Can I use two compact flash cards simultaneously?

[MogensB]

Hi,

I am in doubt if it is possible to use two CF cards simultaneously in an SC126 system?

I would like to see them mapping to devices IDE0: and IDE1: in the RomWBW.

I try to use two boards from Karl, the "karlab 61f" and the "karlab 72a".

I have verified that both boards work correctly, when I install only one of them.

I have set jumper for address 0x10 when I use a single board.

1) Should the adapters have jumpers set for different addresses (I would expect that)

2) What addresses should be selected (I tried 0x10 and setting 0x18 for the next)?

3) Should I change the jumper close to the CF card itself? Is this some master/slave setting, and does it matter in this use case?

Or maybe I am just on the wrong path here - and it only makes sense to have one single CF/IDE board in the system, and then somehow two CF adapters should be connected to one CF/IDE board?

Best regards,

Mogens

[Alan Cox]

I am in doubt if it is possible to use two CF cards simultaneously in an SC126 system?

I would like to see them mapping to devices IDE0: and IDE1: in the RomWBW.

You may have to fiddle with ROMWBW but it is possible at a hardware level and I've done it in Fuzix. You could also just use the SD option instead.

1) Should the adapters have jumpers set for different addresses (I would expect that)

2) What addresses should be selected (I tried 0x10 and setting 0x18 for the next)?

0x18 was down as the second CF in some of the I/O port listings but it also needs the software to check. In addition the original RC2014 adapter doesn't decode A7 so if you put it at 0x18 you break 0x98 if you have a TMS9918 video adapter.

3) Should I change the jumper close to the CF card itself? Is this some master/slave setting, and does it matter in this use case?

That is a separate thing. A CF interface can support two devices, one master and one slave providing you've got two sockets. So a single CF interface can in theory have two cards. The current boards have only a single socket so you'd ether have to find a CF socket splitter (tricky nowdays) or a board that has CF sockets front/back which I don't think currently exists in the RC2014 world ? although they do as adapters for IDE cables (so PPIDE would work for example)

As it stands the right setup ought to be: adapters at 0x10 and somewhere like 0x18, CF interface jumpers if present set as master/single device. That may need ROMWBW changes however.

Alan

[Sergey Kiselev]

Hi Mogens,

I believe on RC2014 platforms RomWBW is configured for only one IDE interface at 0x10.

If you want to add more interfaces, you'll need to update the configuration and recompile RomWBW.

Edit Source/HBIOS/Config/RCZ180_nat.asm and add the following for two drives:

IDECNT           .EQU    2               ; IDE: NUMBER OF IDE INTERFACES TO DETECT (1-3), 2 DRIVES EACH
IDE1MODE         .EQU    IDEMODE_RC      ; IDE 1: DRIVER MODE: IDEMODE_[DIO|DIDE|MK4|RC]

IDE1BASE         .EQU    $20             ; IDE 1: IO BASE ADDRESS

You can add third interface if you like by setting IDECNT to 3, and specifying the IDE2MODE and IDE2BASE

Refer to Source/HBIOS/cfg_rcz180.asm for the default settings for RC

By the way, it appears that karlab 61f, does not decode A3 line for the CF card interface, therefore addresses 0x18-0x1F will just shadow 0x10-0x17 addresses, therefore, you should not set the second IDE to 0x18, use another base address instead. I gave 0x20 in the example above, but please make sure that nothing else uses 0x20-0x2F address range.

Cheers,

Sergey

[Karl Albert Brokstad]

Hi Mogens

I have tried so many configurations but I have lost track of what is working or not.

I have a setup which works using the #71 and #75 modules, I set the #71 to address &h10 and #75 to &h20.

Maybe some changes has to be done to ROMWBW.

Karl

[Bill Shen]

The CF adapter that Karl and I designed with has footprint for two CF drives.  One side is already populated and the other side is ready to accept a CF drive that can be readily purchased from eBay. One drive is master, the other drive is slave.  I have done that quite a while ago and able to read/write both drives with one CF address.  I used that as backup of primary CF drive.  The downside is the CF drive is very fine pitch SMT and tricky to solder.  

Bill

[MogensB]

Thank you very much to all of you for the quick and nice feedback.

I guess the conclusion is that it is not as simple as "just plug in another CF/IDE controller" :-) retro-computing is indeed before "the plug and play"-days! ("plug'n'pray"...)

Even if RomWBW does a fantastic job of supporting so many different HW configurations.

But I think that Bill's suggestion could be implemented using a simple ribbon cable, and two CF to IDE adapters connected to the controller board?

My current level of experience with RomWBW is not yet good enough to create modified ROMs, so I will have to learn that!

Regards,

Mogens

[Karl Albert Brokstad]

Bill 

You are giving me to too much credit for this.

You are the mastermind, I was just trying to put your ideas into reality.

Karl