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The strange case of XT-IDE that only works with a CGA card...

R

Retro Canada

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I have 2 XT-IDE. One is the XT IDE optima that I bought assembled from ebay and the other I bought a glitchworks kit that I assembled myself.

Well, this glitch works never worked. It has problem detecting the CF card (i tried many, all of them works with the XTIDE optima) or it won't go further past Booting C>>C or in some case with error reading.

Well, that's because I was using an Hercules card or an EGA. But If I plug my IBM CGA or GB200 the XTIDE works without problems. How to explain that ?

BIOS addressing problems ? The config on the XTIDE is the same as the optima, all switches they work the same.

I am very confused...
 
before you ask the eproms I interchanged them with same results, they work on optima but not on glitchworks. The glitchworks is the rev 04.
 
Hmm, I have 3 CF2IDE the they all work flawless with XT IDE optima and also for my 2 MSX IDE CF interfaces. It's only with this glitchworks and only when I use an Hercules card. How to explain the Hercules interference in this equation ?
 
I had trouble with mine where it supposedly worked on a newer board (386) but would not work on my 8088 boards. I sent it to glitch and he said a chip was bad. Maybe this is similar?
 
My first guess with no further diagnostic info would be that you've got a flaky power supply and/or CF adapter, if the behavior depends not only on what kind of board is installed, but which *version* of the board is installed (e.g. all CGA cards should occupy the same memory range, as long as both work it shouldn't matter which one is in). Could also be an issue of a not-100%-OK mainboard and bus loading is affecting operation.

What machine are you using for testing?

rittwage said:
I had trouble with mine where it supposedly worked on a newer board (386) but would not work on my 8088 boards. I sent it to glitch and he said a chip was bad. Maybe this is similar?
Click to expand...

Maybe -- does the card show the correct drive ID screen in the BIOS? I'm assuming from the "Booting C>>C" that you've upgraded to the 2.x series of BIOS. It's my recommendation that the v1.1.5 XUB be used for initial testing, if you get everything working properly there, *then* upgrade to the 2.x series.
 
I have also a box of a "weak" (or slow ?) 2764 EPROMs from aliexpress (cheap-cheap-chip). It works in the EPROM programmer but not for real ISA bus: XT sometimes hangs on disk I/O.
 
alecv said:
I have also a box of a "weak" (or slow ?) 2764 EPROMs from aliexpress (cheap-cheap-chip). It works in the EPROM programmer but not for real ISA bus: XT sometimes hangs on disk I/O.
Click to expand...

It was for this reason that I started programming all of the AT28C64B EEPROMs in an XT-IDE built up as just an EEPROM programmer -- got a batch with a higher-than-usual defect rate from one of my smaller suppliers. But, they've been all pre-programmed for a while now, and I just buy them from Mouser nowadays anyway. I suspect that the smaller supplier had unknowingly received a batch of Chinese relabels.
 
I am using a IBM 5150 with a 130W PSU. It used to have 2 MFM HDDs. I don't think the PSU is at fault. I have several cards on this machine and only this XTIDE does not work, even the old MFM ST225 still works when I plug it. The other XTIDE works flawless. Also, I don't think is the CF adaptor to blame. It works on the XTIDE optima, as well on my ATA IDE for the MSX (I have 2 different models).

What I had in past was some CFs behaving badly. But I have several brands to test. And with this faulty XTIDE none seem to work properly.
 
Retro Canada said:
I have 2 XT-IDE. One is the XT IDE optima that I bought assembled from ebay and the other I bought a glitchworks kit that I assembled myself.

Well, this glitch works never worked. It has problem detecting the CF card (i tried many, all of them works with the XTIDE optima) or it won't go further past Booting C>>C or in some case with error reading.

Well, that's because I was using an Hercules card or an EGA. But If I plug my IBM CGA or GB200 the XTIDE works without problems. How to explain that ?

BIOS addressing problems ? The config on the XTIDE is the same as the optima, all switches they work the same.

I am very confused...
Click to expand...

Have you tried this R4 card in another machine ?, Wasn't the 'optima' partly based on the lo-tech XT CF ?, If so the XUB will need to be configured differently for the R4 card, I'd do what glitch suggested and try the 1.1.5 XUB.
 
glitch said:
OK, well, start with loading the XUB v1.1.5 and seeing what that does. You can get it here:

ftp://filedump.glitchwrks.com/xt_ide/bios/xub_1.1.5.zip
Click to expand...

Where does it say the XTIDE must be tested with 1.xx before ? If you go to glitchworks XTIDE project info there is nothing about the BIOS. Also, this filedump page does not seem to be even linked to the XTIDE info page, I never got into that. What it makes even harder to get this info is the http://www.xtideuniversalbios.org/ that says: "For XT systems you can use XTIDE rev1 (not available anymore)"

So it would be wise for the glitchworks guys who sells this board to give some hints about the correct bios installation...
 
HI THERE! I am in fact the guy who sells these things! The card doesn't have to be tested with anything in particular, it's just that I've put together dozens of these things, and that's how I test them. I've established this testing procedure because it's what has worked for me and dozens of other kit-builders. If you don't want to follow my advice/testing procedure, that's fine.

The EEPROMs come pre-programmed from me nowadays, partly to rule out dud EEPROMs and partly so that folks don't have to figure out how to flash their XUB image if they don't have a machine with ISA slots up and going. I'm working on a manual, but as this is still more in the realm of "hobby" than "business," it hasn't been a high priority. The majority of kits are assembled and run with zero issues, so there hasn't been a lot of call for a formal manual.

You can always send kit-built cards back to me, and if the fault is a bad component it'll be fixed for free. If it's an assembly error or physical damage or you plugged the card in backwards or something, the repair won't be free.

Malc said:
Wasn't the 'optima' partly based on the lo-tech XT CF ?, If so the XUB will need to be configured differently for the R4 card, I'd do what glitch suggested and try the 1.1.5 XUB.
Click to expand...

I think some of the SuddenlyMatt things were based off of the XT-CF, I don't know which ones. The first boards he ran were my rev 3 design files unmodified. I think he then added a CF slot to the rev 3 design and deleted all of the bypass capacitors.
 
This 1.5 gives system errror 20 in both of my XTIDE's right when I turn it on. the rev4 is on compat mode jumpers. Putting back the beta 3 it POSTs (and eventually works in CGA)

My 5150 has the phat's Super PC BIOS.
 
Interesting. Did you program the v1.1.5 IDE_XT.BIN image on the XT-IDE rev 4 board?

I haven't done any testing with this "phat's Super PC BIOS," but the first description I found online did mention it initializes UMBs. It's possible that the BIOS is affecting the XT-IDE ROM, if you're leaving the Write Enable switch in the ON position once you've programmed it (SW2 position 8). Seems unlikely that there's some sort of fundamental conflict with the PC BIOS you're running since the SimplyMatt card worked with it -- as far as I know, they weren't using a customized BIOS on that card.
 
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I've never tried it myself either, I just downloaded the 3.1 version and i see there is a copy of the XUB R591 included, It seems when building the bios the XUB can be included or not, So i assume it has been tested with the latest revision of the XUB R591 ?
 
I have flashed the 1.5 properly, I was using my minipro directly but it seems it need to be properly configured through IDECFG.COM.

The XTIDE shows Z0Z0Z0Z0Z0 for the CF name.
 
Yes you must always configure the XUB first before flashing, Barring any issues with the 'Super PC Bios' and an old revision of the XUB, (You could try the latest revision of the XUB R591 first though but you must configure it with XTIDECFG.COM before flashing). It could be dodgy solder joints or bad IC's on the card, Also a bad CF adapter or other connections can cause the same issue.
 
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