ATR-8000 Hard Drive interface

[John Clausen]

Hello, I just purchased an ATR-8000.

I am looking for some resources on the internet for software and hardware
mods. I am mostly looking for a hard drive interface for this unit.

Does anyone know where I might find these resources?

Thanks in advance,
John Clausen

[Curt Vendel]

Hi John,

They are very difficult to locate, the HD interface was done by a guy down
in Tx. for many years. I called the old number and his wife answered,
unfortunately the gentleman passed away several years ago. The wife really
has no idea what her husband had done with any remaining interfaces over the
years. Good luck in your quest.

Curt

[Jim Smith]

I bought one of those interfaces many years ago and it worked very well. It
was made by two guys if I remember correctly, they had a small company they
called Z-TEC. I called and talked to the guy who designed it many times, he
explained the complete operation to me. Unfortunately lightning had struck
close to my house back then (1990) killing the SASI interface card I was
using with it. I boxed it up and packed it away. After moving and
unpacking it a few months ago, ( I had bought a new SASI/SCSI card of a
different brand and just packed it away, never setting it up) I wanted to
see if I could get it to work again. It uses the CPM package to setup and
format the HD, I was able to do that much but I could never get the ATARI
"driver" to work, I think it may have a bad buffer chip on the Z-TEC board,
I ordered new ones but never got around to testing again. I hope to soon
maybe when school starts back up and I get done remodeling the house. I
fought with trying to remember all the commands to get the thing to work,
fortunately I did remember and had the insite to write it all down this
time. The Z-TEC interface came with a single page photocopy instruction
sheet, which I still have. The board in not that complicated but it does
use one PAL for address decoding, which could be figured out. The rest is
fairly simple, some gates and buffers. One thing I do remember is all data
being sent to the interface had to be inverted because of a type of data
latch he used. I plan on putting up an ATR8000 section on my web site when
I get the time, if you need more info just let me know, I may very well be
the last source of data for the Z-TEC ATR8000 HD interface.

Jim

John Clausen <ppl...@pip.shsu.edu> wrote in message
news:7nhtdv$11...@atlas.lcc.net...

[RHamiIton5]

>know where I might find these resources?

I have a dead ATR, and my understanding is that a HD interface was not
available. I never found one while I used the 8000.

Ron

[Jim Smith]

Would you like to get rid of the dead ATR?
I'm interested...
Jim

RHamiIton5 <rhami...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:19990728213747...@ng-fn1.aol.com...

[Rick D]

I knew there had been a HD interface for the ATR-8000, and also
knew by about 1990 that finding the actual info would be
difficult. A few years ago, I started my own research into a HD
that would use an IDE drive. I wouldn't bother with development
of any othere type. An reply in a '98 Nuts & Volts lead me to
the Computer Journal, and its website. After much searching,
they don't have all of the back issues there, I accidentally
discovered that this was the wrong place.

http://www.psyber.com/~tcj/ is the correct address. They have
atricles and some software for a Z80 IDE hd. This is where my
efforts will be put.

But not this year.

Rick D.

--

[Dennis McGuire]

On 29 Jul 1999, RHamiIton5 wrote:

> >know where I might find these resources?
>
> I have a dead ATR, and my understanding is that a HD interface was not
> available. I never found one while I used the 8000.

The Z-Tec hard disk interface for the ATR-8000 was elusive, but it
did exist! :)

[MSmith]

I have a hard disk interface for the ATR8000. My interface was designed and
sold by the makers of the ATR8000. It is a extremely simple device, that
basically acts as an I/O port. A small daughter plugs into the Z80 socket.
The daughter board just picks up address/control and some data lines. A ribbon
cable goes back to the controller. This particular interface is fairly robust
and is designed to be used with the Western Digital WD1002 controller. I do
believe that several other controllers from WD in that era would work with the
interface (e.g.; WD1005). Keep in mind, these controllers were designed for
use with MFM drives, typically 5,10 and 20MB. All in all, a nice unit as you
could partion the drive for CP/M, Atari and if you have the 8088 coprocessor
board for DOS. My original setup used a combination of the three (with MS DOS
version 1.0!!!!). Let me know if you need any further information, and I will
see if I can dig it up. Perhaps someone took the time to buzz this little
board out. If they did, a simple wire wrap board could be done in an hour or
two.

Good Luck,
Mark Smith