New project in development: IDE interface for Atari ST Cartridge port:
Benefits:
No need to open machine, just plug interface and use it.
No driver installation needed - driver is in ROM of interface
In case of Flash disk attached, as Compact Flash or IDE-Flash no need for external power supply
Extremely fast, thanks for some tricky solutions
Work with MS DOS disks and CD/DVD Roms at full speed, due to hardware H/L swap
Speeds depend of course of attached drive/card. Some are not capable for speeds as on pic left.
Interface requires proprietary drivers - works not with regular drivers
for Atari hard disks or IDE CD ROMs. Hard disk driver is under work,
and will be ready for drives up to 128GB.
MS DOS FAT 16, BigDOS will be supported with PC compability of partition table and partitions (max 512MB size).
Shipping of interfaces may start in October. Price with hard disk driver and partitioning SW
will be about 60 Euro, depending on mounted connectors. More details, poll about disk connector type
Internal IDE interface, AHDI compatible
This
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.
This
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 (what is
at address $E00000, and has 256KB size) in older (ST) machines,
which have 192KB ROM at address $FC0000 - with 4 x 27512 Eproms.
There is a little simpler version of this interface - with
GAL16V8, without 74HCT245 line drivers, and for 2 chip TOS 2.06
(optional): GAL listing with 16V8
Hard disk driver for DOS partitioned disks
It can handle up to 14 FAT16-BigDOS partitions from drives of capacity
to 128GB. Needs freeware program BigDOS for work. Max part. size is 2GB. Only for IDE interfaces. Falcon compatible.
Speed with twisted cable:
Note: access time is so good because is measured only inside 1 partition. Bigdos homesite
Image runner - Run games from ST, MSA images on real
Atari ST, without writing floppies.
First 3 test is with direct hardware access. 'D' is for comparing
installed hard disk driver's speed with direct access speed. If driver
is not installed, it will show garbage.
Blitter tests work only on STE or Mega ST machines. HOG mode may crash.
Random access/read is average time of reading one random sector at any
position on whole disk with direct access (R test). T test is for
same, but on C: partition only, via installed driver. It may be faster
if partition not occupies whole disk, otherwise is little slower.
By Flash drives, as on pic left average access time is very fast - no
mechanic.
Of course all tests are made with interface made by this project.
40 GB Maxtor drive
results. 60MB WD Tidbit 2.5 inch
drive. ST is too fast for it...
Hard disk speed
test version without direct hardware access - so
it will work with any interface. Needs of course installed hard disk
driver. May select which partition to test:
Test is made with same Transcend IDE-Flash drive as above. Lower data
rate is result of different hard disk driver - but access time is
little better.
Atapi CD/DVD read speed: Of course, interface allows attachment of CD/DVD readers.
This is measured with new, fast DVD drive. But datarate is very low.
Reason is required byte-swap, because standard CDs, DVDs have Intel
byte order.
This is same drive, but measured with direct read wihout byte-swap.
Speed is as by newer hard disks.Big speed will be required for smooth
video playback - see below.
Note that random read time depends on how much disk is
full. First test is with CD only 1/3 filled. Second is with full DVD.
Capacity will be shown correct only by data DVDs, not DVD videos. The program : CD/DVD ROM speed meter
Speed with twisted cable:
40 GB Maxtor drive
results.
60MB WD Tidbit 2.5 inch
drive. ST is too fast for it...
