Thanks for quick feedback guys!  Rather than clog the system up with 
separate reply e-mails I'll do them all here.

 

Frank's suggestion to using a 16V8 GAL for the U13 74LS154…  yes Frank I 
did consider that, but I'm really trying not to wander too far from the 
time proven design. It's presumably a timing insensitive part of the 
circuit (used only for the HEX display),  but I'm somewhat reluctant to add 
another GAL. Assuming a number of beginners in the future will want the 
board with the GAL, it doubles the programming/stocking effort.  74LS154's 
are really not that hard to find. Jameco for example stocks them (#46738). 
Granted they are big and ugly, but real estate is not a problem with this 
board.

 

David's point about the Hard Disk IDE connector being in upside-down is 
valid.  I’m not sure how it ended up that way. I think in the early days I 
was using an IDE cable where the ribbon folded backwards on the connector 
for strain relief.  Anyway, point well taken,  I’ll flip it around to be 
line the CF card connectors.

 

Mike I not quite sure what you had in mind for the …”ABCDEFGH instead of 
IJKLMNOP” issue.  Remember for CHS addressing we need the display to 
distinguish the Head register on the “High Cylinder" HEX display.  The 
board has a separate access for this display via U12 (74LS244).   We trick 
the display by first sending head information to the IDE drive via the 8255 
port A in the normal way.  We then get the head information to the upper 
two HEX displays by sending the data to port B of the 8255 and pulsing the 
IDE High Cylinder line again.  The IDE drive ignores this data on its upper 
8 bits data line but the HEX LED displays latch the data. (To illustrate 
the selected head better I actually put the 4 head bits in the displays 
high nibble).  See the web page for more detail under “Notes on CHS & LBA 
addressing”.

 

Gary, yes the idea of using the one GAL is to simplify and speed up the 
port addressing.  Those 74LS682’s look nice but the is a lot going on 
inside them. Overkill for what we need and somewhat slow.   That combined 
with switching to the 74LS00’s for the sector RD/WR signals I’m hoping will 
increase reliability at high speeds.

 

There is still some real estate available on the board. Any other 
diagnostic function you think we should add.

 

John

 

 

 

 


On Tuesday, February 10, 2015 at 11:13:58 AM UTC-8, monahanz wrote:

> Guy's I thinking of doing another run of our now, old, S100 bus IDE/CF 
> card board.  There are probably close to 150 of them out there by now. 
>
> It's described here:-
>
>
> *http://s100computers.com/My%20System%20Pages/IDE%20Board/My%20IDE%20Card.htm*
>  
> <http://s100computers.com/My%20System%20Pages/IDE%20Board/My%20IDE%20Card.htm>
>
> Hard to believe but the first board was back in 2010!
>
>  
>
> While the V2 board seems to work fine for most people, there may be some 
> things "not quite right" with the design for high bus speeds around 10MHz 
> and with fast CPU's like the 80386 and with multi-sector reads with MSDOS 
> etc.
>
>  
>
> I decided the time was right to fine tune the board for another run, a V3 
> version.   There are a few things I wanted to do.
>
>  
>
> 1.    I do not want to change the basic 8255 driven circuit and all the 
> software I and others have over the years written for the board.  Sure if I 
> were to do it all over again I would probably have done it different using 
> perhaps a faster Zilog PIO or an onboard fast fully dedicated Z80 (as for 
> our ZFDC board) or Propeller etc.     The NEC or OKI 82C55-2’s are dirt 
> common and seem to be able to handle anything the CPU sends to them.
>
>  
>
> 2.    I want to hand lay down broad power traces to all the boards IC’s 
> for more even power distribution – particularly to the power hungry HEX 
> displays.
>
>  
>
> 3.    I have inserted a trace “Keep out Area” on the front of the board 
> so there is no danger of the IDE adaptors touching a critical trace.
>
>  
>
> 4.    I added a single TO-3 V regulator (e.g. 78H05’S) capable of 
> delivering high currents without overheating the board locally. Yes I know 
> we should be going to the switching regulators, but this is often a first 
> board for builders, wanted to keep it simple.
>
>  
>
> 5.    However I did bend the rules a little and add one 22V10 GAL.  This 
> greatly simplifies the board and really speeds up the port addressing and 
> the potential drive select/reset issues some were having.  I realize not 
> everybody is familiar with GAL’s. For those people and beginners I will 
> supply the pre-programmed Lattice 22V10 GAL.  Will of course supply the 
> PALASM code for others. Again these GAL’s are fairly common (Jameco #39159 
> for the 15ns variety).
>
>  
>
> 6.    I have switched over to using a 74LS00 (instead of the OC 7403’s) 
> for the critical RD/WD circuit.  This is based on (Roger & others) 
> observations.  Still a bit worried about this, but it’s a prototype can 
> easily add pull-ups and a 7403.
>
>  
>
> 7.   People should be able to simply switch IC’s from the old board to 
> this new one. Only a new GAL IC is required.
>
>  
>
> 8.   Last but least I relabeled much of the Silk Screen to be more 
> relevant. For example placing IC numbers above their pin locations.  
>
>  
>
> I’m attaching a suggested schematic and a picture of the proposed V3 board.  
> Could people take a look at it? Any suggestions etc. will be gratefully 
> received. Dave in particular I would really appreciate your input. You have 
> a keen eye for detecting potential issues and know this board well.  I 
> have added my complete working KiCAD file folder at the very bottom of the 
> page of the above URL for anybody that has the time to look.
>
>  
>
>  
>
>  
>

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