[sebhc] Re: Great Idea for IDE MORE!! STATUS -- More Ideas ..

[Lee Hart]

West, Ronald S. wrote:
> I have an idea. How about a stand-alone interface device (using
> a PIC or something) that adapts an IDE hard drive to the H67 port.
> We wouldn't have to change any ROMs or write any device drivers
> for it. It would function as an H67 disk as far as the OS was
> concerned.

It's even simpler than that. Get a SCSI hard drive, and it will plug 
right into the H67 interface. If the SCSI drive is formatted to 10 megs, 
it will work with the existing Heath PART and PREP software.

If the SCSI hard drive is some other size, then the stock Heath software 
will ignore any capacity beyond 10 megs. But someone should be able to 
disassemble and rewrite PREP and PART for other sizes. Several 
aftermarket companies that made their own H89 hard drives did this 
(Magnolia, Sigmasoft, etc.) With luck, maybe we could find a copy of 
their software, or even someone who has the source!

> Only thing I don't know is what the format of the H67 disk was.
> Does anyone have that information? 

I believe it was formatted with 256 byte sectors. Any SCSI drive you 
find used (they are common in Macs) will probably be formatted for 512 
byte sectors.
-- 
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget the perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in    --    Leonard Cohen
--
Lee A. Hart, 814 8th Ave N, Sartell MN 56377, leeahart_at_earthlink.net

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