[Coco] Glenside IDE Controller Question...

[Willard Goosey]

>Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 10:07:46 -0700
>From: Randy Just <randyjust at comcast.net>

>While there is included documentation and I did read it, there are 
>some items that I will

Yeah, the docs kinda sucked.

>1) I have a multipak connected to my Coco 3 (no PAL upgrade).  My 
>floppy controller

First, you really wanna upgrade the MPI.  You don't wanna fry your CPU
or GIME.

>(Disto Super Controller) goes in slot #4.  What slot does the 
>Glenside IDE controller
>go into?

Doesn't matter.  Mine's in #3.
>
>2) Which direction is the Glenside IDE controller plugged into the 
>multipak.  If I am
>standing in front of the mulitpak, does the component side of the 
>board go to the front
>or the non-component side?  Yes, I have tried it both ways and 

non-component side fances front.  If you look at how your floppy
controller goes into the MPI, the Glenside card goes in the same way.

You do want to make up some sort of case.  The case I made has fake
grounding tabs to hold the Glenside card level in the MPI.

>3) To access both the floppy controller and the Glenside IDE 
>controller, which switch position
>does the multipak go in?

#4.  You need to boot into Disk BASIC before you can go anywhere
else.   The IDE card has no ROM.

>4) Which position should the jumper on the Glenside IDE controller 
>board be in when using
>the multipak controller?

OK, here's the test:

Boot your coco with the floppy controller in and no IDE controller.
>From Disk BASIC, say POKE &HFF50,x  where 0<x<256.  If your floppy
drives don't try to do anything, you can use the FF50 base for your
IDE controller.  Otherwise you have to use FF70.  (POKE &HFF50,0 to
shut your drives back down.)  

Actually, never mind, you have a Disto super controller.  The Disto
controller uses FF50 for the mini expansion bus.  You're stuck with
FF70.

And if you've got the Super Controller II, you're screwed, because it
also uses FF70-FF74.  You'll have to bust out the soldering iron for
this. :-(

>5) Assuming I get all of the above set-up correctly, what the heck do 
>I do to actually get drivers
>installed, do a lformat (uncertain how to set-up a hd0 or whatever 
>link) and so forth.  I have a 120MB
>IDE drive in a case attached.

OK, first get the newest drivers.  The Glenside drivers are Boyle's
10/99 Beta  at:
http://www.sdc.org/~goosey/
ftp://ftp.rtsi.com/
ftp://ftp.maltedmedia.com/

Or spring for Cloud-9's SuperDriver set.

>6) I tried using the detect_ide.b09 program, but don't seem to have 
>success with it.

Make sure your drive is set on "master."  Some old IDE drives, when
installed on a PC with no other drive, aren't set master or slave.
This doesn't fly with the CoCo, the ATA spec says drive 0 is master
and drive 1 is slave and none of that PC laziness.

Try the newest detect_ide.b09 it works better.  Also, the drivers are
fussy about old IDE drives that don't actually meet the ATA spec.  If
the drive doesn't work, try sticking it back in a PC and formating
it.  Might help.  If it doesn't, all I can say is "try another drive."

I don't know if it really helps, but I use one of the newer 80-line
IDE cables.  If nothing else, the extra ground lines are good.

If you go the SuperDriver route I can't really help because I haven't
used it.

Once you have a drive that detect_ide likes, you should be able to
use makedesc to make a device descriptor for each partition you want.
I recommend <128M partitions, that way you can use 1 sector clusters.
OS-9, and some of its programs, have problems with larger clusers.  

Once you've made your descriptors, build a new boot disk with the
driver (either the 4 partition or the 11 partition) and descriptors.
Reboot.  You should then be able to lformat.  

If that all works, your last step is to create a /dd descriptor.  Make
sure you have all the necessary files the partition you're calling
/dd.  Build a new boot disk, replacing dd_ds40.dd with your dd.ide.
This disk only needs to contain OS9Boot, cmds/grfdrv, and maybe sysgo
(depending on your version of OS9).   If it all works (cross your
fingers, toes, and I think it helps to sacrifice a chicken:) this
will cut your boot-time way down.  

I've done this several times.  Let me know if you need more detailed
help.  

Willard
-- 
Willard Goosey  goosey at sdc.org
Socorro, New Mexico, USA
"I've never been to Contempt!  Isn't that somewhere in New Mexico?"
   --- Yacko