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Top Document: Atari 8-Bit Computers: Frequently Asked Questions
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12.3) What do I need to connect a hard drive to my 8-bit Atari?

 original by mailto:Krishna@max.tiac.net (Glenn M. Saunders)

For starters, you'll need to obtain one of the following interfaces:

==> Corvus hard drive (10 megabytes)
Rare.
Fast but still relatively slow I/O, kludge through joystick ports for 800.

==> KPI Hard Disk Drive Interface (formerly Supra)
from K-Products (bobkla19@mail.tcd.net - Bob Klaas)
Some limitations on drive type and size and total number of drives in sys.

==> Multi I/O (MIO) (formerly from ICD)
from Fine Tooned Engineering (FTe) (ftooned@crl.com - Mike Hohman)
256 byter per sector restriction.  256K and 1 meg ramdisk models.
Printer and modem, modem will handle 19.2K bps

==> Black Box
from Computer Software Services (CSS) (76702.1076@compuserve.com - Bob Puff)
Will handle all SCSI drives. Allows 9 drive access for MYDOS. Currently the
only modem interface with CTS/RTS hardware flow control. 19.2K ready.

==> SWP ATR-8000
Rare daughterboard for hard drives.
I/O is probably fairly slow on this baby and there may be DOS restrictions.

==> IDE Hard Drive Interface
from Konrad M. Kokoszkiewicz and Jacek Zuk
(see http://www.orient.uw.edu.pl/~conradus/docs/ide_eng.html )
o  Maximum drive capacity: 16777215 physical blocks on each device.
o  Maximum number of partitions: 16
o  Maximum capacity of a partition: 16777215 logical sectors
o  Logical sector length: 256 or 512 bytes
o  Average speed (in kilobytes per second, WDC 130AB drive):
   -  Native mode, sequence of sectors (R): 75
   -  Emulation mode, sequence of sectors (R): 43
   -  Emulation mode, back sequence (R): 28
   -  Emulation mode, random sectors (R): 13
   -  Emulation mode, same sector (R): 29
   -  Emulation mode, DOS file (W): 7
   -  Emulation mode, DOS file (R): 36
o  Booting from any partition (on the standard XL OS)
o  Write protection capability
o  8 jumpers to set the device number for the operating system
o  Sweet 16 compatibility

==> Fine Tooned Engineering Multi I/O II
An IDE interface.  Released?

==> MSC IDE-Harddisk-Controller
created by Steve Birmanns and Matthias Belitz in Germany
mailto:stefan_birmanns@ac.cybercity.de
mailto:matz@kawo2.rwth-aachen.de
http://www.kawo2.rwth-aachen.de/~matz/atari/
*	real device for the parallel-port of the Atari XL-Series
*	up to 240 partitions per harddisk supported
*	emulates D1: until D9: of disk devices (access to 9 partitions at
one time)
*	full bootable from any partition (with standard XL-OS)
*	write protectition capability
*	supports master/slave configuration
*	more than 30 KB/s file access with SPARTA-DOS 3.2 gx (reading)
*	more than 10 KB/s file access with SPARTA-DOS 3.2 gx (writing)
*	access of ATAPI-CDROM with additional software