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15 Dec 2005

...

Subject: Re: Good haul of old pc stuph
   From: "Curt @ Atari Museum" <curt at atarimuseum.com>
   Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2005 09:37:30 -0500
     To: General at smtp1.suscom.net, "Discussion at smtp1.suscom.net":On-Topic
and
 Off-Topic Posts	<cctalk at classiccmp.org>

Hmmmm XT based IDE controllers???    Interesting, I only recall using 
the stock MFM's and using SCSI when larger space was needed.

What is the manufacturer name on the adapters? 
Cut from the posting you enclosed..

...
 >>The one I still have is made by Acculogic,
called the
>>sIDE/16 or something.  
Mine also says that.  I also had a PS2/30 which was an XT
in reality and could install a connor 420mb IDE.

All it took was a 8bit/16bit trnaslation usinga pair of latches
and some buffers. the only part of IDE thats actually 16bits 
wide is data transfers, the registers are bytes. The MFM 
controllers of the time had the same register layout.  The 
WD1003 was likely the best known ISA16 (WD1002 was the ISA8
version) controller for MFM and it's just like talking to 
an IDE drive.

To prove the point once I took a spare WD1003 jammed a few address
bits and wired a IDE male connecotr to the needed pins and hooked
the controller, and a 31mb drive to the IDE port of a 486board
and then set the CHS in the bios and tada, it works.  It's 
possible as that board was the prototype for the IDE drives 
on board logic and in itself was a standard.

Since then IDE (ATAPI) has evolved some and there are a few
twists added.

Allison

...

Curt

Allison wrote:

  Subject:
re: Good haul of old pc stuph
  From: Chris M <chrism3667 at yahoo.com>
  Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2005 17:50:26 -0800 (PST)
    To: talk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>

There were a few XT IDE controllers back in the day.
The one I still have is made by Acculogic, called the
sIDE/16 or something. People who have used them claim
they work well. Either this one was blown to begin
with or the drive was at fault. It's mostly discrete
logic, the exception being a GAL or PAL as I recall.
There wasn't any firmware on it from what I remember.
What did I do with the thing?

XT IDE adaptors are not uncommon and fairly simple devices.
I have one or two of them and could make one.  They do work 
well enough.  The that drives usually connected to them
have usually died by age. 

Allison

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