IDE card.....

[marc.hull]

For what it's worth, the Myarc HFDC, SCSI, and IDE cards all support hard drive devices. What people often forget is that the HFDC also has the ability to emulate a floppy using the "DSK1 emulation" feature. If this feature was written into the SCSI and/or IDE DSRs, and expanded to emulate DSK1-4, you'd get the best of both worlds. The emulated disk image is simply a sector copy of a physical disk into a file on the hard drive.

 

As for some interesting storage, here is a chip that I was working toward integrating on-board the Geneve or TI. Real life and the inability to obtain the developers kit stopped my effort. Coupled with a hard drive DSR (or in the Geneve's case, the existing DSR) would give you some pretty cool storage.

 

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/208867248/128MB_Disk_On_Chip_DOC.html

 

tim

 

Could you explain this mysterious DSK1 emulation feature and it's benefits please......

[+OLD CS1]

Sorry I don't think I was clear on this point......

 

The IDE card can use a CF card directly so there is no need for a physical disk. The CF plugs right into the back of the card. Sorry for any confusion...

 

That pretty much satisfies me, then. Only thing to make it better would be native FAT compatibility... but I will try not to push my luck.

 

As for the physical interface versus USB, yeah, USB would be nice, but someone would also have to program the stack and the classes required within. It can be done, and the Amiga currently has an excellent USB 2.0 card with a plethora of classes supported (including the USB missile launcher,) as well as other classic computers. The problem I see with USB is that, while the interface would be less expensive, a multi-use device would be more intricate to provide software interfaces for, and could leave a lot of people disappointed. (Ask me about the missing features in my SCSI card...)

 

I would support USB rather than IDE if it could support a keyboard, hard drive, and flash drive at a minimum. SD/MS reader would be bonus. Keyboard optional only if it would be virtually impossible to wedge a USB keyboard routine into the operating system.

 

Otherwise, a single use, but otherwise flexible, interface is with what I would be happy. Ignore my rambling for the most part about USB... I am just a little gun-shy and do not want to invest in something which has such an unknown. Right now, the IDE card has a design and a viable DSR ready-to-go. And as I have a PEB (or two,) I am happy to invest. Or trade for my SCSI card

[+InsaneMultitasker]

For what it's worth, the Myarc HFDC, SCSI, and IDE cards all support hard drive devices. What people often forget is that the HFDC also has the ability to emulate a floppy using the "DSK1 emulation" feature. If this feature was written into the SCSI and/or IDE DSRs, and expanded to emulate DSK1-4, you'd get the best of both worlds. The emulated disk image is simply a sector copy of a physical disk into a file on the hard drive.

 

As for some interesting storage, here is a chip that I was working toward integrating on-board the Geneve or TI. Real life and the inability to obtain the developers kit stopped my effort. Coupled with a hard drive DSR (or in the Geneve's case, the existing DSR) would give you some pretty cool storage.

 

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/208867248/128MB_Disk_On_Chip_DOC.html

 

tim

 

Could you explain this mysterious DSK1 emulation feature and it's benefits please......

 

DSKx emulation redirects floppy disk requests from a physical device to a "disk file". In the HFDC's case, when enabled, physical DSK1. access is redirected to a disk image of your choosing. The image is a straight sector dump of the disk and resides on the hard drive. Myarc's disk manager V allows you to select the disk image. You gain the speed of a hard disk with the accessibility of a floppy. Was a great way to use floppy-only programs without needing the actual floppy. I used it for my projects, creating an image for each project. Assembling source was faster because writing to the virtual floppy required less overhead -- no need to update the 31 sector bitmap of the hard disk device during writes, for one thing.

 

[marc.hull]

So I assume the CF card could be easily read on a PC and added to/subtracted from/edited using TI-99Dir? If so, that sounds pretty great.

 

Anyone know what a typical price has been/will be?

 

I would suspect a PEB card would cost somewhere around $100-$130 to build at the most. The wild cards are the boards. If the can be ordered in bulk then the price is reduced dramatically.

 

Perhaps a side car device that could correctly pass signals to the PEB would be more in order. That would include every body with or without a PEB. And the board could be dramatically smaller.

[Opry99er]

Thanks Marc... At that price, I'll have to pass. My CF7 is useful for my purposes. Besides, I have a SID card to buy soon. =)

[matthew180]

There is a USB card available for the TI from the same T. Nouspikel. As far as I understand it though the problem with Using different devices on USB is that each device needs a driver for the device. Hardware is done.... knock yourself out with the DSR's .

 

Yeah, I know about Thierry's card, and I'm glad he did it. However, you don't need a whole card to do USB any more, a single micro-controller will do. And yes, I understand there is a software / firmware component, but we are talking about one thing here: mass storage, which has a standard driver for all compliant device.

 

As far as the PEB card goes. I don't see your point. How can new stuff that meshes with the old stuff flawlessly not do people any good ? Before you use words like most maybe you should check the facts..... I recall that you yourself own a PEB (unless I am mistaken....) I imagine most TI users who are still around now a days have a PEB.

 

I can't check facts on the number of PEB owners or the number of 99/4A uses. Those statistics do not exist, but I would be willing to bet that there more people using a 99/4A who do not have a PEB than do have a PEB. There are a lot of uses in this forum who don't have anything other than a console and XB. CF7 devices are snatched up faster than they can be found available, and no one wants to pay to have a PEB shipped.

 

Yes, I have a PEB, but I have never owned any 3rd party cards because they are simply not available, and anyone selling something like a hard disk card wants more than a reasonable amount for it. There are a few tech-heads in our community who can make cards and such, but the majority of people want a completed plug-n-play device, which takes a crap-ton of work to produce. Heck, everyone could have an F18A TODAY if they want to go invest in an FPGA development board, hand make custom connectors, and have the thing hanging outside of their system taking up more space than a PEB. Anyone who wants to do it themselves, let me know when you are ready and I'll send you the bitstream.

 

I don't think I'm telling you anything you don't already know. But for me, it is frustrating to see someone post in the forum that they just got a console but they can't do anything because they don't have XB, or a PEB, or CF7, or anything else. Then they decide to give up on the 99/4A. Before Jon did the first Multi-Cart boards, very few people could make their own carts, and after he did his batches, you could not get them any more.

 

If people want to make PEB cards, then I think that is great. Any new hardware is cool. But unless those cards and produced and made available as complete products, no body will ever have one except a select few, and there will be no software written that takes advantage of the new devices.

 

Well, it looks like I have started rambling on again. Personally I don't see the advantage of an IDE card, especially one that can only use older PATA drives, which are becoming very hard to find and buy (I'm talking about *new* drives, not digging up 6 year old stock somewhere or buying used on ebay.) And SCSI is a lost cause IMO. Hard drives fail, and the older they get, the worse they get. If there is going to be a new effort to make a mass storage interface, why not use a modern device on the storage side? Also, don't make it a PEB card if there is any hope of mass adoption. Then again, it does not make any difference at all, we are too few.

[+OLD CS1]

I don't think I'm telling you anything you don't already know. But for me, it is frustrating to see someone post in the forum that they just got a console but they can't do anything because they don't have XB, or a PEB, or CF7, or anything else. Then they decide to give up on the 99/4A. Before Jon did the first Multi-Cart boards, very few people could make their own carts, and after he did his batches, you could not get them any more.

 

Same thing could be said about a Commodore, Apple, Atari, Color Computer, etc. They all need some kind of peripheral. The difference may be availability of the PEB versus a Commodore 1541 or an Atari 1050, but those of us in the forums can be of great assistance to newbies in terms of locating equipment or assisting in the acquisition.

 

For instance, my floppy controller came from someone here who just had it around as a spare and wound up not using it. I have a second PEB which I may never use, other than to convert it to an ATX power supply. And I know for fact that a number of us troll *.craigslist.org, and some even hoard equipment for potential future users if the price is right (usually free, amirite?)

 

If people want to make PEB cards, then I think that is great. Any new hardware is cool. But unless those cards and produced and made available as complete products, no body will ever have one except a select few, and there will be no software written that takes advantage of the new devices.

 

Good point. And as the community continues to dwindle, this will be more and more of a reality. Calling back to my Amiga roots, we are getting new hardware every so often because the community is still large enough to support doing so. But as emulation, AROS, MorphOS on MacMinis and the like, and so on become more pervasive, the "classic" hardware community will also dwindle to the point where new hardware is no longer feasible.

 

Well, it looks like I have started rambling on again. Personally I don't see the advantage of an IDE card, especially one that can only use older PATA drives, which are becoming very hard to find and buy (I'm talking about *new* drives, not digging up 6 year old stock somewhere or buying used on ebay.) And SCSI is a lost cause IMO. Hard drives fail, and the older they get, the worse they get. If there is going to be a new effort to make a mass storage interface, why not use a modern device on the storage side? Also, don't make it a PEB card if there is any hope of mass adoption. Then again, it does not make any difference at all, we are too few.

 

Your rambling is good fodder for thought, so do not cut yourself so low. About PATA (as they are called these days, which I dislike... whatever) drives, I can still get 160GB, 250GB, 320GB, and 500GB drives brand spanking new. Not much help to the TI world. But then, neither are modern SATA drives. And that is just about capacity. But, at the same time, old IDE drives are based upon much better technology^* and, with the right brands and models, have much lower failure rates. Price will become a problem as these become more scarce -- I priced out SCSI drives under 250MB a little while ago and saw prices in the $100s!

 

But, what about this: who says the card HAS to be PEB-specific? With the advent of new micro-controllers, FPGAs, and such ilk (of which heavy use is made in the Amiga world) we can make MUCH smaller cards. That said, what about small controller designs on cards which could be used on the side of the console OR in a PEB card adapter?

 

In the case of the IDE card, it could be made smaller and hold a CF card on the board. That card could be attached to the side of the console or mounted on an adapter card which fits in the PEB. Then a ribbon cable could be used to move the CF position to the back of the PEB, or wherever the user desires.

 

* To clarify, I mean older, more stable and proven in some cases. Standard parallel writing techniques on a stable drive can be more reliable than first-generation perpendicular recording. Of course, bearings age, and faulty electronics die.

Edited March 9, 2011 by OLD CS1

[marc.hull]

There is a USB card available for the TI from the same T. Nouspikel. As far as I understand it though the problem with Using different devices on USB is that each device needs a driver for the device. Hardware is done.... knock yourself out with the DSR's .

 

Yeah, I know about Thierry's card, and I'm glad he did it. However, you don't need a whole card to do USB any more, a single micro-controller will do. And yes, I understand there is a software / firmware component, but we are talking about one thing here: mass storage, which has a standard driver for all compliant device.

 

As far as the PEB card goes. I don't see your point. How can new stuff that meshes with the old stuff flawlessly not do people any good ? Before you use words like most maybe you should check the facts..... I recall that you yourself own a PEB (unless I am mistaken....) I imagine most TI users who are still around now a days have a PEB.

 

I can't check facts on the number of PEB owners or the number of 99/4A uses. Those statistics do not exist, but I would be willing to bet that there more people using a 99/4A who do not have a PEB than do have a PEB. There are a lot of uses in this forum who don't have anything other than a console and XB. CF7 devices are snatched up faster than they can be found available, and no one wants to pay to have a PEB shipped.

 

Yes, I have a PEB, but I have never owned any 3rd party cards because they are simply not available, and anyone selling something like a hard disk card wants more than a reasonable amount for it. There are a few tech-heads in our community who can make cards and such, but the majority of people want a completed plug-n-play device, which takes a crap-ton of work to produce. Heck, everyone could have an F18A TODAY if they want to go invest in an FPGA development board, hand make custom connectors, and have the thing hanging outside of their system taking up more space than a PEB. Anyone who wants to do it themselves, let me know when you are ready and I'll send you the bitstream.

 

I don't think I'm telling you anything you don't already know. But for me, it is frustrating to see someone post in the forum that they just got a console but they can't do anything because they don't have XB, or a PEB, or CF7, or anything else. Then they decide to give up on the 99/4A. Before Jon did the first Multi-Cart boards, very few people could make their own carts, and after he did his batches, you could not get them any more.

 

If people want to make PEB cards, then I think that is great. Any new hardware is cool. But unless those cards and produced and made available as complete products, no body will ever have one except a select few, and there will be no software written that takes advantage of the new devices.

 

Well, it looks like I have started rambling on again. Personally I don't see the advantage of an IDE card, especially one that can only use older PATA drives, which are becoming very hard to find and buy (I'm talking about *new* drives, not digging up 6 year old stock somewhere or buying used on ebay.) And SCSI is a lost cause IMO. Hard drives fail, and the older they get, the worse they get. If there is going to be a new effort to make a mass storage interface, why not use a modern device on the storage side? Also, don't make it a PEB card if there is any hope of mass adoption. Then again, it does not make any difference at all, we are too few.

 

Well then, I guess it's time to lay down and cry......

 

Really Matt you must be having a bad day so let me cheer you up

 

If you want to find out who has a PEB and who doesn't just ask this group. That should be a fair representative sample at least better that just "guessing." The truth be known that if people are coming back to the hobby and are going to stay for a while then they are most likely going to get well equipped. I payed to have a PEB shipped others will and do all the time.

 

Third party cards ? They tend to show on on Ebay fairly often. You may have to put some effort into watching for them now and then but they do show and sometime get expensive. That's the market and there is no sense in complaining about that. And BTW.... That's one of the reasons for suggesting this IDE project.... An affordable hard drive system for all.......

 

Perhaps you missed the posts that described the IDE card and the fact that it uses a CF card that plugs right into the back of it, so no jankey old drives to go bad. The same thing is possible with SCSI. My SCSI card has two 256 MB flash cards instead of drives. It requires a SCSI/IDE bridge card but works very reliably. Perhaps your having a bad day or perhaps the stick that was up my butt last week has found it's way to yours .

 

At any rate, cheer up buddy. It's not that bad. Spring is coming!

[Tursi]

Ok, so if we're gonna live in a fantasy land... I'd love a TI device that connects wirelessly via samba to my Linux box. That way I could swap files around on my PC and they be in DSK1. I could have useful conventions on the PC to make it quick and easy to find stuff and "insert" to the TI over a wireless connection. No more goofy notations / handwritten notes / blah blah blah. Oh - and it can't go in the PEB, but it would certainly get me to dump my CF7+.

 

I don't write about fantasy land. I've already prototyped and proof-of-concept'd the device, showing it off at the Chicago TI Faire last year. I got tired of writing about fantasy land years ago. I'm just slow to get all my projects done, that's why I call it vaporware.

 

The Linux device will support USB at a minimum, since everything else can be done via USB. So yes, you'd be able to attach a USB wifi adapter and mount a file system over SAMBA. The code needed for a TI to talk to a device-independent filesystem is already written, I've been developing it for the last few years in Classic99.

 

The non-PEB version is my target. The PEB version is a concession. My own will probably be mounted inside my console.

 

Anyway, regarding the IDE drive, I kind of agree that it's not worth it now. Thierry over-engineered the card to do far more than was needed, if you wanted to, you could redesign it much more cheaply (an IDE port only needs 3 8-bit I/O ports and some software to run them). But PATA drives are starting to fade out, and while CF drives will be around for a fair bit of time yet, I don't know if it's worth ressurrecting the old design. That's just my two pence, though, any new product for the console is a great thing.

[unhuman]

Well then fantasy land become dream come true... Esp if it can co-exist with my CF7+ (which I'll need for 32k). Wow. Now I'm excited!

 

Ok, so if we're gonna live in a fantasy land... I'd love a TI device that connects wirelessly via samba to my Linux box. That way I could swap files around on my PC and they be in DSK1. I could have useful conventions on the PC to make it quick and easy to find stuff and "insert" to the TI over a wireless connection. No more goofy notations / handwritten notes / blah blah blah. Oh - and it can't go in the PEB, but it would certainly get me to dump my CF7+.

 

I don't write about fantasy land. I've already prototyped and proof-of-concept'd the device, showing it off at the Chicago TI Faire last year. I got tired of writing about fantasy land years ago. I'm just slow to get all my projects done, that's why I call it vaporware.

 

The Linux device will support USB at a minimum, since everything else can be done via USB. So yes, you'd be able to attach a USB wifi adapter and mount a file system over SAMBA. The code needed for a TI to talk to a device-independent filesystem is already written, I've been developing it for the last few years in Classic99.

 

The non-PEB version is my target. The PEB version is a concession. My own will probably be mounted inside my console.

 

Anyway, regarding the IDE drive, I kind of agree that it's not worth it now. Thierry over-engineered the card to do far more than was needed, if you wanted to, you could redesign it much more cheaply (an IDE port only needs 3 8-bit I/O ports and some software to run them). But PATA drives are starting to fade out, and while CF drives will be around for a fair bit of time yet, I don't know if it's worth ressurrecting the old design. That's just my two pence, though, any new product for the console is a great thing.

[Opry99er]

Howie,

if you're into pain and massochism, go to uStream TV and try to watch the vids from this past Faire... Tursi demo's this project and it's really quite a cool concept. =) I haven't mentioned anything about it lately because (as is everyone) Tursi has been super busy... But I see this actually happening. =)

 

I like something Tursi said on one of the lists... He's focusing his attention on bare console and basic expansion.... but you can "cram however much technology you want into a cart" or some such thing. =) Maybe we'll see the 99/8 in a cart someday. hehe

[unhuman]

Howie,

if you're into pain and massochism, go to uStream TV and try to watch the vids from this past Faire... Tursi demo's this project and it's really quite a cool concept. =) I haven't mentioned anything about it lately because (as is everyone) Tursi has been super busy... But I see this actually happening. =)

 

I like something Tursi said on one of the lists... He's focusing his attention on bare console and basic expansion.... but you can "cram however much technology you want into a cart" or some such thing. =) Maybe we'll see the 99/8 in a cart someday. hehe

 

Well - you guys are just turning me on my head. Hopefully I'll learn some assembly before Faire time and have something to show... That'd be the only way I could rationalize attendance. I think. Gotta... find... time... But the retroclouds library seems like it'll do alot of the work I need to do. Kinda like cheating, but better.

[Opry99er]

This is crap... just audio... the video sucked bad... it kinda skips frames and freezes alot... but you can hear Tursi's explanations.

 

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/10682951

Edited March 10, 2011 by Opry99er

[Opry99er]

Well - you guys are just turning me on my head. Hopefully I'll learn some assembly before Faire time and have something to show... That'd be the only way I could rationalize attendance. I think. Gotta... find... time... But the retroclouds library seems like it'll do alot of the work I need to do. Kinda like cheating, but better.

 

Come come now... You should attend anyway... We need a big Atariage presence this year... You've already written more software than most of the non-Atariage people who will be attending. And with the compiler, game demos are going to rock this year. =) I'm telling you right now... there's more to attending than demoing ground-breaking concepts like this linux cart... As someone who has missed the boat two years in a row, I can tell you that NOT attending sucks very badly... especially when you have stuff to show.

 

There's a magic at Faire time... I hope a bunch of us can show up this year from AA... It's really going to be a blast, man. If I miss this year for whatever reason, I might just cry like a little girl, video tape it, and post it to YouTube...

[unhuman]

There's a magic at Faire time... I hope a bunch of us can show up this year from AA... It's really going to be a blast, man. If I miss this year for whatever reason, I might just cry like a little girl, video tape it, and post it to YouTube...

 

I'd rather see that!

[matthew180]

Well - you guys are just turning me on my head. Hopefully I'll learn some assembly before Faire time and have something to show... That'd be the only way I could rationalize attendance. I think. Gotta... find... time... But the retroclouds library seems like it'll do alot of the work I need to do. Kinda like cheating, but better.

 

Not sure why you feel you need something to show. Most people don't. There were about 5 or 6 presentations last year, and about two were ad-hoc. Like Owen said, your participation is the most important thing you can do, i.e. showing up, thus making the event larger. Also, you don't have to have a finished program to show it. Walid didn't have his RTS done two years ago, but he still showed what he had. Anyway, come to the Faire and have a good time, and if you don't know assembly by then, maybe you will leave inspired to learn it!

[marc.hull]

I really don't understand the vehement opposition to the idea. I am chalking it up to a base misunderstanding as to the cards capabilities and what is actually doable. Some of the negativity offered was based on assumption and not fact. I would invite anyone to inquire as to the cards pro's and con's and I will answer frankly and honestly.

 

Although this is still in an exploratory phase I do plan to go forward with this when possible (I have about 3 grand in SID cards to dispose of before I can tackle another project.)

 

Theirry has granted his blessing. Fred appears to be on board. Jim Fetzner has all ready toyed with the idea of re drawing the board so I suspect he is a probable. As far as further discussion I would appreciate any idea contributions or feature requests, bearing in mind that the original overall circuit design needs to stay the same for DSR comparability. I think we are past why this is a bad idea or should not be done so if your in a anti-IDE mood then please restrain your comments.

 

At any rate the plan for now (provided the players fall in place) is to go ahead with design and prototype and if all plays out as hoped then do a run of cards and offer them for cost both here and on the other groups. You do not need to commit now or at any time. I don't think there can be a complaint to that.

[Opry99er]

I think any hardware project is a good one. Any mass-storage PEB card has some appeal, I think, on it's own merit. I didn't catch any vehement opposition, though.... Maybe I didn't read deeply enough though.

 

IMO--- go for it, man... I'd love one of these things, and I'd be happy to sell/trade my CF7 in favor of one of these bad boys.

[matthew180]

I think Marc is talking about my comments. It is just the way it comes across in text I guess. I'm not opposed to the cards, they just don't fit what I want from my 99/4A, so the end result is not that interesting to me. I like doing hardware though, it's fun, so I'll keep an eye on the project if the progress is posted anywhere. Any new hardware project is always going to stir up some sort of opinions though, especially when it comes to adding functionality that did not originally exist, and for which TI did not lay out a specification or standard. In these cases, our platform has no direction and everyone wants to do things "their way." In the end, the "way" that wins is the one that actually gets completed and that people can use. If you guys make IDE cards and everyone who wants one can buy one and plug it in, that would be great! Then people might start writing new games and such to take advantage of the large disk space and fast access, and that would be awesome!

[matthew180]

If you want to find out who has a PEB and who doesn't just ask this group. That should be a fair representative sample at least better that just "guessing." The truth be known that if people are coming back to the hobby and are going to stay for a while then they are most likely going to get well equipped. I payed to have a PEB shipped others will and do all the time.

 

I don't know, maybe. But people cry about paying $15 for a console on ebay and when they get it, it is DoA. I think more people won't buy a PEB than will. $75 + shipping can be a lot of money depending on your situation (which is different for everyone.) As for asking, well, lurkers don't post, our community is split (seems us A.A. users are the biggest assholes in the world), and I really don't think most people with a 99/4A even know about this A.A. forum or the Y! lists... I don't think it would be a good indicator, but I'll try.

[Opry99er]

It's interesting... but I think you're right... we're kind of the "black sheep" as viewed by the Stuff shirts. =) Kind of like the old British classes... Screw em... I think the talent and ambition here is far more productive than the constant repeated "That's already been done, you're wasting your time" mentality at the list.

 

IDE cards, game contests, new VDP chips, compiling BASIC into assembly, BASIC on cart... We're the movers and shakers, man... Honestly. It's ambition and ideas that progress a community... and we've got more of these in our "SHIFT" key than they've got in their whole keyboard. =) It's ideas like these that make this forum possible and exciting. How can we make our forum here easier to find for those users who don't participate in the list or Atariage? I suppose I could do a series of videos with Atariage plastered all over them. Then the casual user who looks up the TI on YouTube would be directed here... Might consider something like that once I get these carts assembled for Adam. =) EPROMs have been ordered... I just hope I have all the proper components to do it up right. =) I might be asking you about that, Matthew.

 

Anyway, sorry for the side-track... It's on-topic in trying to determine who uses what, I guess. =)

[+OLD CS1]

Theirry has granted his blessing. Fred appears to be on board. Jim Fetzner has all ready toyed with the idea of re drawing the board so I suspect he is a probable. As far as further discussion I would appreciate any idea contributions or feature requests, bearing in mind that the original overall circuit design needs to stay the same for DSR comparability.

 

I have proposed an idea here. I do not know if the idea of a dual-purpose (console port and PEB port) card would change the circuitry substantially enough to warrant changes in the DSR, but it is my thought, none-the-less.

 

Otherwise, I am still smitten with the idea of having space to mount a 2.5" IDE drive. Not necessarily for a drive, mind you, since a 44-pin connector could be used for a 2.5" drive, CF card adapter, or a flash module (if the header is perpendicular to the board) like this one.

[marc.hull]

Theirry has granted his blessing. Fred appears to be on board. Jim Fetzner has all ready toyed with the idea of re drawing the board so I suspect he is a probable. As far as further discussion I would appreciate any idea contributions or feature requests, bearing in mind that the original overall circuit design needs to stay the same for DSR comparability.

 

I have proposed an idea here. I do not know if the idea of a dual-purpose (console port and PEB port) card would change the circuitry substantially enough to warrant changes in the DSR, but it is my thought, none-the-less.

 

Otherwise, I am still smitten with the idea of having space to mount a 2.5" IDE drive. Not necessarily for a drive, mind you, since a 44-pin connector could be used for a 2.5" drive, CF card adapter, or a flash module (if the header is perpendicular to the board) like this one.

 

 

I did see and read your post. Interestingly enough someone on the Yahoo group made the exact same request as to the dual side car/PEB w/adapter style. Are you related to Sully ?

 

I am curious as to your request for the 2.5" drive. Some info that may change your mind is that the DSR is limited to 1 Gig, so if your thinking about a 60 gig hard drive, probably wont happen.

[+OLD CS1]

I did see and read your post. Interestingly enough someone on the Yahoo group made the exact same request as to the dual side car/PEB w/adapter style. Are you related to Sully ?

 

As in James P. Sullivan, Monsters Inc.'s top scarer?? I am afraid not But I will say, great minds think alike!

 

I am curious as to your request for the 2.5" drive. Some info that may change your mind is that the DSR is limited to 1 Gig, so if your thinking about a 60 gig hard drive, probably wont happen.

 

Such a thought had not entered my mind. I have already resigned myself to sacrificing a large portion of a drive's capacity. However, 1GB makes me a little giddy. That would only be 5GB of a 6GB drive, or 19GB of a 20GB drive, tossed to the wind for my little baby machine. I would even be happy with one of the Transcend 128MB or 256MB flash modules.

 

Unlike on my Amiga which has full Internet access, I hardly thing I could fill 1GB of space using the TI. And even then I use a large amount of storage space on my Windows box via smbmount, so the 18GB drive will probably be pared down soon and relegated to use on another machine.

[marc.hull]

I think Marc is talking about my comments. It is just the way it comes across in text I guess. I'm not opposed to the cards, they just don't fit what I want from my 99/4A, so the end result is not that interesting to me. I like doing hardware though, it's fun, so I'll keep an eye on the project if the progress is posted anywhere. Any new hardware project is always going to stir up some sort of opinions though, especially when it comes to adding functionality that did not originally exist, and for which TI did not lay out a specification or standard. In these cases, our platform has no direction and everyone wants to do things "their way." In the end, the "way" that wins is the one that actually gets completed and that people can use. If you guys make IDE cards and everyone who wants one can buy one and plug it in, that would be great! Then people might start writing new games and such to take advantage of the large disk space and fast access, and that would be awesome!

 

Every body has an opinion and can make arguments based on such. I have no problem with that, If we all thought alike it would get pretty boring. What was irritating is that most of the arguments were based on misinformation or personal opinion without stating it as such. It's all part of life and is water under the bridge and we'll all live to fight another day, yada yada yada....

 

Good news.... Jim Fetzner is beginning work on a new version, Depending on options the buyer chooses the cost could be anywhere from around $80.00 to $130.00 (with out CF cards.)