[sebhc] H-8 question from a new list member.

Dwight K. Elvey dwight.elvey at amd.com
Thu Apr 1 12:55:36 CST 2004


Hi
 I think that IDE is about the easiest. The only hard part
is that you need to create buffering and latches to have
16 bit data. One can partition the drive or just not use
it all. Most people don't have hundreds of megabits of
CP/M files anyway.
Dwight

>From: "Lee Hart" <leeahart at earthlink.net>
>
>West, Ronald S. wrote:
>> I am working on designing an IDE port for my H-8. I have found a
>> few designs on the web that are not for the H-8 directly but can
>> be used as a good start for the project (IDE connector pin outs,
>> etc.).
>
>> Has anyone heard of someone doing this with the H-8 or H-89 already?
>
>The GIDE board was designed by a group in Germany, and I think they are
>selling them for a good price. This is a tiny credit-card sized PC
>board. If your H8 has a Z80 CPU board, you unplug the Z80, plug this Z80
>into the GIDE board instead, and plug the GIDE board into the Z80
>socket. It adds not only the IDE interface, but a real-time clock and
>some other features. They have software for CP/M, though you have to do
>some assembly language work on it yourself to suit your computer and the
>IDE drive you use.
>
>> will mount it and a small laptop hard drive (175MB) inside the H-8.
>
>Of course, even 175 Mb is 10 times bigger than CP/M will handle. :-)
>
>It might be more straightforward to add a SCSI drive. The Heath H47/H67
>interfaces for the H8 basically were an early implementation of SCSI. A
>number of people plugged in a small SCSI drive from an old Mac, and just
>used the existing Heath H67 software to talk to it. As I recall, the
>process is:
>
> - get an H47 or H67 interface board for your H8
>   (or build one with an NCR 5380 or equivalent chip)
> - make an adapter cable to convert Heath's 40-pin SASI to 50-pin SCSI
>   (basically a few wires need to be shuffled around)
> - connect a 10 megabyte or larger SCSI hard drive
> - use the Heath H67 Prep/Part utilities to format the hard drive
>   (the stock Heath software can only format it as 10 megs, no matter
>   how large the drive actuall is. Hacking is needed for other sizes)
> - use MAKEBIOS to make a Heath CP/M BIOS to support the H67
>
>The process for doing this on an H89 would be somewhat easier, because I
>already have a bunch of H47 and H67 I/O boards :-)
>
>> The hard part will be the device driver. Have not written a device
>> driver for HDOS in a very long time so hopefully it will all come
>> back to me ;^D
>
>I know the H67 driver existed for HDOS. If you can find it, it would
>serve as an example.
>
>Finally, it is my opinion that using a physical mechanical hard disk
>isn't worth the trouble any more. You can get RAM and FlashROM cards and
>chips so cheaply, and it is so easy to interface them that they have
>become a far better mass storage solution.
>-- 
>"Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the
>world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has!" -- Margaret Meade
>--
>Lee A. Hart  814 8th Ave N  Sartell MN 56377  leeahart_at_earthlink.net
>
>--
>This list is for Beta testers of the SEBHC Mailing List
>


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