Okay gang. I just can't take it, I gotta help this guy become an atarian. :)
Okay, this is what; you need. You need an ATSCI to SCSI converter
controller. The most common for the ST series is made by ICD. They can still
be had from ICD but they are around 79.00. There is an Atari dealer, yes,
dealer, amazing in my area. [KCMO] Their home page is
www.systemsfortomorrow.com. They are a great bunch of guys and I got my ICD
SCSI controller for them for a 1040 Swap. [I had two]. But he has a few used
ones and can get you one if you want. This machine is very worth spending
the money to get a HD for. My 1040ste I have upgraded to 4 megs, it has a
14.4 modem and a quantum 105lps scsi HD on. It will currently connect to
the internet, and i mean with PPP an PAP authentication, will do IRC, FTP,
Popmail and graphically surf all via freeware. Please let me know if I can
be of any assistance.
Bill Girnius
-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Duell <ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp_at_u.washington.edu>
Date: Wednesday, June 03, 1998 6:26 PM
Subject: Re: Atari hard drives?
>>
>> > MFM and RLL are encoding schemes. They define how to turn a stream of
0's
>> > and 1's into the magnetic patterns on the disk. They have nothing to do
>> > with how a drive talks to its controller
>>
>> Of course, I was just using the vernacular... (About like "CMOS setup" -
>
>I don't normally mind - in fact I often misuse the terms myself. But whem
>we're talking about hard disk operation, it helps to be exact.
>
>CMOS setup is less worrying. After all you are setting up parameters
>which are stored in CMOS RAM (part of the real time clock chip). I do
>object to people who don't know the difference between the CMOS RAM that
>stores the BIOS setup parameters and the BIOS ROM itself.
>
>> you didn't make any comments about that one though. :-)) But I didn't
>> remember that it was called ST506. Sounds like a Seagate part number.
>> Was it a PC hard drive, or even earlier?
>
>The SR506 interface is named after the ST506 drive (5 Mbytes) which was
>(AFAIK) the first drive to use this interface. Actually, the right name
>should be ST412 (which was a 10 Mbyte drive that was used in the original
>IBM XTs, etc), since there are minor differences. But if I called it an
>ST412 interface few people would understand me.
>
>> > You're probably thinking of the servo bursts - the signals that keep
the
>> > heads on a track. Some drives did use a particular side of one of the
>> > platters for these. Other drives 'embedded' them in the sector headers
on
>> > the data platters. The latter is not common on ST506 interfaced drives,
>> > but is common on SCSI/IDE drives
>>
>> Hmmm, interesting. So low-level formatting doesn't rewrite these?
>
>Absolutely not. That's one reason why bulk-erasing hard drives can ruin
them.
>The only way to rewrite the servo data is to open up the disk in a clean
>room, afix a position transducer (laser interferometer !) to the head
>arm, position the heads accurately where you want them using a special
>electonic system linked to the positioner coil and the transducer and
>write the servo bursts. I know of nobody who has the equipment to do that.
>
>> That would imply that the servo bursts are not involved in determining
>> sectors at all. I used to use an RLL card with a couple of formerly
>
>Correct. On embedded servo drives, the number of sectors/track is fixed,
>since you want the servo bursts in the headers, and not in the middle of
>user data. But on servo surface drives (with the 'wasted' surface), the
>servo data is pretty much continuous and doesn't have anything to do with
>the sectoring
>
>> MFM drives, and it made more sectors per track, so I thought the
>> wasted platter had something to do with that.
>
>No, it's similar to the fact that I can take a 5.25" floppy and format it
>in my TRS-80 model 1 with 10 sectors (88K) or in my Apple ][ with 16
>sectors (143K). Both machines have 35 tracks, in the same position.
>
>
>> > Are you sure: While almost all clone controllers have a formatter
routine
>> > at C800:5,
>>
>> Yep, that's the one.
>
>Well, unless you move the BIOS to CC00:0000 or somewhere...
>
>>
>> > I couldn't find it in the original IBM XT hard disk BIOS.
>>
>> Hmmm. Well I think I remember using a full-length IBM controller with a
>> 30 meg drive, and only being able to format 10 megs of it because it was
>> the XT controller designed for the 10 meg hard drive. But I don't
remember
>> if I used debug to format it, or something else. This is my mom's
machine
>> which she never uses, so one of these days I can replace it with
something
>> more useful and refesh my memory about its contents. I'm going to try
>> to restore it to original condition since it is so close already.
>
>It's not in the BIOS source in my Techref. The first few lines of that
>source are :
>
>0000 55 DB 055H ; Generic BIOS header
>0001 AA DB 0AAH
>0002 10 DB 16D ; ROM length byte (ARD)
>0003 DISK_SETUP PROC FAR
>0003 EB 1B JMP SHORT L3
>0005 3530.. DB '5000059 (C)COPYRIGHT IBM 1982' ; Copyright notice
>
>So on the true-blue IBMs, there's a copyright notice there, not a jump
>to the low-level formatter.
>
>> _______ KB7PWD _at_ KC7Y.AZ.US.NOAM
ecloud_at_goodnet.com
>> (_ | |_) Shawn T. Rutledge on the web:
http://www.goodnet.com/~ecloud
>> __) | |
\__________________________________________________________________
>> * quantize the universe * 808 State * virtual reality * mad science *
>>
>
>-tony
Received on Wed Jun 03 1998 - 19:38:53 BST