whinery@hale.ifa.hawaii.edu (Alan Whinery) (04/17/91)
I have been meaning for some time to write a short report on my building of the ByNery Shareware Hard Disk interface, which allows you to interface an IBM XT type Hard disk to your Amiga, but It hasn't happened. SO, I'll just report that it works marvelously, I have a 40 MB drive formatted as 3 partitions, it's fast enough for me, it makes my computer worth using (previously I was a one-floppy man.) I did get the shareware support, ($30) and I ended up buying the recommended controller (be careful, not all will work), and the disk was used, so I spent about $130 dollars and about 6 hours to have a hard drive. I am open to questions, requests for the introductory package, which will actually get the thing working with a 10 MB drive or partition, and I support the shareware agreement, so don't ask for the full package from me. The intro package is available ftp from ab20.larc.nasa.gov, in /amiga/hardware/bynery.zoo. Alan whinery@hale.ifa.hawaii.edu P.S. I have this hoorible felling that I promised a copy to someone via e-mail and lost the request. Are you out there? -- ========================================================================= | D. Alan Whinery| The Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii | | Technical Genius| Internet: whinery@hale.ifa.hawaii.edu | | Potential Writer| 71350.3005@compuserve.com
johnf@ssl.berkeley.edu (John Flanagan) (05/03/91)
In article <12493@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> whinery@hale.ifa.hawaii.edu (Alan Whinery) writes: >I have been meaning for some time to write a short report on my building >of the ByNery Shareware Hard Disk interface, which allows you to interface >an IBM XT type Hard disk to your Amiga, but It hasn't happened. >SO, I'll just report that it works marvelously. Well, I have just built it myself, and yes, indeed, it does work just fine IF you get one of the recommended controllers. I tried a different controller, but it lacked the IOR* and IOW* lines used to communicate in this project (I guess it used a memory-mapped I/O scheme). So make sure that any controller you consider getting, if it is not one of the recommended Western Digital ones, has all the interface lines listed as being used in the schematic. I am not having much luck getting it to work simultaneously with my LUCAS/FRANCES pair, however. There seems to be a timing problem, though whether it is a hardware one or a software one I'm not sure. If I run LUCAS at 12 MHz, the drive interface works just fine. However, my FRANCES does not work reliably below 16 MHz, at which speed the drive does not seem to respond. The ByNeryDemo.device seems to get hung up in an endless loop querying the controller card (I can see activity on the IOR* line). I suspect that the 68020 is trying to read the data lines before the controller card has a chance to respond to the IOR* command. I've tried using 74F parts in the interface card instead of 74LS to get the IOR* out to the controller faster, but it does not help. I've sent in the shareware fee, and am hoping that in the non-demo version of the device driver the delay loops are longer or configurable. Does anyone else out there have any experience with this? Any assistance from fellow LUCAS/FRANCES/ByNery hackers would be appreciated. By the way, the controller I'm using is the Western Digital XT-Gen (MFM). PS: Can anybody remind me how to contact someone on CompuServe? The ByNery author is there. Thanks, John -- John Flanagan Center for EUV Astrophysics johnf@ssl.berkeley.edu University of California (...!ucbvax!soc1.ssl!johnf) Berkeley, CA 94720
markb@tplrd.tpl.oz.au (Mark Bower) (05/13/91)
In article <JOHNF.91May2181451@gualala.ssl.berkeley.edu> johnf@ssl.berkeley.edu (John Flanagan) writes: >In article <12493@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> whinery@hale.ifa.hawaii.edu (Alan Whinery) writes: > >>I have been meaning for some time to write a short report on my building >>of the ByNery Shareware Hard Disk interface, which allows you to interface >>an IBM XT type Hard disk to your Amiga, but It hasn't happened. >>SO, I'll just report that it works marvelously. > >Well, I have just built it myself, and yes, indeed, it does work >just fine IF you get one of the recommended controllers. I tried a >different controller, but it lacked the IOR* and IOW* lines used >to communicate in this project (I guess it used a memory-mapped I/O >scheme). So make sure that any controller you consider getting, if it >is not one of the recommended Western Digital ones, has all the >interface lines listed as being used in the schematic. > Where do you get the info for the XT HD interface ? Could anyone send it to me, I'd be most grateful for it ? What is the shareware agreement on it, I'd happily pay (!?!). Cheers, Mark Bower. | /\ ------------------------------------------------------------|/ \ /----------- Mark F. Bower. (markb@tplrd.tpl.oz.au) | \/ Telectronics Pacing Systems | "Sorry - No quotes today" R & D | 7 Sirius Rd. | Lane Cove 2066 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------