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IDE and SCSI controllers
Different controllers for hard disk or CD-ROM
can be connected to MSX computers. They use 2
different bus systems :
- IDE (= Integrated
Drive Electronics)
is a standard interface for connecting
storage devices such as hard disks, solid
state disks and CD-ROM drives inside personal
computers
- SCSI (= Small Computer
Systems Interface)
is a standardized way of connecting hardware
peripherals to a computer using standardized
hardware and control commands.
Sunrise IDE is
the well-known IDE developed by Sunrise for
MSX. It allows to connect a maximum of two
IDE devices like hard disk or CD-ROM and
contains MSX-DOS2. A recent version allows to
use the Sunrise driver on a MSX1 with memory
mapper, but it's recommended to use it on a
MSX2, a MSX2+ or a MSXurboR to have full
access to the fun of an hard disk !
See also the Sunrise site : http://www.msx.ch/sunformsx/download/dl-ide.html
Or the MSX Pro site : http://www.msxpro.com/ide.html
Direct link to a very useful DSK file : http://www.msxpro.com/download/ideutils.zip
Beer IDE
is a system developed by Egor Voznesnssenski
(SOLID) and a partition tool has been written
by Adriano da Cunha (A&L Software). This
IDE interface doesn't need a memory mapper or
MSX-DOS 2, but a patching of the BIOS Beer
can be required. BEER202 BIOS manages a fixed
number of 5 drives and each partition can
handle to 32MB.
GIDE is a
generic IDE interface for Z80 based computers.
It allows to connect a maximum of two IDE
devices like hard disk or CD-ROM to such
computers. It also contains a real-time-clock
(RTC, Seiko-Epson 72421). The interface is
accessed via I/O instructions, the base
address is 0x40 for SVI-328 and 0x60 for MSX.
It is more conceived for developers and
experts as it requires to write some software
to use it.
See also these sites : http://www.gaby.de/gide/
http://www.iee.et.tu-dresden.de/~kc-club/gide/gide.html
| MEGA-SCSI,
Wave-SCSI and NOVAXIS/Gouda SCSI
|
SCSI has
been developed for MSX by the Japanese Ese
Artists' Factory and by the Dutch MSX Club
Gouda. The bus of this interface allows to
control 7 peripheral devices. SRAM is
connected to the interface in the Japanese
versions. In all cases, MSX-DOS 2 is required.
See this site for MEGA-SCSI
and Wave-SCSI : http://www.big.or.jp/~saibara/msx/ese/index.html
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