<Actually, on the downstream side of the adapter card you are tremendously
<close to an IDE interface. As I understand it, the IDE interface is
<premised on the commands that are required by the WD1002-nnn controller.
<zI have forgotten the exact model, but it must be near to the WD1002.
Incorrect.
IDE is the buslevel equivelent of the ISA16 card WD1003WA. The register
format, addresses of the registers are identical, the interface is also the
same save for there are only three addres bits and two selects(like chip
select) where the board would take a full 10 bit address and decode it.
The 1002 HOST interface gas a different address, register command structure
though there are similarities wbeing both from WD.
To do a IDE on kaypro you would need to do the 8<->16 bit translation
and from what I have here there is not enough addresses brought out to the
host adaptor plug. That means a CPU piggyback adaptor (GIDE is one case).
SCSI would be easier as a cpu interface but the SCSI bios is a nightmare
for the 5380 type chips.
In any case adding a hard disk to kaypro requires utility software, an
interface and BIOS.
Going the turborom route and putting two to three 3.5" disks is easier.
With 3.5" drives there is auto write portect on power down so you dont need
to eject the disks and with the that would be 2.3mb of available storage
plus the 360kb drive for compatability. I have one setup in such a mannor
with an old IBM PS/2 drive inside the case (I treat it as 781k hard drive)
and two drives on the front (3.5" and 5.25" 360k). For what I use the
kaypro for that's plenty of on line storage.
To do 1.44mb would require far more effort due to data rate and the fact
that DMA is not available so it would be hardware mods for floppy controller
and also big time bios mods.
Allison
Received on Sun Jan 31 1999 - 12:33:47 GMT