New IDE and CF adapters for Commodore 8bit computers

[redrumloa]

Have all our 64/128 friends here heard about Jim Brain's uIEC and the uIEC/CF?

uIEC will be offered in 2 flavors:

The base uIEC offering will include a CompactFlash slot and an IDE drive
  header.  It also includes an expansion port (as yet unused for
anything, but it's configured to match the pinout of parallel driver
speeders like ProfessionalDOS/RapiDOS Pro.) and a future option for
external drive RAM.  It includes an onboard IEC connector.

The uIEC/CF is a slimmed-down version of the above unit that offers only
the CF connector and drive LEDs.  No IDE, expansion port, or external
RAM.  It is primarily targeted for those who want to mount the uIEC in
their C64/DTV/C128/VIC/Plus-4/etc.

Both support all CBM IEC based computers (including the VIC-20 with it's
higher drive access speeds), include JiffyDOS support, support D64s,
P00/R00/S00/U00 files, will operate with both FAT16 and FAT32
filesystems, handle mulitple FAT partitions, support subdirectories, and
new features appears every week or so.
 

If you havn't heard about this, I bet I have your attention. :-D

More full feature set:

I've taken advantage of the long list of features in another project
(sd2iec) to make uIEC even more compatible and useful.  So, here is a
combined list of features:


o Supports IDE and CF cards (uIEC supports IDE/IDE, IDE/CF, or CF/CF if
you have an IDE->CF adapter for the second card.  uIEC/CF supports
single CF card)
o Supports drives of any size, though support for >137GB drives needs
more testing. :-)
o Supports FAT12/16/32 partitions of any legal size
* Supports partition-less cards/drives, or up to 4 primary partitions or
  3 primary and 12 extended partitions. (Email me if you have more than
12 extended partitions on a drive :-)
o Supports FAT Long filenames
* Transparent support for PRG/SEQ/USR file extensions, with REL support
planned.
o Transparent support for P00/S00/U00 files, with R00 support planned.
o Supports read and write of D64 images.
o Block level disk access supported on D64 images
o Most CBM DOS commands (Scratch,Initialize,Rename,etc.) supported.
o CBM general config commands (U0, U+, U-, UI, U9, U:, UJ) supported.
o CBM block level commands (B-R, B-W, UA, U1, U2, UB) supported when in
D64 image.
o CMD-style partition ($=P) support
o CMD-style subdirectory (MD,CD,RD) support.
o CMD DOS Commands (G-P, G-) support.
* Long form CMD directories ($=T:*, $=T:*=L) supported
o 1581-style/CMD-FD/HD-style wildcard matching supported ($:JIM*RAIN)
o JiffyDOS fast loader equipped (PAL and NTSC support).  Can be enabled
or disabled via DOS command.
& Firmware can be updated by copying new firmware file to root dir of
first drive, first partition and resetting unit.


(* noted items are in my WIP codebase, & are features in mainline
codebase I need to enable in my variant)

I will probably be adding this fine product to my store next month. Prices? Probably $75 for the uIEC and $50 for the uIEC/CF. Good stuff!! :-o

-Edit-
Oh yeah, latest news is a stunner.

As for other news, with the source code commit tonight, uIEC/sd2iec now
supports Relative files.  It will support .REL files (first byte is
record length) or R00 files (record length is in header, as implemented
by VICE and PC64, among others).  Support should be considered beta at
this point. D64 REL file support will follow shortly.

 :-o

[redrumloa]

[adolescent]

Just waiting for Jim to produce more.  Although, I might wait for the new SD model that he's planning.    

BTW, did you see that he's updated it to support multi-disk games. :-o

[redrumloa]

BTW, did you see that he's updated it to support multi-disk games. :-o

Yes, yes I did. REL file report and multidisk games, made in the NTSC market? :-o

[Tron2k2]

I assume 'IEC' refers to how this happens, but I'm not sure..  How do you actually connect this to the Commodore?

Looks like a RAD piece of hardware, now if someone would make a NIC expansion for the expansion connector :-)  Or is it a standard connector like the A1200 clockport connector?

looking at the pic again, I think I just answered my own question, it plugs into the disk drive connector, or the 'USB for the 1980s' connector as I've heard it called ;-)

[redrumloa]

@Tron2k2

IEC refers to the Commodore 8bit serial bus, which is what the disk drives connect to. You hook this up just like you would hook up a 1541 disk drive. The expansion connector has no purpose yet. I think Brain is planning on a parallel adapter to turbo charge speed.