On this page I will present different hardware and software solutions for still actual mass storage for Atari ST(E) computers. In first place hard disk interfaces, drivers for them. And some simple programs for support - speed measurement etc. Modification of Mega STE's ACSI/SCSI adapter to allow access over 1GB.
First, little overview of compability with PC DOS hard disks - it is very important because of easy file transfer.
IDE
interface
Internal IDE interface for ST and STE machines. It is
designed in 1992,
and still is actual - good for Compact Flash cards too. Speed is
better than by ACSI interfaced drives, especially by machines with
blitter (up to 1800KB/sec). Project is for people with some soldering and
electronical
knowledge. Unfortunatelly Atari ST machines have no internal bus
connectors (except Mega ST serie), and soldering is only way to make
some specific
hardware extensions.
Interface will allow to connect IDE hard disks, CD ROM drives and
other Atapi compatible devices to an Atari ST(E) computer. It is
AHDI compatible, and all standard drivers should work on with it.
Additional it supports optional ROM upgrade to TOS 2.06 .Pictures of cabling example in STE
Because of easy data transfer, usage of PC (DOS) compatible partitioning on disks is recommended. But in such case byte-swapping is necessary, what decreases transfer speed of disks.
There is a simple solution for having both: speed and compability: hardware byte-swap. Without additional components, just by twisting cable - twist lines 3-18 similar as by floppy cable by PC, or solder it so, that D0-D7 is swapped with D8-D15.
Special driver is required for this, twisted solution. Plus, some little modification of TOS 2.06 ROM, to may having autoboot.
Diverse driver versions for above interface In archive is driver for 'regular IF' - runnable from floppy, and autoboot installer (works only on TOS 2.06). Plus driver for twisted cable - much faster. Required BigDOS is included. Works with Falcon too.
Driver specs:
- Partition drive on PC, use on ST and PC - easy file transfer
- handles up to 14 partitions on Master and Slave attached drives.
- all FAT16 and FAT32 partitions on drive in first 128GB accessible (primary or logical part's in extended or extendX partitions)
- Max FAT16 partition size is 2GB - boot partition too (no 15MB
limit and
similar)
- XHDI support - may work with FAT32 partitions under Mint
- Autoboot on Atari from DOS partitioned drives - easy and quick
install (Only TOS 2.06). Installer from floppy.
- Any partition may be selected to be C (boot partition) by booting
- load different settings, OS from diverse partitions quick.
- Speed is about 350KB/sec with older STs, 700KB/sec on STE and newer ST machines (usage of blitter for transfer and byte-swap)
- With twisted cable speed is about 1300KB/sec without blitter and up to 1800KB/sec with blitter (STE)
- Works practically with all modern IDE drives, Compact Flash cards.
- Not works with very old CHS drives without LBA. No support for CF hot-swap (what btw. usually blocks machine).
ACSI/SCSI attached disks
Driver for disks attached on ACSI port, or
ACSI-SCSI
adapter: it can work with Satandisk for instance. With SCSI
drives
attached via Mega STE's internal adapter.
- Partition drive on PC, use on ST and PC - easy file transfer
- handles up to 14 partitions on ACSI target 0 or SCSI disk via
adapter.
- 1GB max accesible on drives - it is because of old SASI command set (21-bit addressing). It is limit of Mega STE's internal adapter too
- Max partition size 1GB - boot partition too (no 15MB limit and similar) - above TOS 1.02 .
- XHDI support - may work with FAT32 partitions under Mint
- Autoboot on Atari from DOS partitioned drives - easy and
quick install.
- Any partition may be selected to be C (boot partition) by booting
- put games on one part, Mint on another - easy switch.
- Speed is up to 1000-1250KB/sec depending from adapter and attached drive and even cable.
- No support for removable drive change without restart.
Modification of
Mega STE's internal ACSI-SCSI adapter
Special driver
for this mod. specs. are
generally same as for above driver, with important difference, of
course: max accessible disk is 2000 GB. No other driver which can work
with this mod. Such adapter is limited to access only 1GB
on drives, what is little today. Fortunatelly, modification is
possible with practically zero material cost.
Description of modification
Accessing 11GB
FAT32 partition under Mint with modified adapter and SCSI drive.
Description of modification
Accessing 11GB
FAT32 partition under Mint with modified adapter and SCSI drive.Speed - transfer and access speed measuring with some interesting results and programs for measuring
Booting from IDE hard disk/CF card by TOS 1.04 and 1.62(1.06) : It is ROM TOS patch, so you need to programm EPROMs with new content. Adds autoboot from IDE drives, Unfortunatelly, it will not work with AHDI or Hddriver. Reason is that their loaders use new XBIOS function #42 for sector read from IDE drives, which is present only in TOS 2.06 or 4.xx . If driver has own IDE sector reading code for load second stage then it will autoboot - drivers on this site are of course such.
The code: for TOS 1.04 for TOS 1.62/1.06
If adding this patch is problem, send me a mail and I will send ROM image file(s) .
P. Putnik Oktober. 2007, April 2008 .
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