Maximum length of 600's IDE cable?

[alexh]

I'm too late, but you could have just bought another CF card and a PCMCIA to CF adapter to use as a "second" hard drive.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130200985417

That way there is no messy cables coming out.

[alexh]

rkauer wrote:
Shame 80 wires IDE cables are not supported by Amiga.

I've got 80-wire (round) IDE cables in my Amiga's.

I thought they were identical to 40-wire cables electronically speaking?

[alexh]

The Amiga IDE connector has an extra pin (pin 20) which it shouldn't have. This pin is supposed to be missing for keying (orientation) to prevent cables being inserted the wrong way round.

Some 80-strand cables have this pin blocked off (as all 40-pin IDE cables if they strictly followed the spec should).

In which case you have to cut the pin off the connector, unblock the hole, or use a different cable.

[alexh]

JackL wrote:
i was under the impression that these couldn't be used as a boot drive

You are correct. That is why I said SECOND CF drive. You keep the primary one inside the A600 all the time and use the PCMCIA one to exchange data with the PC.

JackL wrote:
i thought they where only useful with 'easyADF' etc.

Nope, if you install CFD driver and FAT95 it appears as a regular FAT hard drive in both AmigaOS and Windows.

http://aminet.net/package/driver/media/cfd
http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/fat95

JackL wrote:
With the CF on the end of the cable i can remove it and plug it into a PC run UAE and write files directly to it.

With the CF in the PCMCIA slot (with CDF & FAT95) you can remove it, plug it into a PC and "just write files directly to it" with Windows explorer (or whatever) just as if it were another drive. No need for UAE. No unsightly IDE cables or hacked case.

[alexh]

rkauer wrote:
some 80 wires IDE cables use "cable select" instead the "normal" straight pins. Those C-S cables must be avoided.

AFAIK all 80 strand cables are "cable select" cables (or at least they are supposed to be).

Getting technical, pin 28 is the cable select pin. The host adapter is supposed to ground this pin; if a device sees that the pin is grounded, it becomes the master device; if it sees that pin 28 is open, the device becomes the slave device. The Grey connector on an 80-strand cable has pin 28 open (unconnected) and the black connector has pin 28 wired through to the blue connector.

The only problem I know of (which isnt really a problem) is that the Amiga motherboard's IDE connector doesn't ground pin 28 as it should. It isn't connected to anything, it's just floating open (which effectively makes everything a slave).

But it doesn't matter! Most devices have jumpers to force master/slave operation.

However if you come across a device with no such jumpers, and you feel brave you can wire pin 28 to pin 30 (which is easy as they are next to each other) on the Amiga connector and now it should now be correct in terms of the IDE spec.

Such a modification should allow you to use an Amiga with these cables and two devices with their jumpers set to CS (or no jumpers at all).