but there are limitations.

 

My best suggestion is to use the SIO2PC cable to a PC as your best HD interface.

[Cybernoid]

I have a MyIDE and it works great! I even have it working with SpartaDOS, but I really have Marius to thanks for that.

 

Here is the ATR image that he gave me for using MyIDE with SpartaDOS.

 

Cheeers,

Chris

chris_myide_sp33a.zip

[krupkaj]

I have SIO2IDE and it works nice. I have 2.5 hard drive inside my XE and can't get rid of vibration. So now I am trying to use CF card instead disk.

[deathtrappomegranate]

I have a MyIDE and it works great!  I even have it working with SpartaDOS, but I really have Marius to thanks for that.

 

Here is the ATR image that he gave me for using MyIDE with SpartaDOS.

 

Cheeers,

Chris

 

[Marius]

At first...

 

In my opinion the absolutely best HD interface for the atari 8bit is the CSS-Black Box. It supports SCSI HD's and is extremely compatible with almost any dos, and supports partition lists, drive swapping, build-in highspeed SIO drivers for upgraded sio drives, build in RS232 port (19k2) and parallel printer port...

 

It is truly the best... and it is expensive.

 

Then there is myIDE. A fantastic piece of hardware! The myide is fantastic because it is SO cheap to make. And with some little adaptions to software, it runs almost any software.

 

If speed doesn't matter to you you could use sio2ide (in my opinion this system sucks; it is full of bugs, you need a PC to init your HD and because of the use of sio it is far too slow for me)

 

Sio2PC/APE is very nice. Especially for backing up.

 

As I said before: the BlackBox is absolute the very BEST peripheral interface you can imagine, but it is expensive. The MyIDE is a very interesting, and superb alternative.

 

Marius

[+doctorclu]

I'll mention this since no one else will.

 

800XLDJ is the SIO2PC program for the Atari ST/TT. A great way to host images from aST/TT. I used it for a while. Liked it enough. It uses the weird .DJ format. A converter was made to make images for that format. Maybe one day I'll get it running again. Don't know.

[krupkaj]

but there is trouble. XLDJ has serious bug. It cannot read the last sector of image. It it is ok if the last sector is free but in case there are some data...

[+doctorclu]

I did not know that. Wow! Wonder why that is.

 

Those Atari ST/TT computers never can get things completely 100 % right I swear.

[krupkaj]

I did not know that.  Wow!  Wonder why that is.

 

   Those Atari ST/TT computers never can get things completely 100 % right I swear.

 

Me too, but i know it from my friend who has problems with some programm. And after testing he found that it is coused by this error.

 

But the emulator works nice (till it need last sector). It is pitty, that there are no source available. I think it should not be problem to solve the error.

 

There is second disk emulator called XLST-link. It understands both ATR, and DI files. Unfortunately it doesn't work under multitasking OS and the interfacec is not so good as DJ.

[Wrathchild]

I have SIO2IDE and it works nice. I have 2.5 hard drive inside my XE and can't get rid of vibration. So now I am trying to use CF card instead disk.

 

I'm going for the inside mounted approach, with the HD sitting above the RAM. However, currently when the HD is plugged in, the machine just hangs upon powerup... this maybe my board of course!

 

However, what I wanted to know was, I have an 800XL and with the larger power supply, Mr-Atari said the newer XE supplies weren't up to powering the HD as well as the Atari. The HD is rated at 5V & 0.7A and I'm connected to the motherboard as follows. +ve is on the capacitor to the top right of the RAM (the mains smoother I guess) and the -ve goes at an earth point somewhere between bottom left two large black chips. Is there a recommended place to put these or would I need a separate power supply?

 

Thanks,

Mark

 

(I'll try and get a photo of the board to makes things clearer if necessary)

[krupkaj]

The original power supply cannot manage Atari and harddrive.

[Sikor]

Hmm, where I can find XLST-link?

[dely]

The original power supply cannot manage Atari and harddrive.

Yes, it can. My setup is: 130XE with 320KB, Stereo, QMEG, 65816 upgrade, SIO2IDE, 2.5" Maxtor HDD, internal lightning system aka GLOWBUDA (click). And with my stock Atari PSU everything is OK.

[krupkaj]

Yes, it can. My setup is: 130XE with 320KB, Stereo, QMEG, 65816 upgrade, SIO2IDE, 2.5" Maxtor HDD, internal lightning system aka GLOWBUDA (click). And with my stock Atari PSU everything is OK.

It is interesting. As I know Atari PSU can supply 1.5A at 5V and only harddisk can take 0.7A easily.

 

BTW your system looks cool. Hace you some other noce photo?

[St(r)yker]

Hace you some other noce photo?

http://80.55.132.110/~pinokio/atari.jpg

[Curt Vendel]

Hace you some other noce photo?

http://80.55.132.110/~pinokio/atari.jpg

 

 

Wholey #%^ !!!! Is there anything stock still left inside that XEGS ?!?!?! :-)

 

 

 

Curt

[voy]

 

Wholey #%^ !!!!   Is there anything stock still left inside that XEGS ?!?!?! :-)

 

My brother had filled up almost whole space in Piniokio's computer ... You can see another Pasiu's modifications at this link:

 

http://hardware.atari8.info/

 

Wait for the English version!

[voy]

This is our Atari 800XE with Turbo-816 accelrator card (two years ago) :

 

Photo no. 1

 

Photo no. 2

 

Photo no. 3

 

And this is my brother (Pasiu/SSG):

 

 

...and Pinokio:

 

 

"Pasia Stołówka" means "Pasiu's Canteen" ...

[krupkaj]

pm me your email and I can send it to you

[krupkaj]

"edit" -> It was for Sikor, who wants XLST link

[ATARIeric]

now i know what an 800xe looks like inside

[voy]

This is next project of my brother (Pasiu/SSG)... Few days ago Pasiu had expaned Krap's XE System. Below you can see a few photos made by Krap... Here's the list of expansion in his computer:

 

- ROM Changer (allows you to change operating system - it bases on the static memory)

- 1MB RAM on the SIMM chip

- stereo

- IDEa HDD Interface (compatible with KMK IDE Interface by Jacek Zuk and Konrad M. Kokoszkiewicz) + Compact Flash adapter

- SIO2PC

- AKI (Atari Keyboard Interface)

- Q-Meg 4.04+ operating system

- 2 x SpartaDOS X (v4.20 and v4.22)

- Atari Real Clock (realtime clock)

- second SIO port

- Warp4 accelerator card (65816 4MHz processor with 1MB of linear memory)

- GS PBI (external system bus).

 

As you can see there is a still some spare space for another expansions ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Atari-Jess]

Thats too sexy, I don't think I can take it!

 

I couldn't cut up my little XE, (although I could to an 800XL!)

[ATARIeric]

it really blows my mind to see what some people are technically capable of doing to there A8 systems

 

i myself will never be able to do that kinda mod, but then again if i had it done, i dont think id wanna put the cover back on, id just wanna stare at the internal makings and show it off