Re: Amiga Sidecar with XT-IDE?

Hi.

> Mia Magnusson <mia_at_plea.se> kirjoitti 2.8.2019 kello 11.42:
> 
> http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=95985
> 
> According to the linked thread, you can use PCPrefs to select which 64k
> PC memory area to be used by the Janus PC-Amiga bridge, and the
> selection seems to be Axxxx, Dxxxx and Exxxx.
> 
> Does this differ between the A2088 and the 1060 sidecar? My impression
> were that they were the same.
> 
> If this isn't switchable, are you sure that the 1060 really uses the
> whole C0000-DFFFF area?

I was under the impression that putting Janus everywhere else but Exxxx would cause problems or the Janus-Amiga communications to not work, but I am not completely sure. This is all a bit complex.


> If I were you I'd get an ISA network card instead. With the A2386 (or
> A2286) I'd go for a 3Com 3C509 (if you have the option, choose the
> newer with a larger IC with the word "parallell tasking" written on
> it). (For the sidecar and the A2088 I'd recommend a WD/SMC 8003 which
> seems to be the best 8-bit ISA network card. Add a TP transciever and
> configure it to use the AUI port rather than the BNC port, that way you
> get a normal TP interface).
> 
> There is software on Aminet that makes it possible to use a
> bridgeboard/sidecar + ISA network adapter as if it were a network
> adapter on the Amiga side. It's not that fast, with my A2088 in my
> A2000 i get about 100kbytes/sec using FTP, which is about 30% of what
> the hardware could in theory handle, but it's still far more convenient
> to use than having the hassle of moving physical cards and having to
> reboot / power cycle.

I have two 8-bit ISA 3com cards and some 16-bit ones. I’ve read about that software that let’s the Amiga use the PC network card, that is cool. My A3000T already has an A2065 network card and I’d like to keep it as it’s the one that works with Amiga Unix that I have in my machine (as well as Workbench).


> I'd give the XTIDE route another try if I were you.

Yeah, that would be the most light-weight solution.


> Btw, not sure if it will work but if it's possible to load XTIDE from
> disk you might be able to have the bios on a 5.25" diskette together
> with DOS.
> 
> Btw if you go for my suggestion of using a network card, you might be
> able to fit the XTIDE-BIOS in the boot rom socket on the network card.
> That might lead to problems though as my impression is that the XTIDE
> stores it's settings in the BIOS and assumes that the BIOS is an
> EEPROM. Writing to EEPROMs is surely not supported on a network card.
> 
> Btw, if you get XTIDE-BIOS to work using the boot rom socket on a
> network card, you won't need the XTIDE card as XTIDE BIOS can use a
> 16-BIT ISA card in an 8-bit ISA slot and give you full functionality
> using CF cards and 50% capacity of physical disks. With todays
> relative large sizes of disks that's more or less free, it won't matter
> much if you can only access say 5GB of a 10GB disk…

I am not sure if XTIDE can be loaded from file, but that would be an easy solution. It would still require a boot floppy, but that wouldn’t be too bad.

Do you mean a 16-bit ISA card would work if I would get the XTIDE ROM loaded? Are they all 16-bit compatible of just some of them?


> P.S. what other hardware does your A1000/A1060 setup have? Most other
> solutions is probably faster than using the A1060 + PC hard disk as an
> Amiga hard disk.

At the moment nothing else. My A1000 has a boot selector for using a HxC for booting. I would like to keep the A1000 as original and just equip it with contemporary expansions. I am sure there would be much easier CPU/RAM expansions to install, but I’d like to keep the first one as original :)

—
Ville