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IDE port on SoundBlaster baords

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Xanxi

Member
Joined
Nov 11, 2010
Messages
47
Location
France
Hi vintage dudes :)

I am wondering if i could use the IDE port of a SB16, which was meant to hook a cd-rom by the time, to connect a hard-drive (actually a Compact Flash with IDE adapter)?
Is this device autobootable? Is there a size limit for the drive? Any clue about the speed?

I am looking into this because i am rebuilding a retro PC inside my Amiga 2000 with the A2386 bridgeboard (2386sx@25 MHz which is going to be upgraded to 486SLC2).
With this board, i still can use 3 ISA slots, for instance a SVGA card, a NIC card and then a SB16 (maybe with wavetable). So nothing left for IDE controller. I could share a hardfile or a partition from the amiga side but it would certainly be slower.

Regards :)
 
Many soundblasters won't let you set the on-board IDE to use the primary address and IRQ, only the 2nd or 3rd (or 4th/5th with some cards). If not then it depends if the BIOS will allow you to boot from the secondary interface - I'm guessing probably not on a board of that era.
 
Not familiar with the specifics of the SB16 generation, but do make sure it's actually IDE and not one of Panasonic, Mitsumi or Sony proprietary interfaces (first two are 40 pin, third I believe is 34).

There's only hope to begin with if it isn't a proprietary interface.
 
Well i do not have such a board yet, but i will look after one if it can fit my needs. I believe it to be true IDE.
I have a more recent SB Vibra 16 without IDE here, but i guess this plug and play board would be no good in a DOS system?
 
I believe it is actually a proprietary scsi. It just used an IDE cable. Remember, it was only 92 or 93!
 
I've been doing some work lately with a SB 16, and there seems to be several different types. Some supported only the proprietary interfaces from Panasonic, etc. Others had an IDE port. You might be able to use the IDE port for a hard drive, but there's a lack of drivers. It wouldn't be bootable. NT or W2K might be able to use it for a second hard drive.
 
tomasont said:
I've been doing some work lately with a SB 16, and there seems to be several different types. Some supported only the proprietary interfaces from Panasonic, etc. Others had an IDE port. You might be able to use the IDE port for a hard drive, but there's a lack of drivers. It wouldn't be bootable. NT or W2K might be able to use it for a second hard drive.
Click to expand...

Yes, and there is the SB 16 SCSI-2 alluded to above. It actually had an Adaptec chipset, so not proprietary as said. I don't think there was any boot ROM, so probably not bootable to a SCSI hard drive.
 
Originally, the Sound Blaster Pro and 16 used the proprietary Matsushita / Panasonic "MKE" CD-ROM interface. Eventually, as multiple different CD-ROM drives and interfaces came onto the market, they introduced a SCSI-2 version, and a "MultiCD" version which was compatible with Panasonic, Sony, and Mitsumi CD-ROM drives, as well as Creative's own relabeled Panasonic drive, which was sold together with the SB16 card as a pre-packaged "Multimedia PC" upgrade.

This is the MultiCD version, with a total of three different CD-ROM connectors, and jumpers to select between them:

800px-KL_Creative_Labs_Soundblaster_16_CT2230.jpg


I think it was only during the later "Value" series that Sound Blaster cards offered a true ATA "IDE" CD-ROM interface. Their cards up to the AWE32 used only the proprietary non-ATA interfaces mentioned above. And of course eventually they removed the CD-ROM interface entirely, such as on the AWE64 and "Vibra" series cards.
 
There are at least two SB16 models with real IDE interface and they are CT2290 and CT2959. I'm sure those are not the only ones since SB16 had lots of different models. Here is a picture of CT2290 that I'm using as secondary IDE hard disk controller on a 386 system. I have Panasonic CD-ROM-drive connected to the Panasonic interface and there are no problems using both interfaces at the same time.

The IDE interface works just like any other IDE interface would so hard disks can be connected to it. The IDE interface cannot be configured as primary, only secondary, tertiary or quaternary. 286, 386 and early 486 BIOSes only support primary interface so additional IDE BIOS or drivers are needed for those systems.
 
i went looking through my sound cards and found 4 with ide and only 1 of them is a sound blaster 16. the other is reveal and the other 2 seem like they are no-name brand Chinese sound cards. the reveal sound card seem interesting because it has Sony, Mitsumi, Panasonic and ide interfaces on it.
 
Xanxi said:
Well i do not have such a board yet, but i will look after one if it can fit my needs. I believe it to be true IDE.
I have a more recent SB Vibra 16 without IDE here, but i guess this plug and play board would be no good in a DOS system?
Click to expand...
What's the model No.? No promises, but there may well be dos drivers available.
 
kishy said:
Not familiar with the specifics of the SB16 generation, but do make sure it's actually IDE and not one of Panasonic, Mitsumi or Sony proprietary interfaces (first two are 40 pin, third I believe is 34).

There's only hope to begin with if it isn't a proprietary interface.
Click to expand...

I've found that the type of interface is usually printed next to the slot...thank god, lol!
 
tomasont said:
I've been doing some work lately with a SB 16, and there seems to be several different types. Some supported only the proprietary interfaces from Panasonic, etc. Others had an IDE port. You might be able to use the IDE port for a hard drive, but there's a lack of drivers. It wouldn't be bootable. NT or W2K might be able to use it for a second hard drive.
Click to expand...

There are many different ISA cards with the Sound Blaster 16 product name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_Blaster_16. I do not believe any of them truly resemble native IDE: they are all proprietary IDE-alike devices with proprietary drivers as far as I re-collect. They are not recognized by the BIOS: a native driver needs to be loaded to recognize the IDE drive. I have experimented with various CD-ROM drives (Toshiba, Samsung et cetera) on Sound Blaster 16 IDE ports but never got any to work.

This is also the main reason I do not collect Sound Blaster 16 cards: way too many SKUs and way too many versions within the same SKU (e.g. with or without CD-ROM, with or without CSP/ASP and so on).​
 
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A card I'd suggest trying is the AWE32. That comes with a 'real' IDE port and is IMHO the best of the 16 bit AT cards creative made.
 
tomasont said:
I've been doing some work lately with a SB 16, and there seems to be several different types. Some supported only the proprietary interfaces from Panasonic, etc. Others had an IDE port. You might be able to use the IDE port for a hard drive, but there's a lack of drivers. It wouldn't be bootable. NT or W2K might be able to use it for a second hard drive.
Click to expand...

There are many different ISA cards with the Sound Blaster 16 product name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_Blaster_16. I do not believe any of them truly resemble native IDE: they are all proprietary IDE-alike devices with proprietary drivers as far as I re-collect. They are not recognized by the BIOS: a native driver needs to be loaded to recognize the IDE drive. I have experimented with various CD-ROM drives (Toshiba, Samsung et cetera) on Sound Blaster 16 IDE ports but never got any to work.

This is also the main reason I do not collect Sound Blaster 16 cards: way too many SKUs and way too many versions within the same SKU (e.g. with or without CD-ROM, with or without CSP/ASP and so on).​
 
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PeterNY said:
I would argue a SB16 that runs based on hardware in combination with a Roland or Yamaha daughter board is the way to go when you play vintage games.
Click to expand...
Not entirely, the AWE32 will do INTELLIGENT UART mode on it's game/MIDI port, making it ideal for connecting up a real MT-32. While there are problems supporting a handful of rare soundblaster software, it's nothing the -16 doesn't have issues with either since they both use basically the same DSP... and for FM synth it's the same OPL-3 chip.

Besides, the SB-16 is 1992, the Awe-32 is only two years later. Though it is worth avoiding the later model AWE32's with the "vibra" chip on them -- those are trash.

As noted that's the problem with Creative boards -- you have to go by the CT number as they slap the same name on dozens of different products.
 
deathshadow said:
Not entirely, the AWE32 will do INTELLIGENT UART mode on it's game/MIDI port, making it ideal for connecting up a real MT-32. While there are problems supporting a handful of rare soundblaster software, it's nothing the -16 doesn't have issues with either since they both use basically the same DSP... and for FM synth it's the same OPL-3 chip.
Click to expand...

True. But you need to load drivers I believe so it is not as straight forward as having hardware based sound.

deathshadow said:
Besides, the SB-16 is 1992, the Awe-32 is only two years later. Though it is worth avoiding the later model AWE32's with the "vibra" chip on them -- those are trash.
Click to expand...
Right.

deathshadow said:
As noted that's the problem with Creative boards -- you have to go by the CT number as they slap the same name on dozens of different products.
Click to expand...
Even within the same CT**** you can have various revisions: one example: CT2740: some come with CSP, some do not. And so on.​
 
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