Interesting 800XL with DIY internal IDE interface

[gamer-stu]

Desiring a PAL machine, I bought this heavily modded 800XL from Poland. 
 

Some really cool things inside, including a memory expansion and stereo Pokey. 
 

What I find most interesting is this hand soldered IDE interface (PBI), 40 MB drive, running BW-DOS 1.3

 

Im guessing that the original owner created the interface based off of existing plans (as opposed to it being a prototype). Does anyone know of DIY plans out there to cobble together a board like this?

 

 

[BillC]

According to the FAQ there were 3 IDE interfaces developed for the Atari 8-bits. I think the first is the original KMK/JZ interface, the IDE Plus 2.0 is an updated/extended version of this. Another not mentioned is MYIDE but this uses the cartridge port rather than PBI.

 

• IDE Hard Drive Interface v1.0

  New from Poland, this promises to let your XL/XE take control of new IDE hard disks. Its design will permit future systems to break the 16 megabyte boundary.Email for more info.

•  

• Bob Woolley's IDE Interface

  Some guys are constantly hacking hardware. And then there's Bob. Memory upgrades? PBIs for 1200xls? 80 column devices? Battery-backed RAM operating system? Somewhere, after all those, he found the time to interface the xl/xe parallel bus with an IDE hard drive. Plans to be published in the next Atari Classics magazine.

  
  
• German IDE Interface

  And now there is a new IDE-Interface available from germany. ~DM 120, + shipping. Works fine with Mitsumi CD-ROMs. Get in contact with the developers by Email.

Edited September 3, 2023 by BillC

[gamer-stu]

Thanks BillC. Since this is from Poland, I think the likely suspect is the first on your list. I might dump the ROM to take a look. 

[BillC]

47 minutes ago, gamer-stu said:

Thanks BillC. Since this is from Poland, I think the likely suspect is the first on your list. I might dump the ROM to take a look. 

According to the following post by @drac030 the IDEa interface was a clone of his KMK/JZ interface.

 

Since information about the Bob Wooley/@bob1200xl IDE interface is publicly available(see link below) it could be any of the 4, or a different version entirely.

https://archive.org/details/AtariClassicsV5n2/page/n16/mode/1up?view=theater

Edited September 3, 2023 by BillC

[+kheller2]

That memory expansion looks interesting….

[tmp]

10 hours ago, gamer-stu said:

Thanks BillC. Since this is from Poland, I think the likely suspect is the first on your list. I might dump the ROM to take a look. 

are you sure it's from poland? i've seen the same machine being sold locally (slovakia) plus those tesla chips could also imply that interface was made somewhere in czechoslovakia

[gamer-stu]

14 minutes ago, tmp said:

are you sure it's from poland? i've seen the same machine being sold locally (slovakia) plus those tesla chips could also imply that interface was made somewhere in czechoslovakia

Ah… you are right. I checked the listing, it indeed came from Bratislava. Apologies!

[Mathy]

Hello Bill, guys

 

On 9/3/2023 at 2:00 AM, BillC said:

• German IDE Interface

  And now there is a new IDE-Interface available from germany. ~DM 120, + shipping. Works fine with Mitsumi CD-ROMs. Get in contact with the developers by Email.

 

This is the MSC-IDE Interface.  It's far from new and the mail addresses probably haven't been in use for decades.  I personally know Stefan and Matthias.  Both were long vanished it seemed, but I heard at the Fujiama meeting last week that somebody has contacted Stefan about the MSC-IDE interface.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

Edited September 5, 2023 by Mathy

[gamer-stu]

1 hour ago, Mathy said:

Hello Bill, guys

 

 

This is the MSC-IDE Interface.  It's far from new and the mail addresses probably haven't been in use for decades.  I personally know Stefan and Matthias.  Both were long vanished it seemed, but I heard at the Fujiama meeting last week that somebody has contacted Stefan about the MSC-IDE interface.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

Right, it’s referencing Deutsch Marks, so that was a while ago. 
 

I do know that IDE Plus v2 is still available from Simius—I just ordered one. 

[BillC]

2 hours ago, Mathy said:

Hello Bill, guys

 

 

This is the MSC-IDE Interface.  It's far from new and the mail addresses probably haven't been in use for decades.  I personally know Stefan and Matthias.  Both were long vanished it seemed, but I heard at the Fujiama meeting last week that somebody has contacted Stefan about the MSC-IDE interface.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

That was a direct quote from an old FAQ.

[gamer-stu]

By the way, does anyone know of a good way to backup the IDE hard drive? I’m thinking about converting it to CF. 

[ivop]

39 minutes ago, gamer-stu said:

By the way, does anyone know of a good way to backup the IDE hard drive? I’m thinking about converting it to CF. 

Connect it to a PC's IDE bus or if your PC doesn't have one anymore, use an IDE to USB cable. Under Linux you can than simply back it up with the dd command. dd if=/dev/sde of=backup.img. Change /dev/sde to the device as which it shows up after connecting (dmesg | tail). For Windows there's win32diskimager, clonezilla, and more.

 

Edit: if it's 44-pin IDE you need an adapter to 40-pin IDE.

Edited September 7, 2023 by ivop

[gamer-stu]

23 minutes ago, ivop said:

Connect it to a PC's IDE bus or if your PC doesn't have one anymore, use an IDE to USB cable. Under Linux you can than simply back it up with the dd command. dd if=/dev/sde of=backup.img. Change /dev/sde to the device as which it shows up after connecting (dmesg | tail). For Windows there's win32diskimager, clonezilla, and more.

 

Edit: if it's 44-pin IDE you need an adapter to 40-pin IDE.

Okay, thank you, this seems easier than I feared. I’ve got an IDE to USB, but unsure whether the drive is 40 or 44 pin.  Now to find where I’ve hidden the adapter.