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NEW MIO production run.


MEtalGuy66

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Remember MONDAY is the day I am ordering the new cases.

 

Please get your order in by then.

 

My paypal adress is:kjones66@earthlink.net

 

If you want to make other arrangements to pay for it, then email me.

 

These cases will not only look slick, but they will protect the board during shipping, and make things much easier on me, packing-wise..

Edited by MEtalGuy66
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FWIW- I had a good ST296N and it would not format out in 256-byte sectors with either of my 256KB MIO's (at least not with any of the MIO formatters). Someone else told me years ago that it would do 256-byte sectors, but the one I had definitely would not. -Larry

 

 

Ok. Heres a list of drives that I BELIEVE might work "as is" with the original ROM.

You guys might want to start looking for them. There are many companies on the web that sell

them either rebuilt, or used for rediculous prices..

 

Also, theres some dude named "BRICKCOLLECTOR" on Ebay who seems to stock alot of them.

(its actually a reputable used/tested hardware reseller, as far as I can tell) His prices arent too bad.

 

Ok.. For SURE.. The seagate (henceforth referred to as SEA-CRATE) ST225N will work.. It is a 5.25", half-height drive.

 

Here is a list of drives from the exact same generation of embedded controller design from Seagate.. They are all also

whopping-assed 5.25" footprint, half-height drives:

 

ST251N

ST277N

ST296N

 

Ok.. Now.. in case you havent figured it out yet, the last 2 digits in the model number are the unformatted capacity.

 

Here are 2 drives that I THINK MIGHT work, as I have have some luck with them, but not 100%.. They are 3.5" footprint, half-height:

 

ST138N

ST157N

 

Good news is that alot of these old sea-crate drives were used in macintosh machines.. And we all know that apple sold an assload of early macs.

So they are probably out there sitting in your buddy's closet, or junk-parts pile somewhere..

 

Geeze, I hope this actually helps.. Maybe someone with a real MIO can verify the validity of this crap..

 

Everyone should do what they can to brown-nose steve (money works really good) into fixing that ROM ASAP.. hahah..

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FWIW- I had a good ST296N and it would not format out in 256-byte sectors with either of my 256KB MIO's (at least not with any of the MIO formatters). Someone else told me years ago that it would do 256-byte sectors, but the one I had definitely would not. -Larry

 

Well, the original formatter programs were pretty limeted. If you look in the MIO manual, it states that for a fee, ICD would write custom formatters for you..

 

The original MIO utility disk shipped with a program called HDFMTPH, which to my knowledge had very limeted support for sea-crate embedded drives (specifically the ST225N ONLY)..

 

Later, 2 more versions were released, HDFMTPH6 and HDFMTPH9.. These had support for different/later versions of Sea-crate's embedded controller firmware.

 

The HDFMTMIO program supplied with REALDOS appears to be based on HDFMTPH9.. (Steve Carden could tell you more about it).. But I have had some level of success formatting and using other sea-crate drives, which I know for a fact will not even format with the original HDFMTPH program..

 

I don't have an ST296N to test, but I suspect it to be one of these drives, based on the data available from Seagate, and in comparisson to the data available on the ST-225N.

Edited by MEtalGuy66
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FWIW- I had a good ST296N and it would not format out in 256-byte sectors with either of my 256KB MIO's (at least not with any of the MIO formatters). Someone else told me years ago that it would do 256-byte sectors, but the one I had definitely would not. -Larry

 

Well, the original formatter programs were pretty limeted. If you look in the MIO manual, it states that for a fee, ICD would write custom formatters for you..

 

The original MIO utility disk shipped with a program called HDFMTPH, which to my knowledge had very limeted support for sea-crate embedded drives (specifically the ST225N ONLY)..

 

Later, 2 more versions were released, HDFMTPH6 and HDFMTPH9.. These had support for different/later versions of Sea-crate's embedded controller firmware.

 

The HDFMTMIO program supplied with REALDOS appears to be based on HDFMTPH9.. (Steve Carden could tell you more about it).. But I have had some level of success formatting and using other sea-crate drives, which I know for a fact will not even format with the original HDFMTPH program..

 

I don't have an ST296N to test, but I suspect it to be one of these drives, based on the data available from Seagate, and in comparisson to the data available on the ST-225N.

 

As I said, FWIW. But I tried all the MIO Formatters that you mentioned about two years ago. Even some 225N's cannot be formatted to 256-byte sectors, according to Seagate's tech dept. Some can; some can't based on their firmware revision(s). I never had the inclination to try revising the low-level code. Years ago (90's), I did a pretty thorough job of investigating what could/couldn't be formatted to 256-byte sectors. So, if I were going to *purchase* an embedded drive to use with an MIO, I would be prudent about return policies, etc. if spending very much money. Hopefully, folks already have or can easily find drives that will work fine. -Larry

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Naah. I'm just gonna get pissed off and fix the damn thing so it will work with standard SCSI-1 & SCSI-2 devices..

 

You guys dont worry. We are gonna fix the MIO and make it a REAL SCSI controller. Im sick of this half-baked SASI, half-assed 256byte sector only SCSI crap.

 

We are gonna fix this thing where you're not gonna have to find some archaic assed 20 year old drive. You're gonna be able to put common SCSI-1, and SCSI-2 drives on this thing and have plenty of flexibility.

 

This may push the shipping date back on the MIOs, but I didn't start this project with the intentions of selling you an obselete controller.

 

Anyone who wants theirs 100% MIO original, let me know and I will ship it "as-is", but for the rest of us who actually want full SCSI compatability, I am going to do what it takes to make that happen.

 

Any hardware fixes we come up with will also be made available for those with original ICD MIOs.

Edited by MEtalGuy66
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Howdy Ken

 

Just an idea: have you thought of putting the MIO's OS in a FlashROM?

 

Matthias Belitz once came up with a FlashROM upgrade for the BlackBox. Maybe that's a start. You can find it at my BlackBox page way at the bottom.

 

Greetings

 

Mathy

 

Yes, that would be quite easy to do. But I dont plan to make any more changes to the MIO until the SCSI interface is fixed.

 

Right now, Ive got 8 boards assembled to almost complete. That is, they are fully assembled, but lack the wiring on the back of the board for the DRAM timing.

 

I am purchasing a new piece of equipment to assist in the devolopment of the new SCSI code. Its an HP Agilent SCSI pre-processor with inverse assembler modules. This will allow us to monitor the SCSI bus activity in realtime, and capture all of the data, commands, and bus state/timing in a way that we can analyze exactly what is going on, what is being supported, and what is not.

 

While I wait for this equipment to arrive, I will continue to assemble boards (minus the "blue wiring" which I will do all at one time, after I know whether or not the SCSI compatability fixes will require additional hardware changes)...

 

At the current rate, Warerat and I have managed to get about 4 boards assembled per week. These things have ALOT of solder joints.

 

The cases should be here some time this week.

 

I want to thank all of you guys for your patience, and continued support.

 

This thing is gonna ROCK.... I promise it will be worth the wait..

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Here are my current compatability findings with both the original ICD MIO, and the new MIO board:

 

I do have an ST225N drive, and the new MIO boards work 100% with this drive, using the original ICD ROM.

 

I also have an ST157N which works great, until power is removed from the drive, itself. Both the ATARI and MIO can be powered down, and I can boot from it, but when the drive, itself powers down, and back up, it cant seem to "figure out" how to get back into the correct mode to communicate with the MIO. It can read the configuration sector, but thats about it. If I reformat the drive, and copy everything back to it, it will work again, until the drive itself is powered down again. Strange, eh? This ST157N (I believe) was made in 1991, so its a bit newer than the ST225N.

 

I also have an ST138N which behaves similarly, but I believe this drive to have quite a few bad sectors on it, and its not really a reliable test drive.

 

I dont have any old SCSI-MFM controller boards to test, but Steve Carden will be testing one (Adaptec 4000A, I believe) with the new board, within a week or so..

 

What I would like to see for the "fixed" version, is compatability with at least 80-90% of SCSI-1 and SCSI-2 drives. This would put it on the par with the black-box, compatability-wise.

Edited by MEtalGuy66
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Here are my current compatability findings with both the original ICD MIO, and the new MIO board:

 

I do have an ST225N drive, and the new MIO boards work 100% with this drive, using the original ICD ROM.

 

I also have an ST157N which works great, until power is removed from the drive, itself. Both the ATARI and MIO can be powered down, and I can boot from it, but when the drive, itself powers down, and back up, it cant seem to "figure out" how to get back into the correct mode to communicate with the MIO. It can read the configuration sector, but thats about it. If I reformat the drive, and copy everything back to it, it will work again, until the drive itself is powered down again. Strange, eh? This ST157N (I believe) was made in 1991, so its a bit newer than the ST225N.

 

I also have an ST138N which behaves similarly, but I believe this drive to have quite a few bad sectors on it, and its not really a reliable test drive.

 

I dont have any old SCSI-MFM controller boards to test, but Steve Carden will be testing one (Adaptec 4000A, I believe) with the new board, within a week or so..

 

What I would like to see for the "fixed" version, is compatability with at least 80-90% of SCSI-1 and SCSI-2 drives. This would put it on the par with the black-box, compatability-wise.

 

Hi Ken-

I had exactly the same experience with the 157N, which was my first ST drive. It formatted with MIO software, and all looked well, but when I tried to re-boot after power-down -- no joy. You are certainly to be commended for going the "extra mile" to improve the drive compatability of the MIO's! -Larry

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Project Status report:

 

Ok. First of all, I have the SCSI bus preprocessor now, and am able to monitor in realtime, and capture all command data from the SCSI bus, as well as the state/timing of each individual bus signal. This thing is too f*ckin' kewl.

 

Warerat is/has been in the process of reverse engineering the existing code from the original ICD ROM, and has recompiled it and sent me a ROM image which we will be testing tonight.

 

Additional consideration is being given to the possibility of increasing the Ramdisk size to support 4-meg SIMMS. This is simply because, in the even that the new SCSI support code has to be much larger, we will end up having to add extra latch circuitry in order to enable the extra bit of adressing on the EPROM to use the full 16k (the original design has the high adress line tied high, in order to use only the first 8k.) If we do end up having to use the higher 8k of the ROM, then the latch circuitry we will need to add could also be used to enable another multiplexed adress line to the RAM, which would take it up to 4megs. This is just an idea which is being "kicked around," and we are still at a relatively early stage of development on the ROM, so nothing is "concrete".. But maybe this will fuel some interesting discussion, if nothing else.

 

Steve Carden will be testing one of the new MIO boards on his BBS in the comming week. (telnet tcpipexpress.com: 8080) so maybe you guys can log in and check that out. I believe he's also starting a discussion thread on the BBS, itself which pertains to the new MIO development/production.

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Steve Carden will be testing one of the new MIO boards on his BBS in the comming week. (telnet tcpipexpress.com: 8080) so maybe you guys can log in and check that out. I believe he's also starting a discussion thread on the BBS, itself which pertains to the new MIO development/production.

 

 

Tcpipexpress NODE #1 Slave #4 IS running a KEN Jones MIO. What I have planned for it is too keep it up for two or three days and then teset it with another computer. Test results will be posted by Ken as we finnish knocking this puppy out. and YES, I am gonna do some programming for this device.

 

You can hyperterm my bbs 'tcpipexpress.com' port 8888 for an orginal ICD mio, port 8889 for the Ken MIO, port 8890 for the ape modem. And if there is enouge of a need I will create a message base for this device.

 

Stephen J. Carden

Edited by Stephen J. Carden
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  • 3 weeks later...

Well, not much to report at the moment, but this should get you guys excited...

 

I have updated my Website, and added the MIO project.

 

This wil allow me to better host up to date information about development status, and details concerning what we are currently involved in.

 

Check the NEWS section for updates. I have posted a DEMONSTRATION VIDEO for the MIO and Multiplexer.

 

 

http://www.blackenedtech.com

Edited by MEtalGuy66
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You might want to lose the giant 'wooden' splash screen. Move it to an opening page and keep it off the pages you navigate to.

 

YEah I meant to load it about 1/4 of that size. heheh. Sorry. Been real busy lately and all this stuff has been done "in between" the million other things that are going on in my life/job....

 

I will fix it..

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Well, not much to report at the moment, but this should get you guys excited...

 

I have updated my Website, and added the MIO project.

 

This wil allow me to better host up to date information about development status, and details concerning what we are currently involved in.

 

Check the NEWS section for updates. I have posted a DEMONSTRATION VIDEO for the MIO and Multiplexer.

 

 

http://www.blackenedtech.com

 

Your website doesnt display right with IE 7 RC1 - not that it matters much to you but I thought Id let you know :)

 

Whenever I select a link I am left on the banner page and the nav bar on the bottom disappears.

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Your website doesnt display right with IE 7 RC1 - not that it matters much to you but I thought Id let you know :)

 

Whenever I select a link I am left on the banner page and the nav bar on the bottom disappears.

 

Well then you've got something totally hosed up with your IE settings/installation.

 

This page is completely built in "notepad" using the most rudimentary "keep it simple, stupid" features of HTML possible. And it was solely tested on IE7 with Windows XP machines.

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Hehe, I think he's just talking about the same thing I mentioned.

Currently I have been running a KEN MIO on slave 4 of my bbs since Ken sent it to me. The r and p handler has functioned with out any problems on a host of different machines. Currently my configuration is:

 

One Multiplexer master running a 320xe and a usp os along with a black box with 512meg scsi harddrive.

 

slave one is an 576kxe with ICD MIO and lantronix serial to ethernet server, port 8888

Slave two is a 576kxe with black box Ape modem, port 8890

Slave three is a 576kxe battery backed ramdisk with a smartos, black box with floppy board, with ape interface

slave four is a 320kxe with a KEN MIO no harddrive, Lantronix serial to ethernet server, port 8889

 

As you can tell this is a very dirverse system but run's well!

 

 

You can reach this system by hyperterming 'tcpipexpress.com' port 8888,8889,8890. I have changed the format of my BBS, and there is a message base on this BBS for the Ken MIO, and beliveve it or not Ken does log into it, and if I am around I am more than happy to show you the nuts and bolts to it.

 

Software: DOS = real.dos

BBS = Tcpipexpress

 

 

Hope to see you soon!

 

Steve

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Here is my test setup:

 

MASTER: 130xe (with BOB Puff stabilizer Mod),STANDARD XE OS ROM, NEW MIO(ROM version 1.1), ST225N hardisk (D1: 20megs D7:4megs D8: 1024k MIO RAM), KX-P1191 Printer, Multiplexer.

 

SLAVE 1: 130xe (with petersen 320k, Dual Pokeys, 1200XL function Keys, Bob Wooley Freezer), Multiplexer OS ROM,NEW MIO (ROM version 1.3), Multiplexer.

 

SLAVE2: XEGS, Multiplexer OS ROM, Multiplexer.

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