Subject: 3.8) How can I use a hard drive with my 8-bit Atari?
Atari never produced hard drives for the 8-bit Atari, but a variety of options
have been produced over the years. No common DOS version was written with
drives the size of hard drives in mind, and very few 8-bit Atari users have
owned hard drives for the Atari. Yet, if you're serious about it, a hard
drive can make a tremendous addition to your system!
A couple of these options are hard drives designed specifically for the 8-bit
Atari computers; the rest are interfaces designed to let you attach an
industry standard SASI, SCSI, or IDE type hard drive. Customized software
(OS, DOS) is often involved as well.
Larry White contributed to some of these descriptions.
Additional Corvus info from an eBay auction by Ben Corr, 7/03.
==> Corvus hard drive (5MB, 10MB, or 20MB)
Attaches via joystick ports 3 & 4 on the Atari 800 only.
-- Corvus Integrator Board - alows access to the Corvus Disc without the
Corvus software, so that any DOS that uses standard SIO calls will work.
-- Corvus Multiplexer - used to network up to 8 Ataris to one Corvus Drive
- Corvus Mirror card - back up the drive's contents onto video tape
==> SupraDrive Atari Hard Disk, by Supra, later K-Products. 10MB or 20MB.
includes external Hard Disk Interface
Some limitations on drive type and size and total number of drives in sys.
Attaches via PBI, or ECI with adapter.
See: http://www.atarimagazines.com/v5n6/Supradrivefor8Bit.html
Maybe still available from Bob Klaas?
==> BTL Hard Disk System
BTL 2001 Connector for 600XL/800XL PBI
BTL 2002 Connector for 130XE/800XE/65XE ECI
BTL 2004 SASI Hard Disk Adapter
See: http://www.atarimagazines.com/v5n12/BTLHardDisk.html
==> Multi I/O (MIO) interface, by ICD. Includes:
- Parallel printer interface
- Serial interface, for modem or serial printer. will handle 19.2Kbps
- 256K or 1 MB RAM, for RAMdisk or printer spooler
- SASI/SCSI interface, supports up to 8 controllers.
Limited to drives with 256-byte sectors.
Attaches via PBI, or ECI with adapter.
==> CSS Black Box interface
RS-232 Serial Modem Port (19.2Kbps) w/ hardware flow control,
Parallel Printer Port,SASI/SCSI Hard Disk Port, Operating System Enhancements,
optional 64K printer buffer. Supports drives with 512-byte sectors.
PBI/ECI device. Available: http://www.nleaudio.com/css/products/black.htm
==> IDE Hard Drive Interface 1.0
By Konrad M. Kokoszkiewicz (Draco) and Jacek Zuk
PBI device. Logical sector length: 256 or 512 bytes
Availability???
==> SmartIDE project by Bob Woolley
Uses 256 of the normal 512 byte sectors. Point-to-point wiring project.
Articles and software at http://www.wolfpup.net/atari/atari.html
==> Fine Tooned Engineering (FTe) Multi I/O II (MIO II) interface
An IDE interface. Several exist, but it was never really released
==> Gary Morton's BadSector"A" Project
Wants to connect his IDE drive to the SIO bus.
http://www.alma.demon.co.uk/Atari/AtariProjects.html
==> msc-IDE Controller
created by Steve Birmanns and Matthias Belitz
* real device for the parallel-port (PBI/ECI) of the Atari XL/XE
* up to 240 partitions per harddisk supported
* emulates D1: until D9: of disk devices (access to 9 partitions at one ti
me)
* full bootable from any partition (with standard XL-OS)
* write protectition capability
* supports master/slave configuration
* more than 30 KB/s file access with SPARTA-DOS 3.2 gx (reading)
* more than 10 KB/s file access with SPARTA-DOS 3.2 gx (writing)
* software partially supports CD-ROM and ZIP drives.
Sold out.
http://www.birmanns.de/atari/
==> SIO2IDE, by Marek Mikolajewski (MMSoft)
The SIO2IDE is a simple interface that allows you to attach any IDE Disk
Drive to your 8-bit Atari computer. Latest interface version has the
following main features:
* ATARI side:
- uses standard Atari SIO at a speed of 19200 baud
- works with Atari High Speed SIO (US and Happy) at a speed of 52000 bau
d
- emulates Atari disks D1: to D8:
- can be used with any Atari DOS and OS
- can be used without any problems with other SIO devices (disk drivers,
printers, modems, SIO2PC, second SIO2IDE etc)
- can be easy installed inside your Atari with 2.5' laptop HD
- is easy to configure via special fdisk.com utility software
(changing disks sequence and active directory)
* IDE device side:
- all IDE ATA/ATAPI devices can be used: Disk Drives (2.5' and 3.5'),
CD-ROMs, Compact Flash cards etc.
- supports PC file systems, FAT16 and FAT32
- supports CD file system, ISO9660
- supports ATR disk images (SD, DD up to 16MB)
- supports directory change (multiconfig)
- is easy to configure, many text configuration files (sio2ide.cfg) can
be stored in different directories
- disk configuration can be checked by special checkfs.exe PC utility
NOTE: checkfs.exe does NOT work with HDD connected via USB port
- standard disk utilities can be used (defrag.exe, scandisk.exe etc)
* USB port side:
- interface works as Mass Storage Class device (removable drive)
- no drivers are needed for Windows 2K, ME, XP
- driver for Win98 is included in this SIO2IDE package
http://www.atari.cuprum.com.pl/sio2ide.htm
==> Nathan Hartwell's IDE projects
http://www.magelair.com/