If NO IMAGES will be shown, use www.z80.eu/blog instead of blog.z80.eu

Please note also - THIS BLOG ENDS HERE WITH THE LAST ENTRY FROM NOVEMBER 9th 2021.

I have prepared a new blog with wordpress at https://vintagecomputing.info !!!

Thank you.

Looking still around for a better SCSI Controller which fits in my original IBM PC/XT, I found a Trantor T130B, which should be more suitable for a generic usage, because it comes with an external SCSI connector, and more important, there is an ASPI driver for DOS existing.

Unfortunately there were two versions sold, some with, and some without a BIOS ROM.
I got one without a BIOS ROM, but I own an EPROM burner, so no problem yet.
But I then I discovered there is another empty socket U6 on the card, a 20 pin DIL one.
I figured out that there is also a PAL on the "boot-capable" version, but my version didn't have one. Fortunately some other smart PC owners already figured it out, what content the PAL chip has to have. See http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum ... AL-Part-13 for a thirdteen pages entry which describes what was done for figuring it out.
So I am confident it will be a booting harddisk soon, I only have to get the "burned" PAL.
Because PALs aren't reprogrammable, i choosed to take a GAL 16V8 instead of a PAL16L8.

Stay tuned for an update ... hopefully all things will go well.

Related link for a short description of that card.

Added later: I got a boot ROM message from the controller, but the controller itself does not recognize at boot time any hard drive. Seems I didn't programmed the GAL correct, or, also possible, the PAL file from the vintage-computer.com forum does not fit.