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 Post subject: Re: Let's do something constructive about the MyIDE+F stabil
PostPosted: Tue May 31, 2011 8:25 am 

Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 7:27 am
Posts: 98
Location: United Kingdom
Using parts Steve sent me:

Machine boots and correctly ID's Sandisk CF card, reporting card name and model. However, partition table is still reported corrupt.

It's progress at least. Now, what can we tweak...

Tried a 1K resistor on CCTRL... no luck.

EDIT: following Louis' advice, I tried an external PSU. I already had one rigged up to a 3.5"/2.5" IDE converter cable, so I hooked it up to an old IBM HDD at it appears to work fine.

If I can do the same fix on the CF card adapter, we're done! :)

EDIT: Tried a direct +5v external supply onto the CF card adapter: still getting read errors on the partition table.

I deduce from this that the timing still isn't quite right for CF cards.



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 Post subject: Re: Let's do something constructive about the MyIDE+F stabil
PostPosted: Sat Sep 17, 2011 10:18 am 
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Joined: Fri Aug 29, 2003 4:37 pm
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Location: Arizona USA
Has any of this been finalized, yet?



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 Post subject: Re: Let's do something constructive about the MyIDE+F stabil
PostPosted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 2:05 am 
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Joined: Sun Nov 02, 2003 8:15 am
Posts: 1549
Location: netherlands
Hi Roy,

All new sold MyIDE are modded to the latest known best state of compatibility.

Cheers,
Sijmen.


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 Post subject: Re: Let's do something constructive about the MyIDE+F stabil
PostPosted: Sun Feb 26, 2012 4:04 am 

Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2004 10:34 am
Posts: 261
Location: NL
Somewhere at the start of this thread I brought in my 'magic fix' with the phono-plug leading from the mass of the MyIDE to the RF connector.

Months later I'm adding a new 'experience' to this story. Please read carefully, it might be usefull.

Yesterday I was trying all my CF cards. I wanted to know which ones work, and which one do not work very well. I was very happy to find out that I have really a lot CF cards that work 100% error free. No diagnostic error notes from the MyBios and also the rwcrc.com program does not give any errors. I was surprised, since I did this testing also months ago with the same stack of cards, and then I had a lot of issues with these. My Kingston 4GB card -> perfect, Duracell 2GB card -> perfect. A fantasy brand 2GB card -> perfect. All these cards refused to work months ago (and I mean total refuse!)

So I thought: why do these cards work now...? I did not change anything to my MyIDE card. In fact: I'm using the oldest edition, made by Mr. Atari in 2003. No bypass capacitors, no LS573 modification, no extra capacitors, nothing.

And then I realised what was different.

My BlackBox is connected now! So I unplugged it. And indeed: back were all the errors with the 4GB kingston, the 2GB duracell, the 2GB fantasy brand card....

Plugged the BlackBox back in... and yes it all worked fine again.

On atariage there is a topic about Ultimate1MB, and rdemming had stability issues with his Ultimate1MB. After a lot of trial-and-error he found a similar fix for his problems. He does NOT have a blackbox, but he found out that when he added some kind of 'resistor-terminator-solution' on a few PBI lines, all his problems were gone. His theory is that certain open lines on the PBI give same issues as unterminated scsi lines.

The fact that my problems were solved so well by plugging in my blackbox (the blackbox in fact is one big terminator) agrees with his theory.

i'm not a technician. So I do not know how to conclude a real working fix out of this theory. But I thought: you guys are much more into this, and you might overlook this. Perhaps this brings new insights in a fix.

rdemming wrote on the atariage topic that he added a 3K resistor between A14 and +5v. Between A15 and +5v and Between CI and +5V.

I have not tried this myself to check whether this will fix MyIDE instability or not (since I was afraid this will make my blackbox unusable).

Anyone an idea?
thanks
Marius


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 Post subject: Re: Let's do something constructive about the MyIDE+F stabil
PostPosted: Sun Mar 25, 2012 2:33 am 

Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2004 10:34 am
Posts: 261
Location: NL
bytecat wrote:
Ok, I'm pulling an 'Marius' right now.
They only thing I did not reverse was to put but the molex power connector to power the IBM drive.
When I connected that back on the cartridge... the cartridige was 'compatible' again and started right to MyDOS...


NEW interesting information about this.

There appears to be something 'incompatible' when it comes to +5V on Pin 20 of the IDE. Some of my older CF cards do not like it when the power comes through that pin, and some CF cards especially LIKE it when it comes from that pin 20.

When I use the SAME power supply and connect +5V to pin 20 of IDE some CF cards immediately refuse to work, as soon as I disconnect this pin 20 they work again.

It is very odd. I think it is (especially with the older cards) almost impossible to create an always working fix. I have a very good working setup now, and that works for me. I have decided a few weeks ago to stop tweaking till the end. I have a good, stable working setup now, and as soon as my CF card dies, it is soon enough to tweak again to get things working for another card.

Btw: I bought the latest MyIDE interface (with all the stability fixes); those work the BEST. Extremely good experience, and very compatible.

Greetz
M.


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 Post subject: Re: Let's do something constructive about the MyIDE+F stabil
PostPosted: Fri Apr 13, 2012 4:15 am 

Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2004 10:34 am
Posts: 261
Location: NL
And one more reply:

When you are using the edition of MyIDE (the ones without FLASH) or a homemade one this is important information:

1. Do not use 74HCT245, but use 74LS245 (this was already known)

2. If you use 74LS04 and 74LS32, use the Fix described in this topic; with the 220pf capacitor

3. If you use 74F04 and 74F32, use Fix described in this topic, BUT use 470pf capacitor (not 220pf)

I have 3 MyIDE carts with the LS04/LS32 chips. And I have 3 MyIDE carts with the F04/F32 chips. In every situation above information was right, so I guess that will do the trick.

Greetz
M.


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 Post subject: Re: Let's do something constructive about the MyIDE+F stabil
PostPosted: Fri Apr 13, 2012 8:49 pm 

Joined: Wed Feb 29, 2012 7:02 am
Posts: 75
In gathering parts to build the MyIDE cartridge type adapter, I get my parts from derelict or junk PCBs.
One such circuit board from a CD drive, salvaged for the IDE connector, has a Eon en27c512 chip that I assume was for a 512mbit or kilobyte read cache.
My question is "Would there be any advantage to incorporating this into the design of the MyIDE circuitry?"
What other use could it be used for?


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 Post subject: Re: Let's do something constructive about the MyIDE+F stabil
PostPosted: Sat Apr 14, 2012 5:38 am 

Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2004 10:34 am
Posts: 261
Location: NL
8-bit wrote:
In gathering parts to build the MyIDE cartridge type adapter, I get my parts from derelict or junk PCBs.
One such circuit board from a CD drive, salvaged for the IDE connector, has a Eon en27c512 chip that I assume was for a 512mbit or kilobyte read cache.
My question is "Would there be any advantage to incorporating this into the design of the MyIDE circuitry?"
What other use could it be used for?


A 27C512 is probably a chip to keep a firmware. It is a 512KiloBIT eprom (which means 64KiloBYTE). It can be used to contain 4 different OS'ses inside your Atari, but it is of no use for building your own MyIDE.

I think the (simple) design of the current MyIDE's is in combination with the stability fix and the MYBIOS in EPROM the best MyIDE setup you can get at this very moment. The design of the original MyIDE or the MyIDE with Flash does (beside the stability fixes described in this topic) nothing extra to work great.


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 Post subject: Re: Let's do something constructive about the MyIDE+F stabil
PostPosted: Sat Apr 14, 2012 12:22 pm 

Joined: Wed Feb 29, 2012 7:02 am
Posts: 75
The chip I was talking about is an Eon en27c512-70j that uses the same (as far as looks) socket as the 1mbit MAXFlash cartridge chip.
But what I specifically would like to know is if I can remove the 1mbit chip, insert the 512mbit chip in its place, and using MaxFlash Studio, make a programming ATR that I can use to put utilities on the 512kbit chip.
I know it is possibly a stretch, but I would not want to damage the cartridge in the attempt.
Also, I have been unable to find any datasheets on the Eon27c512-70j to check pinout compatability with the the 1mbit chip.
When looking in the cartridge, I can see the firmware chip and the 1mbit chip and recognize which is which.
But again, is it possible to program the 512kbit chip by substituting it for the 1mbit realizing I can only fit 64 megs of program files on it.
Or would the software crash when not finding enough banks for the programming effort.
And this inquiry is to the developers of the 1mbit MaxFlash cartridge as They should know if it is possible.

If it worked, I would then have access to more of those chips from trashed CD/DVD drives possibly and I am not above swapping in a chip to be able to use the software programmed onto it using an ATR programming image.

Also, I am sorry if I posted this in the wrong forum section!


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 Post subject: Re: Let's do something constructive about the MyIDE+F stabil
PostPosted: Mon May 07, 2012 1:38 pm 
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27c512 is a one-time programmable 64k eprom. Even if it were blank, you couldn't program it with the maxflash 1mbit cartridge, it requires 13v VPP to write and an eprom programming algorithm. If its not blank, its garbage, as it cannot be erased.

Steve


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 Post subject: Re: Let's do something constructive about the MyIDE+F stabil
PostPosted: Tue Oct 30, 2012 8:50 am 

Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 7:27 am
Posts: 98
Location: United Kingdom
I happened to pull the old MyIDE+Flash cart out of the drawer at the weekend, and found it works great with the mod pictured a couple of pages back - but only if I use it without the PLCC flash chip. I tried putting SDX + soft drivers on the flash ROM and the machine then hangs when accessing the IDE registers. If I take the PLCC out, boot with internal SDX (which I had deactivated when attempting to use SDX on the cart), then load the drivers, all is well.

Any ideas what could be the trouble with the PLCC? I tried several, but all the same: lock-up as soon as the driver writes to the IDE registers. I almost have the thing working 100 per cent: with the PLCC pulled out, RWCRC gives zero errors using what is effectively the SIDE soft driver, with no software error correction at all.



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