MSC IDE Controller

[edelro]

Powerschalter gesucht (nicht gefunden) und mein über 20Jahre vermissten MSC IDE Controller gefunden, nur wenige werden es kennen

MSC IDE Controller.jpg (155.05 KiB) 2766 mal betrachtet

[Sleeπ]

Denn kenn´ (und habe) ich auch noch und hatte ihn auch einige Zeit im Einsatz.

Hast Du den Power-Schalter denn inzwischen gefunden?

Wenn nicht, welchen sucht Du denn?

[edelro]

für meinen 800XL, der vom C64 ist mir sofort entgegen gesprungen, der für Atari nicht -weiter suchen...

[Mathy]

.
Hallo Leute

Ich kennen nicht nur den Controller. Ich bin vor Jahren mehrmals mit Matthias Belitz und Stefan Birmanns zur JHV gefahren. Leider hört man von beiden Herren nichts mehr. Sie sind wohl umgezogen.

Tschüß

Mathy

[edelro]

Ja, das waren noch Zeiten......, ich kannte Stefen auch pesönlich, kann sich ja hier mal melden, falls er reinschaut

[Sleeπ]

Ich habe mal vor ziemlich langer Zeit wegen der Reparatur eines Controllers versucht zu den Zweien Kontakt aufzunehmen. Ich weiß jetzt ad hoc leider nicht welcher von den beiden es war, aber einen habe ich erreicht; er ist imho (damals zumindest) in den USA ansässig gewesen. Das ist aber schon etliche Jahre (locker im zweistelligen Bereich) her...

Mal sehen ob ich die Mails noch finde...

[patjomki]

Ha, so ein Ding habe ich auch noch.

Allerdings kann ich zum Aufenthaltsort der beiden Verkäufer nix sagen. Ich hatte das Interface seinerzeit auf der JHV direkt von den beiden erstanden.

[Mathy]

.
Hallo Marc

Ich meine (schon vor Jahren) gehört zu haben das Stefan Birmanns in den USA wohnt.

Tschüß

Mathy

[pancio]

Hi Guys,

Could you please say something more about this device? I understand, it's general IDE which can work with HDD. Is it similar to existing devices like IDE+?

EDIT.
I forgotten.. some kinds of information I received from @Erhard in this topic:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1035

What do you thing.. maybe the short series should be made? With who I should contact to ask about details?


Best Regards,

[Sleeπ]

für meinen 800XL, der vom C64 ist mir sofort entgegen gesprungen, der für Atari nicht -weiter suchen...

Gibt´s aktuell von C&K bei TME oder digikey.

Die günstigere Variante von RND mit dem "1"-"0"-Aufdruck habe ich nicht mehr gefunden.

[andymanone]

Die günstigere Variante von RND mit dem "1"-"0"-Aufdruck habe ich nicht mehr gefunden.

Ja, das waren die RND 210-00507, die gabs mal bei Reichelt und Distrelec, sind aber leider nicht mehr verfügbar .

Gtx.,
andY

[Sleeπ]

Die RNDs werden inzwischen zum gut vierfachen Preis bei i-bäh vertickt und sind damit teurer als die noch erhältlichen original verbauten von C&K...

Einige Bezugsquellen für XL/XE-Teile sind hier gelistet.

[Goldy]

I am trying to resurrect MSC-IDE but it looks like the computer tries to kind of boot (short noise pulse) and then hangs.
After a while the display list is corrupted and screen looses sync. Tried with and without cd-rom, (no hardddrives/CF yet)
power is supplied.... stock Freddie XL.

My plan is to read the eprom, both GALs, check ram on a PC using chineese reader/programmer, as those chips are usual suspects after almost 30 years laying in a drawer.

Somehow I was able to find just schematic, utilities and GAL content.
Is there a chance to get hold of the EPROM so I can burn it to new chip ?

[pancio]

Hi,

Two years ago I started replica of mscIDE in cooperation with FlopyDoc. Now I'm involved with a few projects but I want to return to it. Have almost all materials, docs, PLD images and ROM but need to again review project because during work I added some modifications. I suppose you don't want to make new PCB so probably with original PLD firmware/ROM will be work. Will find it in mid time.

Edit.
Found it.


BR,
pancio

[Goldy]

in the meantime I checked all logic chips in the tester and they appear OK. I dumped the content of the ROM but has nothing to compare it with.
I am unable to test the static ram (yet)

@pancio thank you for jed files (I just had the .lsi files ....) will try to burn them, unfortunately the ROMS you provied are 16kb XL patched ROMs for atari xl and not the 2kb/4kb rom in the controller board....

...so still searching for the ROM.

[HiassofT]

I found a ROM dump on my PC, hope this helps!

so long,

Hias

[Erhard]

Hi,

I am unable to test the static ram (yet)

I suggest connecting the interface to an Atari, start a debugger (like Bug/65) on the Atari, switch on the PBI device by writing its address to $D1FF (?), write testbytes to Atari RAM and the controller's RAM and perform a compare. Do this in a loop.

Btw, I noticed that modern stuff like SD2IDE or SATA2IDE Adapters to not work correct with an IDE+2.0 but CF2IDE does.

So it may be a good idea to exquip the MSC IDE with compact flash.

Best, Erhard

[Sleeπ]

Somehow I was able to find just schematic, utilities and GAL content.
Is there a chance to get hold of the EPROM so I can burn it to new chip ?

Are the files you got until yet helpfull?

I have a msc-interface at home; when I´m back from holiday I can read out the Eprom and (if it is not protected) the GAL.
In fact I think I already did it in the past, `cause some years ago I tried to fix a brocken interface for a friend.

[Mathy]

.
Hello guys

The MSC IDE is fully PBI compliant. Stefan Birmanns once tested multiple MSC IDEs on the PBI at ones and it works. All you have to do is set the PB IDs to different numbers.

Sincerely

Mathy

[Goldy]

Hi Mathy,
my problem is that it is the only connected device to the stock XL (with added PBI power mod) and the computer could not start at all when msc-ide is connected. There is nothing connected to the controller.

[Goldy]

Somehow I was able to find just schematic, utilities and GAL content.
Is there a chance to get hold of the EPROM so I can burn it to new chip ?

Are the files you got until yet helpfull?

I have a msc-interface at home; when I´m back from holiday I can read out the Eprom and (if it is not protected) the GAL.
In fact I think I already did it in the past, `cause some years ago I tried to fix a brocken interface for a friend.

Maybe the ROM version does not match the GAL versions I tried to burn.

@Sleeπ : It would be awesome to have all dumps from one working unit.

I just attach here my original ROM and GAL dumps (as it looks like they were not protected):

[Erhard]

I have an early version of Pancio's pcb and I can confirm that it worked in general.

There was a problem with the IDE bus in so far that due to maybe spikes on some chip select signal not all the IDE device bytes were read from / written to properly.

In addition LS bus transceivers worked better than HCT, if I remember correctly.

But I didn't have a CF card by then ....

I have no idea why your Atari does not start at all. Do all chips on the MSC have the correct orientation?

Does your Atari provide power to the MSC?

Best, Erhard

[Sleeπ]

O.K., I added a ZIP-File of my folder with informations about the msc-interface.

Among other things, it also contains a link to the controller's homepage.

Most files are likely to originate from the homepage.

EDIT:

"A GAL or ROM file for my interface does not appear to be included; I guess I'll have to read it out again."

I have TWO folders: “MSC-IDE-Controller” and “IDE-MSC-Controller”...

The other folder contained significantly more files, including those for EPROM/GAL. “MSC-IDE 2025.ZIP” is the summary.


Despite all this, it would indeed make sense to read out the EPROM and GAL from a device that is definitely WORKING - not that there are any differences. I consider this unlikely (there would have to be different version numbers), but it is not impossible.

I should also have an email somewhere with the approval of the files for repair purposes, etc.

[Goldy]

Update: the computer now boots after a delay (as expected), because I don't have my CF adapter yet and nothing is connected (and IDE cdrom as slave is not enough).
It looks like program inside the IDE connector GAL was corrupted, maybe eprom content too, but as resoldering and cleaning the ATARI BUS pads did not help
I had to to reheat the solder of all PCB components to make computer boot .

When the CF adapter arrives I will do further tests, but currently I have 3 different ROM files for the IDE board,
- The one I've read from the device - maybe corrupted.
- The one from HiassofT
- The one from Sleeπ - (actually two identical eproms in his zip) - strange is, that the rest of unused ROM space was not FFFFFF but other pattern.

There are lot of differencies (binarywise) and I am not sure how to identify which version is the latest, as the utils supposed to display version return error when there is no disk present.

Based on the release notes there should be at least two versions: original one and

Veränderungen im ROM des Controllers
Mittlerweile werden die Controller mit einem veränderten ROM ausgeliefert. Die Veränderungen sind jedoch nur kosmetischer Art und dienen lediglich dazu, die Vergleichbarkeit mit anderen Controllern zu verbessern.
Im einzelnen geben jetzt die Befehle “Read Status” (R, $53) und “Read Configuration Block” (N,$4e) z.T. andere Werte zurück. Dies ist für den normalen Betrieb völlig ohne Belang und dient nur zur Verbesserung der Anzeige des SysInfo-Programms V2.01 von Konrad M.Kokoszkiewicz (“DRACO”).
Es sind lediglich Fehler möglich, wenn auf Diskettenstationen größer D9: zugegriffen wird. Uns ist jedoch (außer SysInfo) kein Programm bekannt, das dieses tut.

[Erhard]

Dann auch noch was ich (von meinem Original) dazu hab:

MSC-IDE-EP.zip

(307.54 KiB) 84-mal heruntergeladen

[Sleeπ]

Update: the computer now boots after a delay (as expected), because I don't have my CF adapter yet and nothing is connected (and IDE cdrom as slave is not enough).

I also used a cf2ide-adapter like this:

Bildschirmfoto vom 2025-08-27 08-16-03.png (145.05 KiB) 123 mal betrachtet

If I remember correctly, there were no problems with the hard drive starting up time during ATARIs bootup.

- The one from Sleeπ - (actually two identical eproms in his zip) - strange is, that the rest of unused ROM space was not FFFFFF but other pattern.

This MAY be due to how the EPROM was burned. Some burner software allows you to set how unused bytes should be set.

There may be two (identical) files; the data comes from two different folders in my archive where I have collected information I found about the msc board. It is quite possible that I saved a ROM dump with identical content under different names in the two folders.

Another possibility: If the identical file was in a zipped folder in the downloaded ZIP file, it is probably just the file from the “original ZIP file that I downloaded somewhere, now in the newly compiled ZIP file” that has already been unzipped (and I haven't deleted the original ZIP file). This is likely to apply to several files.

Another another possibility: I read one file myself, the other is from the msc-homepage.

I hope that was understandable and not too confusing...

[mega-hz]

ich hatte vor Jahren auch den MSC Controller "nach-entwickelt" mit Anfangs einigen Fehlern.
Z.B. war die IDE Stiftleiste komplett falsch durchnummeriert, manche ICs hatten keine Stromversorgung....
Nachdem ich alles korregiert hatte (per Fädeldraht) lief die Prototyp Platine auch, wenn auch mit etwas hakeln.

Da irgendwann das SIO2SD herauskam, hatte ich am MSC nix mehr gemacht.
Würde die EAGLE-Files gerne zur Verfügung stellen, aber mit so vielen Fehlern würden die wohl keinem nützen.

Als GAL und EPROM Inhalt hatte ich das original genommen.

Meine Version konnte allerdings mehr ROM-Bänke und mehr RAM Bänke verwenden (per Jumper).