Pocket IDE
Presented by: Only
On Saturday Night
This board fits inside of that
"pocket" under a coco-3 and connects to the "Bottom" connector that you
add. It's full IDE just like IdeZilla, same Lattice chip, only smaller.
Here, you see the top of the board as it would lay in that "pocket", like
looking at the bottom of a coco-3. The IDE connector points directly out
the back of the coco-3. There are 3 LED connections. One is buffered and
shows any access to the IDE memory map selected. LED 2 hooks to pin 39
of the IDE cable, shows power-up activity. LED 3 shows when 16-bit data
is being accessed. The jumpers are configured just like IdeZilla, it's
the same PLD.
The IDE drive (yours) needs to be
mounted in something with it's own power supply, similar to an external
floppy drive setup.
Drives used mostly have been Conner,
in CHS or LBA modes. The Lattice chip is rated at 80HMz, so the real bottle-neck
is the CPU speed.
Currently being used is a driver
that partitions the IDE into fixed size partitions. With sizes of 16MB
to 536MB, depending on which driver/descriptor combination is loaded. For
instance, one of my Conner IDE's is partitioned into 14 partitions of 16MB
each partition. The IDE is only a 121MB drive (CP30124), so it all fits.
That's like having 14 IDE drives of 16MB each, quite a lot for OS9 or NitrOS-9,
where the whole operating system can fit in a single-sided 5.25" 180K floppy.
For instance, DMODE /DD CYL=FF SID=8 SCT=20 is used. I have other drivers,
in LBA or CHS method, that partition in logical partitions of 16MB, 33MB,
67MB, 134MB, 268MB and 536MB, depending on the size of your IDE.
Sold.
