DOS ain't dead

Quoting the project homepage:
"The XT-IDE project is a Vintage Computer forum driven project to develop and manufacturer an 8-bit ISA IDE controller. It allows any PC/XT class machine to use modern IDE hard drives or Compact Flash devices for long term storage."

Geordy: How to build an 8-bit IDE controller for a PC XT (via hackaday). He plans to run MS-DOS 6.22 + Xenix

EDIT: See also code.google: XTIDE Universal BIOS and vintage-computer.com forums: XTIDE BIOS discussion
Regarding the XT-IDE BIOS source code, please see Hargle's comments here which currently state that presently it is NOT available but Hargle hopes to release his XT-IDE BIOS source sometime in the future.

Why not, IDE interface is very simple. Even for old Atari portfolio there's CF adapter :) But I'm not personaly interested in PC-XT, it can run only very old SW. But as a historical curiosity I have one XT mobo with MFM controller and 20MB HDD :)

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> Note: I have NOT tried XDOS (download is 847MiB!) - seems too good to be
> true, will download in a few days time. Has anyone else seen/looked at it?

Downloaded floppydos.zip from authors other page - it is a copy of MS-DOS 6.22 with Volkov Commander and a few other programs :(

The card works very well - I had a small part in bringing into the world. We've done a few revisions, and there are a few different versions of the BIOS available now.

At the moment the card does not use DMA. This makes it slower than the original MFM controller, but it's still fast enough to be usable. And the advantages of being able to use a newer drive far outweigh the performance hit. A side effect of not using DMA is that an IRQ is not needed either.


Mike

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mTCP - TCP/IP apps for vintage DOS machines!
http://www.brutman.com/mTCP

> comments here which currently state that presently it is NOT
> available but Hargle hopes to release his XT-IDE BIOS source
> sometime in the future.

hi. i'm hargle.
yep, i have multiple personalities.

my source was abandoned. i can give it to anyone who wants it, but the universal XTIDE BIOS is way better than anything I did, and it is open source.

thanks for the mention of our little project. it consumed WAY too much of my time (and still continues to) hehe.

> hi. i'm hargle.
> yep, i have multiple personalities.
You seemed perfectly normal to me!! ;)

> my source was abandoned.
Ok. Out of interest was the source reapplied from flopper?

> i can give it to anyone who wants it,
IMHO it would still be good to release "as is" it if your happy to do so?

> the universal XTIDE BIOS is way better than anything I did,
Knowing the standard of your code that's a compliment to Aitotat.

> and it is open source.
For anyone following this discussion: http://code.google.com/p/xtideuniversalbios/, see also relevant discussion links that Aitotat maintains on his profile.

> thanks for the mention of our little project.
No problem. I hope your other big projects are going well.

> it consumed WAY too much of my time (and still continues to) hehe.
I understand, never enough hours in the day :(