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 Post subject: Re: Home_built MyIDE external with stock Atari OS chip help
PostPosted: Wed Jul 04, 2012 3:43 am 

Joined: Wed Feb 29, 2012 7:02 am
Posts: 75
I must have missed the instructions on the location of how to do that 74LS573 modification.
Could you direct me to it?
Also, my home-built MyIDE used point to point wiring and evidently is still causing problems.
I say that because when I attach a hard drive that had worked and do not save any settings with FDISK.BAS from 3.2, sometimes it sees the drive and some times it does not. And the same goes for reading from the drive in that sometimes it reads the drive parameters and sometimes it does not.
And when I say that, If after FDISK.BAS reports "No harddrives found" and drops to a READY prompt, if I immediately run it again, it finds the same drive.
So evidently I have my work cut out for me finding that intermittent connection on the interface.
I would love to be able to rebuild it with a true printed circuit board or try building it with a solder pen that one uses to draw a working circuit.
Tracing bad connections as you know, can be a real pain to do too.
And the interesting part of this is that when connected to the AtariMAX cartridge, the drive works. So I may have to invest in the materials to make a printed circuit board for the project.
Also, can you give me the link to the PICODOS software and answer a question for me.
That is what program On the PICODOS disk would one use to write the PICODOS.SYS file to a drive without wiping out the files I had copied over the hard way of 1 at a time that took me a day and a half!
I never could get the ATR2IDE to work in windows and the (forget the name) command line one for use with windows.
So that was why I copied the directories and files from two 16meg images one at a time.


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 Post subject: Re: Home_built MyIDE external with stock Atari OS chip help
PostPosted: Thu Jul 05, 2012 12:31 am 
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Joined: Sun Nov 02, 2003 8:15 am
Posts: 1549
Location: netherlands
Picodos:
http://www.horus.com/~hias/atari/#mypdos
Just boot the disk and init your game disk.
Not 100% sure, but this should only write picodos.sys

74LS573:
I did not implement it in my designs, since I stopped making them way before it.
Here is the (early) ATARIMAX d.i.y. guide:
viewtopic.php?p=5788#p5788
You can do the same piggy bag on the 74ls245, the A0-A2 lines are in my shematics.
CCTRL=D5xx line

The inconsistant behaviour of your homebrew_IDE can also be the incompatibility issue, not a bad solderingcontact.
If it works with ATARIMAX, the drive is OK, but I already said that.....


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 Post subject: Re: Home_built MyIDE external with stock Atari OS chip help
PostPosted: Thu Jul 05, 2012 3:42 am 

Joined: Wed Feb 29, 2012 7:02 am
Posts: 75
When you do the testing of the home-built cartridge, is it with a Atari PC with the original OS chip?
As an update, I went through again and rechecked and resoldered the connections on my home-built card with inconsistent results.
Also, the same external hard drive seems to work fine with the AtariMAX cart using either the BIOS that is I flashed to it, 4.7.5, or booting the 4.7 version you had me try. And it is consistent. So evidently, I am missing something on the home-built card.
Also, I did not use a blank cartridge board to begin with, but an edge connector from another board that I superglued to a perf board.
The blank cartridge boards I have found all seem to be made with the circuits in place for using atari game roms.
Do you know of a source for a blank cartridge board that one would be able to use for the home-built MyIDE?
I am getting very frustrated in that the drive works fine with the atarimax cart, but bombs with any and all of my homebuilt cart.

Also, I do not know what happened, but after using PICODOS.COM, my access speed even using the atarimax cart seems to have slowed down where before it was very fast in loading games.
I should also state I had no errors with the fast speed.
As a matter of fact, before I started using the MyIDE, I once was booting the atari through sio2pc at 57600.
Now I cannot get beyond 19200, the default baud rate of the atari.
I think that was with Ape Warp BTW.

This is just a small thing, but the atarimax cart I got has the IDE key facing the back of the cart whereas the illustrations of the mods seem to show it facing the front.
So when I am facing the front of the atarimax cart, pin one of the IDE is to the right.

All of my homebuilt ones have IDE pin one to the left when facing the component side of the board.

So that is confusing in some ways.


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 Post subject: Re: Home_built MyIDE external with stock Atari OS chip help
PostPosted: Thu Jul 05, 2012 6:12 am 
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Joined: Sun Nov 02, 2003 8:15 am
Posts: 1549
Location: netherlands
Yes, I test at home with the appropiate hardware :-)
So original OS, say most of the time.
I even use 1200xl, 800xl, 800xe, 130xe and some modded 800xl's
Different models of ATARIMAX and homebrews......

So, back to your homebrew vs ATARIMAX and flacky drives.
I'm going to get into repetition now.
When a media works 100% on ATARIMAX and fails on homebrew, the media is fine.
This is the ultimate test to check your media.
Look into the homebrew.
Adviced chips are 74F32, 74F04 and 74LS245, all other combinations give compatibility-issues (in fact these are timing-issues).
This is not only the problem of homebrew, the atari in use can also be difficult to handle.
Atari has used many different sources for CPU / ANTIC combinations, having all slightly different timing.
But most standard today standards 2.5"drives and CF-media will work just fine if you use all 'LS' types of a combination with 74HCT245.
Only one thing can fix that: the 74LS573 modification by Steven Tucker.
The ATARIMAX has the 573-mod inside, that is the difference between homebrew.

I made many homebrew by hands in the past, using empty atari-pcb (remember to remove the rom-enable at $8000 and $A000).
other edge-connectors, sawn-off and glued with experimental or perf board.
Never had any problems with them getting to work at the end.

PICODOS:
You must install the standard version, NO hispeed.
Since the highspeed routines are in the MyBIOS, this will conflict.

MyBIOS:
Can do upto 128kps with out problems (HSIO=0)


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 Post subject: Re: Home_built MyIDE external with stock Atari OS chip help
PostPosted: Sun Jul 08, 2012 7:18 pm 

Joined: Wed Feb 29, 2012 7:02 am
Posts: 75
With quite a bit of searching, I have came up with a Fairchild 74ls245, a Fairchild 74ls32, a Fairchild 74ls04, and a Texas Instruments 74als538N chips.
So before I try remaking a MyIDE interface, and NOT a modification to a ATARIMAX with flash cartridge, I have a bunch of questions.
For instance, is the 74538 supposed to be a replacement for the 74ls245?
Although rather complete, the directions you pointed me to are for modification of a Atarimax cart and not a home built.
So, I need to know.
I also have bought a circuit pen used to draw a circuit on a board that may help get away from the rats nest of wiring I now have.
Also, although I hate to say it, when I was salvaging the chips for the other attempts. they did not come off the old boards easily and I just may have broken connections on some of the chips pins.
I am sure now that I have good chips, but just need to know how to go about the design modifications from the original being that I do not have the other square chip shown in the atarimax card to connect the cntrl link.
Or should I be asking Steve these questions?


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 Post subject: Re: Home_built MyIDE external with stock Atari OS chip help
PostPosted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 12:32 am 
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Joined: Sun Nov 02, 2003 8:15 am
Posts: 1549
Location: netherlands
Here are some links to chipdir.
This will enlighten your view on chips.

74573
http://www.embeddedlinks.com/chipdir/giicm/74573.txt
I said:
Quote:
I did not implement it in my designs, since I stopped making them way before it.
Here is the (early) ATARIMAX d.i.y. guide:
viewtopic.php?p=5788#p5788
You can do the same piggy bag on the 74ls245, the A0-A2 lines are in my shematics.
CCTRL=D5xx line


[added]
A0 -> pin-2 chip
A1 -> pin-3 chip
A2 -> pin-4 chip
pin-19 chip -> A0-IDE
pin-18 chip -> A1-IDE
pin-17 chip -> A2-IDE

74245
http://www.embeddedlinks.com/chipdir/giicm/74245.txt

74538 is not an 74245
http://www.embeddedlinks.com/chipdir/n/745.htm

PIN-1 on IDE
It is all how you look at it.
ATARIMAX facing to the label to the front: pin-1 is to the right.
Did you notice you are now talking about the PCB-side?
HOMEBREW-scetch from my homepage is shown from the COMPONENT-side, so yeah, PIN-1 is to the left.


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 Post subject: Re: Home_built MyIDE external with stock Atari OS chip help
PostPosted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 2:18 am 

Joined: Wed Feb 29, 2012 7:02 am
Posts: 75
And the CCTRL line from the 74ls573 gets connected to what?
I am just trying to make sure I have it all right as to the connections before I start and also if any of the connections from the build-it-yourself schematic get removed.
And I am sorry if I appear to be a pain in the neck. I am just trying to get it all right before wiring in the 74ls573 piggybacked on the 74ls245.
Also, are my 74ls32 and 74ls04 chips with the "F" on them equivalent to those with the F in the chip designation?
I ask that for future reference.

I now have all the lines connected for the 74ls573 except for the CCTRL connection. So where do I connect it on the home-built card?
I just want to get it right. And it was a simple matter to route the address lines on the card through the 74ls573 chip and I have the capacitor also in place and wired in.
So one connection and I will be ready to try it.

And believe it or not, I am now anticipating the thought of trying it! :) :)
:D :D :D I went ahead and got it all figured out! :D :D :D
After seeing the home-built MyIDE external interface instantly load MY BIOS D, and work consistently, I am one happy camper!
In fact, it seems to work so well that I would suggest a modification to the home-built MyIDE to include the 74ls573 in it.
And it does not have to be piggybacked either. The only additional components needed would be the 74ls573 and the capacitor.
So since I have two other home-builds that did not seem to work, I am going to add the modification to them also.
That modification can help those that are having problems with the home-built MyIDE also.
So Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy! It works and I give you a big thank you for suggesting the addition of that chip!
:D :D


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 Post subject: Re: Home_built MyIDE external with stock Atari OS chip help
PostPosted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 7:46 am 
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Joined: Sun Nov 02, 2003 8:15 am
Posts: 1549
Location: netherlands
Congratulations :-)


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