exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

More progress. Changing the XT-IDE jumpers from compatibility to high speed and the CF card is now visible!

Of course when I run FDISK the drive isn't found, but I count seeing the CF card as progress :)

Good !

Even more progress.

First off, I've given up trying to flash in place, it rarely works, and leaving the WR switch enabled seems to be the cause of the ROM getting corrupted. Any flashing is done with my TL866 Pro.

Secondly, I can now access CF cards on the XT-IDE, and here's how I did it.

Step one I did earlier and that was changing the jumpers to 'high speed'.

Step 2 was to load ide_xt.bin into xtidecfg (Without the card installed) and copy the working configuration from my Book 8088, making new a version of it that allowed my PPC to boot OK with the XT-IDE installed, but from A:.

Step 3 was once in DOS on my PPC having booted from A:, I loaded that ide_xt.bin file from disk and used xtidecfg to autodetect the settings for the PPC with the XT-IDE card installed and save that file to disk.

Step 4 was to flash the ROM from the XT-IDE card using the ide_xt.bin created at step 3.

Finally I booted into A: and used FDISK to prep the CF card, and FORMAT to, well, format it...

I still can't boot to it, but I think that may be a hangover from when I was trying to get my Incognito Gold working, and all the CF cards ended up with odd partitions.

I can however use it normally and make directories, copy files etc though, so that is definitely progress.

I'll try wiping a CF card completely tomorrow and see if that helps.

That's a lot more hoops to jump through than with the PicoMEM, and it's a lot slower too it seems, with less functionality.

@rubber_jonnie

Nice progress !

Thanks for your feedback.

:D

HigashiJun wrote: 13 Apr 2025 03:53 @rubber_jonnie

Nice progress !

Thanks for your feedback.

:D

No problem. In retrospect I could have done it differently by simply blanking the ROM on board the XT-IDE as that probably would have let me boot to A: without the XT-IDE freezing the PPC, and then loaded the ide_xt.bin fine and done the autoconfig that way. I'll try that later when I blank the CF cards.

As for the disabling write on the interface card and setting high speed, I guess that is just one of those things.

So my blank ROM plan as it turned out was a bust, because no ROM = no XT-IDE. Do'h

So my previously stated steps still seem to be valid.

However, my assumptions about the CF cards being weirdly partitioned due to my messing with them in the Incognito Gold was correct.

Having used diskpart on Win10 to wipe everything, I now have two CF cards partitioned via the XT-IDE, formatted an booting to DOS :)

Finally working, but a bit of a struggle, I'll be going back to the PicoMem as a long term solution though as it's much more flexible and offers Adlib, USB, NE2000 emulation, virtual FDD's and up to 4 hard drives, plus the ability to create your own blank drives in seconds.

No luck with the EPROM either...

So my last guess is that a chip is faulty (I bought them from auction sites after all...).

Ordered an already made XT CF adapter and now have to wait until it reaches me.

:(

HigashiJun wrote: 16 Apr 2025 09:33 No luck with the EPROM either...

So my last guess is that a chip is faulty (I bought them from auction sites after all...).

Ordered an already made XT CF adapter and now have to wait until it reaches me.

:(

Unfortunately sometimes auction sites are the only option 🙁

Have you ordered a full size XT-ide or a ready made mini one?

I think you may still have to configure the ROM for the Tandy though, but I expect with a known good device it'll be easier.

rubber_jonnie wrote: 16 Apr 2025 10:32 Unfortunately sometimes auction sites are the only option 🙁

Have you ordered a full size XT-ide or a ready made mini one?

I think you may still have to configure the ROM for the Tandy though, but I expect with a known good device it'll be easier.

I have ordered a ready made mini one, and I will probably have to flash a copy of the current ROM.

HigashiJun wrote: 16 Apr 2025 10:51

rubber_jonnie wrote: 16 Apr 2025 10:32 Unfortunately sometimes auction sites are the only option 🙁

Have you ordered a full size XT-ide or a ready made mini one?

I think you may still have to configure the ROM for the Tandy though, but I expect with a known good device it'll be easier.

I have ordered a ready made mini one, and I will probably have to flash a copy of the current ROM.

Good luck!