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IBM XT I/O addresses

Mike_Z

Mike_Z

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Near Milwaukee Wisconsin
I have an original IBM XT that I purchased a long time ago. Recently, I added a network card and got the XT onto my LAN. At that time I thought it would be a good idea to transfer the XT's files to my FreNAS. Here I became aware of the fact my Hard Drive may not be perfect anymore. So, I purchased a XT-IDE from Glitch works. Doing a little investigation the XT-IDE apparently uses I/O address 300H. This is the same address that I got the Network card to work at. Not wanting a conflict, I was wondering what I/O addresses were being used in my XT. Here is what I believe I have
Network card 300H
Hard Drive 320H
Parallel port 378H
Monitor 380H
Floppies 3F0H
Serial port 3F8H
After doing a little reading, found that the XT has 360-367H for a low address network and 368-36fH as a high address network. So, I was thinking that maybe I should change my network card I/O address from 300H to 360H and then use the 300H address for the XT-IDE card. Does this sound reasonable? Thanks, Mike
 
That's something that I had to put up with also. Fortunately, it's pretty straightforward and, at least for me, it works. I think I set my NICs to 330H, but I'd have to double-check. Of course, if you're got a sound card installed, that may necessitate using another address. What are you using for network client software?
 
If you end up pulling your MFM controller after getting the XTIDE set up you should be able to jumper the XTIDE to run @320h, if that makes life any easier. (You do have to reflash the BIOS if you change the I/O port.)

A network related reason to do this, hopefully not applicable to your situation, is 300H is “special” for the RTL8019A chipset; the tool to program the EEPROM relies on it even if you set the network I/O to something else.
 
Thanks for the reply. Yes once the additional parts come in the mail, I want to disconnect the 20Mb hard drive in favor of the XTIDE. I think that the controller card will remain because it also controls the floppies. Can't remember, will know once I open up the box again.
I could move the XTIDE to 320H, but am unsure of how, exactly, to reflash the EEPROM. Is that something that the internal programming can do? At this point I am unsure of how to install the card. I have seen some you tube films, but need to watch them again, Thanks, Mike
 
Mike_Z said:
So, I purchased a XT-IDE from Glitch works. Doing a little investigation the XT-IDE apparently uses I/O address 300H.
Click to expand...
Mike_Z said:
I could move the XTIDE to 320H, but am unsure of how, exactly, to reflash the EEPROM. Is that something that the internal programming can do?
Click to expand...

At a high level:

1. Change the jumpers/switches on the XT-IDE as appropriate for 320h.

2. Discover (see [here]) the version of the XTIDE Universal BIOS (a.k.a. XUB) that is in the EEPROM.
3. At [here], navigate to the version, then fetch the matching XTIDECFG.COM program (a DOS program).
4. With the XT-IDE fitted, execute XTIDECFG.COM
5. [XTIDECFG.COM] Read EEPROM.
6. [XTIDECFG.COM] Make the configuration change to 320h. Example screenshot at [here].
7. [XTIDECFG.COM] Write to EEPROM.
8. Turn off/on the computer. (I find that a software restart is sometimes inadequate.)

(BTW. I have some XT-IDE information at [here].)
 
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modem7, thanks for the help. The last couple of days I have been experimenting with some CF, SD and thumb drives on an old DOS machine. The machine itself is a Pentium 4, but only has DOS installed. I reason I'm using it is that it has USB on it. At first DOS 6.22 would not recognize any USB device, memory, keyboard, nothing. After some reading I found that I needed to add these files

USBASPI.SYS
DI1000DD.SYS
NJ32DISK.SYS

Then in my CONFIG.SYS file I added these lines

Code: 
DEVICE=C:/DOS/DRIVERS/USB/USBAPSI.SYS /E/V/W
DEVICE=C:/DOS/DRIVERS/USB/NJ32DISK.SYS

After rebooting, now DOS recognizes a 1GB thumb drive in the USB port. I can access it, change it etal.

I then plugged in a 256MB SD card. For some reason, I have yet to understand is DOS sees this card as a 128 MB (only 1/2 size), but I can access it and change it as I wish.

Next I plugged in a 1GB CF card. It is an old Toshiba card that was once used in an old camera I had. DOS will not recognize this card at all. Irealize that there is a difference between these devices, but do not understand why DOS is behaving this way. The thumb drive is a serial device as is the SD card. I would have expected both of them to act in a similar manner. Yet the SD card only shows as half size. I understand that the CF card is like an IDE device. The odd part is, if I plug this CF card with the same adapter into my WIN7 USB port I can read write, format the CF card as will. I'm wondering whether or not the *.SYS files can work with the SD and CF cards, Need to read some more, thanks Mike.
 
Well..... I determined that the SD card being only half (128MB, instead of 256MB) was my own fault. I formatted the SD card with a 4K allocation size instead of 8K. After reformatting it, now I have the full 256MB. Still looking into why the CF card is recognized by the WIN7 machine but not the DOS machine, thanks, Mike
 
No the CF card does not show up on DOS FDISK. But neither do the other SD or thumb drive show up. I'm leaning toward the CF card reader, Mike
 
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FWIW, the experience of using an XTIDE with a CF (or SD via adapter) card isn't really going to bear much resemblance to using one via USB on a Pentium 4. From a BIOS perspective the card mounted in the XTIDE is going to look like a "native" XT hard drive, you're not going to be loading any special drivers or whatever. (And it's also not going to be hot-pluggable.) To set it up you're just going to boot from a DOS floppy and run FDISK, per the usual. You *may* get away with using a card formatted on a different machine but your mileage may vary, a lot; most people have the best luck partitioning and formatting the disk on the XTIDE card.

(After doing that you may be able to yank it out and use it in a card reader in a newer machine to transfer files without problems, because the newer machine is likely to be more tolerant in terms of disk geometry/translation assumptions.)
 
You are probably correct, but I'm just bidding my time until the additional parts I arrive in the mail for the XTIDE. I'm just hoping that this experience will help me better understand what is going on. Besides, it's something to keep this old man busy. I appreciate the talk. Thanks Mike

I had to look up what FWIW means.
 
Mike_Z said:
USBASPI.SYS
DI1000DD.SYS
NJ32DISK.SYS
Click to expand...
Try using DI1000DD.SYS instead of NJ32DISK.SYS, I found NJ32DISK.SYS very unreliable years ago, What version of USBASPI.SYS are you using ?

I assume the P4 you are using has NO BIOS support for booting from USB, Or any support for USB Mice / Keyboard.
 
Well...... that was it! My son just came over and brought his card reader with him. I tried my CF card with his reader on the DOS machine and it works! I don't know why the my original card reader works in the Win7 machine and not the DOS, but........ So, I need to get a new reader, Thanks for the help. Hopefully the remaining parts for the XTIDE should show up soon, Mike
 
Malc, I took the dog for a walk while it was still a little warm outside. The temperature is supposed to drop and it did. Well, I didn't get back to this until now. The USBAPSI version is 2.2. I changed my CONFIG.SYS to use DI1000DD.SYS. This file doesn't seem to work. It looks like it scans for the USB devices, but reports read errors in partitions. The DI1000DD.SYS version is 2.0.

My purpose here was to attempt to make a bootable USB drive. Using FORMAT D:/S, and then SYS D: the system files are placed on D: but it does not boot. Is that because the USB ports are not configured until after my DOS on floppy or HD starts. Seems that unless the USB port is defined initially, there is no way to boot from USB in this situation. Thanks, Mike
 
Hey Mike how are you doing? Happy New Year...

Yes, you maybe in a catch-22 situation. In order to boot from the USB drive - you will need BIOS support for USB. Have you checked within the BIOS to see if it does support USB drives - I am sure you have...

Dave
 
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