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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

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

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

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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