[Coco] help with the SUPER IDE AND MULITIPACK

[Gene Heskett]

On Sunday 09 December 2012 12:56:18 Douglas Bell did opine:

> NEED HELP WITH SUPER IDE AND MULITIPACK
> IM TRYING TO GET A RADIO SHACK DISK DRIVE WITH A SUPER IDE IN A
> MULITPACK I have my super ide in slot 3 and the rs drive in 4
> I boot up the super ide and try to access the rs drive by doing a drive
> off and dir
> The rs drive does nothing. Am I missing a step?
> 
> Doug bell
We're missing 2 bits of info here, which coco?, and has the mpi been 
modified?

first off slot numbers in software are in base 0 numbering, from slot0 as 
the front one to slot3 as the rear one.

But, without the superide, the rs drives work with the slider switch at 4 
when you power it all up?

Several things to check.  There may be an mpi present byte someplace in the 
superide setup that needs to be set that enables the changing of the mpi 
slot register in sw.

This can be checked by pokeing an 0x33 to 0xff7f, or a 51 to 65407 which is 
the slot register in the MPI.  If the rsdrives then work, this would be the 
problem.

Is this a coco3, and the mpi has not been updated to coco3 compatibility?
 
Depending on which mpi, there is a couple of kits you or a tech can install 
to fix that.  The problem is the address decoding in the std mpi also 
responds to the 0xFF9F that the coco3 addresses its gime chip at.  The kits 
remove that unwanted response.  I believe Mark at Cloud9tech has those 
listed on his web site.

And lastly, and this has nothing to do with your instant problem, but I 
recommend that all slots be jumpered together at their pin 8 positions, and 
that 3 of the 4 pullup resistors along the front edge of the board be 
removed.  This is so any card can generate an IRQ which will be seen and 
responded to in a timely manner regardless of where the slot register logic 
in the MPI, addressed at 0xFF7F was last set.  Its not good if the card 
wanting to exert an interrupt has to pull against all 4 of those resistors.  
Among other things you probably see video flickers that match the 
interrupts when it takes that much current.
 
> 
> 
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Cheers, Gene
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