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Wishlist XT Peripherals

C

Crypticalcode0

Experienced Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2012
Messages
259
Location
Behind the keyboard
XT-IDE done
XT-FDC In progress

This thread is to act as a poll and see where the next project should focus.
Remember It's a democratic system most wanted gets highest priority.(This would be tallied when the next project starts)

Most builders do this in their spare time and at there own cost, some of us are doing it out of a Hobby others are professionals.
So keep in mind what is said here can be the project starting next month or perhaps in a few years.(Spare time and such)

I look forward to see what the community would like, if you want more then one please place them in order of most wanted first on the list.

I cannot guaranty that all if any will be done, if nothing happens this shall be what the topic implies a wishlist for us all.
 
Stone said:
Why 'act as a poll' when you could have started a poll when you posted this? :) That makes more sense.
Click to expand...

Good pointed.

It's a good idea, but maybe would be better to make something to raise funds to our current projects, the OPL2 board is on hold due to lack of prototype boards, 150$ I think.
 
I think the OPL2 board has no sufficient interest because there are still plenty of non-PnP Sound Blaster 16 and Vibra16 in eBay. You can plug one of this in a 8 bit slot and you will get OPL3 synthesis, MPU401 and Joystick port. With the correct software, you can enable the digital audio part, but I think it is not useful in a XT.

About future projects, anybody knows if is it possible to make DIY Microchannel cards?
 
Stone said:
Why 'act as a poll' when you could have started a poll when you posted this? :) That makes more sense.
Click to expand...

A true poll would require me to know what you want, I do not know that i don't have a crystal ball and i can not reads peoples minds.
So a thread on a public forum is acceptable as a open poll. ;)
 
lol tough crowd. Some ideas I can think of.

8-bit SD/CF emulated floppy drive. Perhaps a remake of an external VFD type of device.. could it be done via parallel port or something common?

Some folks hinted at a diagnostic disk type of bootable drive on rom or hardcard type of item.

An FDC that supports many drive types. Perhaps an open source version of a catweasel/option board. Not sure if it'd be more desirable on older gear or newer gear (USB).

Newer gear wise it'd be great to have a USB floppy interface for 3.5/5.25/8" (more so the later/older). Again it's a PITA to get some older systems a bootable disk and perhaps this could help the public get started on more projects.

Can't recall if the new XT-IDE had this but a serial input card that one can bootstrap a system via null modem cable, etc.
 
USB -> floppy adaptor with support for 5.25" drives that can mount as a normal floppy in most modern operating systems.

Already mentioned in previous post, but that'd be my vote.

Edit: realised this isn't actually an XT Peripheral, still would be neato.
 
barythrin said:
An FDC that supports many drive types. Perhaps an open source version of a catweasel/option board. Not sure if it'd be more desirable on older gear or newer gear (USB).

Newer gear wise it'd be great to have a USB floppy interface for 3.5/5.25/8" (more so the later/older). Again it's a PITA to get some older systems a bootable disk and perhaps this could help the public get started on more projects.
Click to expand...

Now that would be fantastic. Regardless of what interface such a thing would use-- USB, ISA, Opti Local Bus, whatever-- it would still be a whole lot better than the (effectively) zero other options that are currently out there, and it would solve a whole lot of problems dealing with some of the oddball disk formats.

I'm pretty certain there would be a sizable demand for such a thing from the Amiga crowd (given that the Catweasel has been unobtanium for quite some time), and probably also some of the people with old synths, and computerized sewing machines, but even for the systems that have other options, like how the Atari 8-bit series has the SIO2PC and 1050-2-PC, it's still a pain to have to build/buy special interfaces for every different type of machine.

However, I also expect such a thing would be a whole hell of a lot more involved than something like the XTIDE or XT-FDC, so I dunno if it'd realistically be within the realm of practicality as a hobbyist project.
 
I'd like to see an addition to the XT-IDE, more like an accessory. One of my favorite peripherals from the 80's was the Hard Card, I'd love to see a bracket that you could use to slide a 3.5" disk into so it sits in the same "card space" as the XT-IDE.
 
I'm just posting "pipe dreams" not necessarily practical. I would think though if one was to make a geometrically programmable floppy drive controller or drive controller then the open source community could perhaps help in publishing the driver and controller packages/modules that you could then just call/load or perhaps once enough were written it could test them and determine what format the floppy is then attempt to back it up. My theoretical device is sort of the real open source version of the Kryoflux. Perhaps they'll make theirs a bit more open software wise but until then it's close but not what I would risk the money on yet.

I do understand the KISS principal with these projects and the hobbyist amount of time which I appreciate folks' efforts who know much more than I do regarding the signals and operation. I think eventually evolving the IDE and FDC to one device would make sense but for keeping it low cost and better support for the function it's designed for they're doing the right thing already.
 
Okay, I've been in this business for decades and have been eating and drinking floppy disks for the last 35+ years. I have never heard of a "geometrically programmable" controller. Is that the one for handling square and triangular floppies?
 
Due to the scarcity of 15 kHz RGB monitors, it would be nice to have a plug-n-play CGA-to-S-Video/composite adapter. I found this schematic way back in 1996, although I don't know if it was designed to accept analog or digital RGB, or either:

Code: 
Here is a new RGB-to-composite converter, based on the AD722 IC:

CIRCUIT

       RGB   VERT SYNC-----.
        IN  HORIZ SYNC---. |       outputs, see below
                         | |       | | |
                       ,-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-.
                       |16  14  12  10 9 |
                       )      AD722      |  <--- AD722 IC CHIP
                       | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 |
                       `-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-'    CONNECT
                             |     | | |      PINS 2, 12,
                             |     R G B      AND 13 TO GROUND
               20pF trimmer  |     E R L
                      >      |     D N U      CONNECT
             GND----||--.    |                PINS 1, 4, 5,
                   /    |    |     RGB IN     AND 14 TO +5 VDC
             GND----|O|-+----'
                  3.58 MHz
                    XTAL

OUTPUTS
                                 +      75ohm
                           ,------|(---\/\/\/---o video out
Color composite:       NC  | NC  220uF
                        o  o  o
                       11 10  9
                                 +      75ohm
                        ,---------|(---\/\/\/---o video out
                        | NC NC  220uF
Monochrome composite:   o  o  o
                       11 10  9

                                 +220uF 75ohm
                        ,---------|(---\/\/\/---o Luma out
                        |        +      75ohm
                        | NC  ,---|(---\/\/\/---o Chroma out
Commodore Luma-Chroma:  o  o  o  220uF
                       11 10  9

                                 +220uF 75ohm
                        ,---------|(---\/\/\/---o "Y" out
                        |        +      75ohm
                        | NC  ,---|(---\/\/\/---o "C" out
S-Video:                o  o  o  220uF
                       11 10  9
 
The peripheral I wish for is a more refined version of a hack I made to load code onto the XT early in the boot sequence via the keyboard port. It's a pretty simple piece of hardware - just a box with a switch on it containing a microcontroller, possibly some flash, and four connectors: male and female DIN-5 connectors for the keyboard passthrough, a serial port for reprogramming and a wire that's spliced into the "power good" signal from the power supply so that the box can perform a hard reset of the XT).

This device has several functions:
  1. It can boot an IBM PC or XT much more quickly than anything else, since it can skip the memory test. I think this alone is worth the price of entry. Set the switch to the off position to disable the device and boot normally.
  2. It can act as an external keyboard if you don't have an XT keyboard - connect a modern PC to the serial port and run a piece of software to send the keystrokes over the serial connection. I suppose a PS/2 and/or USB port could be added to enable directly connecting a more modern keyboard without a second machine.
  3. It can perform diagnostics (as long as enough of the machine is working to get to the keyboard port diagnostics routine in the BIOS, which basically means CPU, ROM, DMA, PIT and the first 16K of RAM have to be working).
  4. It can do a remote hard reboot of the machine on a command from the serial port (or even a local hard-boot if the serial port is connected to a serial port on the XT itself, though that's probably less useful since the XT needs to have not crashed). The box could also have a hard reset button on it.

I think it might be possible for the XT to send code to the box over the keyboard port and thereby reprogram the box without a serial connection, but I haven't got this working yet.

I'm actually planning to make a prototype of this device soon so that I can have my Arduino back and so that I don't have to keep unplugging my XT keyboard to plug in the device and vice-versa.

I realize this probably has a rather more limited audience than the other projects mentioned here (since it requires BIOS support i.e. an IBM PC 5150, XT or possibly AT). Nevertheless, would anybody else be interested in one?
 
vwestlife said:
Due to the scarcity of 15 kHz RGB monitors, it would be nice to have a plug-n-play CGA-to-S-Video/composite adapter. I found this schematic way back in 1996, although I don't know if it was designed to accept analog or digital RGB
Click to expand...

I just looked up the AD722 datasheet and it needs an analog RGB signal rather than a digital one, so some more circuitry would be needed to do to initial digital-to-analog conversion. That's not very difficult, though, even if you take into account reducing the green level of colour 6. I can come up with a circuit that does that if you like, based on the one inside the IBM 5153 monitor.
 
If you look at digital signals and use a very small time frame you can see the ripple which shows even digital signals are still analog to some extend. ;)

@Chuck Geometrical Couldn't it be the standard angular velocity of the FDD?(Linear VS Angular velocity in step motors)
 
GottaLottaStuff said:
Compact flash to XT-IDE for XT laptops. Unless somebody already makes one and I haven't seen it. :)
Click to expand...

Funny you should say it - I've drawn out such board for Tandy 1400LT/FD/HD. The problem is that probably every XT laptop has a physically and electrically different expansion slot (indeed, if it has one at all).
 
pearce_jj said:
Funny you should say it - I've drawn out such board for Tandy 1400LT/FD/HD. The problem is that probably every XT laptop has a physically and electrically different expansion slot (indeed, if it has one at all).
Click to expand...

I thought he meant a CompactFlash adapter for laptops which were designed to take real IDE-XT (8-bit) drives, like the Seagate ST-351A/X.... which would also be nice for my Tandy 1000RL desktop, because then it would totally silent in operation, with its fanless power supply.
 
Maybe. If the RL has a standard 8-bit ISA slot, it should take my XT-CFv2 board and meet that objective.
 
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