17 Jul
2006
17 Jul
'06
6:55 a.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
If it's an 8-bit card, the ROM may simply be a BIOS which provides support
for higher density drives or other features. Most enhanced FD controllers I've
seen for XTs have a BIOS ROM.
I don't know this chip, however if it is a 765 clone, it should work with ImageDisk.
If the board has HD capacity and it is implemented the same as the AT, then it
should work with ImageDisk as well. ImageDisk does not use BIOS at all when
performing transfers, so it needs standard hardware.
Regards,
Dave
--
dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Collector of vintage computing equipment:
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html
To my somewhat jaundiced eye, the UM8398 looks to
be yeat another
integration of the NEC 765 with some support circuitry. I think I've even
got one of these on an ISA board and it looks for all the world like a
plain-jane PC/AT style controller.
Well I've got one here on an 8 bit ISA board - but slightly worrying is that
it has its own PROM on board, and seems to be jumper selectable for an oddball
address (0xC800, 0xCC00, 0xCA00).
It's quite possibly a dead-end and will go for scrap; if it could co-exist
nicely as a second floppy controller that Imagedisk would work with then it'd
be a nice board for adding FM read/write support to my main desktop PC...
In the same heap of boards was another 8 bit card with a Zilog 765 FDC on it,
so that one might be a possibility too (no on-board ROM, but it looks to be
fixed at the PC's primary FDC address - maybe it's possibly to hack some of
the address lines to make it appear at a different address, though)