[comp.sys.amiga] ST506 homebrew interface for A1000

gstovall@brchh165.BNR.CA (Greg Stovall) (12/13/90)

Has anyone developed a homebrew ST506 interface for an A1000?  I'm not yet
ready to go to SCSI, but I have an ST506 type disk that I would like to hook
up.

I saw a commercial product some time ago that looked like just a PAL and a few
capacitors and resistors, but I don't remember the manufacturer.  It should be
a simple process to hook one up, although the performance won't be great...

.no sig yet
Greg Stovall, Bell-Northern Research, Inc.
Richardson, Texas
(214) 907-7009
  

whinery@hale.ifa.hawaii.edu (Alan Whinery) (12/15/90)

In article <796@brchh104.bnr.ca> gstovall@brchh165.BNR.CA (Greg Stovall) writes:
>Has anyone developed a homebrew ST506 interface for an A1000?  I'm not yet
>ready to go to SCSI, but I have an ST506 type disk that I would like to hook
>up.
>
>Greg Stovall, Bell-Northern Research, Inc.
>Richardson, Texas
>(214) 907-7009

I am about to post a collection of Publicly Distributable hardware projects.
Among them is a project through which you can interface an IBM hard drive
(with IBM XT style controller) to your Amiga. It uses the A500 expansion 
port, which (please correct) also exists on the A1000.

Alan
whinery@hale.ifa.hawaii.edu

m0154@tnc.UUCP (GUY GARNETT) (12/19/90)

In article <796@brchh104.bnr.ca> gstovall@brchh165.BNR.CA (Greg Stovall) writes:
>Has anyone developed a homebrew ST506 interface for an A1000?  I'm not yet
>ready to go to SCSI, but I have an ST506 type disk that I would like to hook
>up.
>
>I saw a commercial product some time ago that looked like just a PAL and a few
>capacitors and resistors, but I don't remember the manufacturer.  It should be
>a simple process to hook one up, although the performance won't be great...
>
>.no sig yet
>Greg Stovall, Bell-Northern Research, Inc.
>Richardson, Texas
>(214) 907-7009
>  


The commercial product is the MAX hard drive hacker's kit, from
Palomax (check out old issues of AC for their ad, and they are in the
latest AC Guide/Amiga).  It was about $100, and gets complete
schematics, drawings, parts list, suppliers, and (most importantly)
software.  In theory, everything but the software should be easy for a
good hardware hacker to come up with from scratch.

What MAX does is allow you to attach an Western Digital or OMTI
controller (PCXT 8 bit or PCAT 16 bit) to your Amiga's bus; you can
then run ST-506 MFM or RLL drives (up to 2 controllers, each with up
to two driver) with their driver software.

The software is a set of interrupt driven disk device drivers, and
Palomax claims up to 300Kb/Sec transfer rate with fast drives and a 16
bit RLL controller.  They also include some installation and testing
utilities, and a backup program.

The package is probably worth what they are charging ($99 last I
heard), especially for the software.  I haven't built it yet.

Wildstar