There was a project on HAD a little while ago for a Pi to emulate an ATA device and mount hard disk images over the network. This work could potentially be expanded to support ATAPI, although I'm not sure what the performance would be like.

Nodoyuna wrote:

Which device It is?

https://www.amazon.com/Zalman-ZM-VE350-Extern … N17TSK1A0SEESVF

There a some other brands, too.

It does not work like what we wish to have existed though, not like a Gotek. It's just emulates being an external USB optical drive. It is very very usefull for modernish or really modern rigs, but not so much for older machines using relatively ancient OSes.

I wish it was something like an optical version of Gotek, a device that can be connected to IDE interface and allows emulating ISO images in a pen drive as actual optical disks. Just like what a Gotek does for floppies.

tayyare wrote:

https://www.amazon.com/Zalman-ZM-VE350-Extern … N17TSK1A0SEESVF […]
Show full quote

Nodoyuna wrote:

Which device It is?

https://www.amazon.com/Zalman-ZM-VE350-Extern … N17TSK1A0SEESVF

There a some other brands, too.

It does not work like what we wish to have existed though, not like a Gotek. It's just emulates being an external USB optical drive. It not very very usefull for modernish to really modern rigs, but not so much for older machines using relatively ancient OSes.

I wish it was something like an optical version of Gotek, a device that can be connected to IDE interface and allows emulating ISO images in a pen drive as actual optical disks. Just like what a Gotek does for floppies.

Me too, i wish i had time to study a little more about parallel ata /atapi to create one.

Me too, i wish i had time to study a little more about parallel ata /atapi to create one

Yes, I hope somebody will make one device like a Gotek for CD's

If you want a CD hardware emulator for IDE/ATA interfaces, you always can take a SCSI2SD and plug it to the ATA bus via a SCSI to ATA converter. SCSI2SD supports emulating a CD/DVD unit (but i don't know if you can change the file attached to the emulated drive at runtime).

As for USB, there was n OSS alternative to the Zalman Unit, which uses a Teensy board as core.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MGPu47lTjw

Unfortunately it never gained enough traction and dissapeared, looks like there aren't enough clients who actually want to pay for these sort of things.

Do you have any idea how mush those adapters (especially SCSI to ATA) cost? 🤣 You are looking like a total of about 200 USD for both adapters.

tayyare wrote:

Do you have any idea how mush those adapters (especially SCSI to ATA) cost? 🤣 You are looking like a total of about 200 USD for both adapters.

No one said it was to be cheap. If you're searching for cheap i'm afraid you're in the wrong part of the forum... You will be fine with DosBox.
Also you can do all the engineering and build one for yourself reusing parts and such. There are many possibilities if you're ready to spend nights and neuronal cells to make your tool for your own needs.

hyoenmadan wrote:

tayyare wrote:

Do you have any idea how mush those adapters (especially SCSI to ATA) cost? 🤣 You are looking like a total of about 200 USD for both adapters.

No one said it was to be cheap. If you're searching for cheap i'm afraid you're in the wrong part of the forum... You will be fine with DosBox.
Also you can do all the engineering and build one for yourself reusing parts and such. There are many possibilities if you're ready to spend nights and neuronal cells to make your tool for your own needs.

Yeah... We were talking about Gotek, though, which is less than 20 USD shipped. I'm always searching for cheap, I'm not fine with DOSBox, and I'm almost always in this part of the forum, thanks for the heads up, though. 🤣 I wish I was an electronics engineer but unfortunately my BSc is on aerospace. 😢

If you want a CD hardware emulator for IDE/ATA interfaces, you always can take a SCSI2SD and plug it to the ATA bus via a SCSI to ATA converter. SCSI2SD supports emulating a CD/DVD unit (but i don't know if you can change the file attached to the emulated drive at runtime).

This sounds like a good solution... It's expensive, but I may spend the same amount over time by burning discs. 😉

Is it possible to add a SCSI card into a free slot on the PCB and skip the SCSI2ATA converter? (We are talking about a MS-DOS only computer, but I remember there were scanners that were connected by SCSI at the time)

Of course you can. Even my 386SX machine has a SCSI card. I think Adaptec 154xCP or 1522 are both nice cards for an ISA system. Go for 2940 variety or up for PCI systems.

Ofc is possible. SCSI2SD is really compatible with anything, even the bugged Apple SCSI controllers, so I think it will even work with a Trantor adapter, or ofc an Adaptec, Tekram or Buslogic card if you can afford them. All them (except Trantor maybe) have bootrom to boot from them, and ASPI DOS drivers for non bootable hardware.

So that would be a lot cheaper, right?

Nodoyuna wrote:

So that would be a lot cheaper, right?

If you can find a cheap SCSI ISA card, yep, maybe.

hyoenmadan wrote:

Ofc is possible. SCSI2SD is really compatible with anything, even the bugged Apple SCSI controllers, so I think it will even work with a Trantor adapter, or ofc an Adaptec, Tekram or Buslogic card if you can afford them. All them (except Trantor maybe) have bootrom to boot from them, and ASPI DOS drivers for non bootable hardware.

8-bit guy had problems with SCSI2SD on a Macintosh.
However it is impratical to use adapter over adapter, a dedicated solution for the problem would be way better and probably way cheaper to build, some time ago i gave the atapi specification a quick read never forwarded much thou(time is being a rare thing for me)

Is this one good enough: Adaptec AHA-2940AU SCSI Controller 50-pin 32-bit PCI Card ?

Nodoyuna wrote:

Is this one good enough: Adaptec AHA-2940AU SCSI Controller 50-pin 32-bit PCI Card ?

I'm not sure, never used one. Looks like a crippled version of 2940UW/2940W kind of cards, might be non-bootable?

I use 2940UW in many retro systems for a very long time, and I would say they are quite ok.

tayyare wrote:

I use 2940UW in many retro systems for a very long time, and I would say they are quite ok.

I've just bought one like yours from ebay 😁

Something even cooler with such device would be to be able to transfert your images from the host machine to the emulator ^^

Following up on this. Is there still no way to mount a .bin/.cue file in DOS for CD audio without having to burn it to a disc?

Deksor wrote on 2018-06-09, 08:03:

The problem with games with audio tracks is that they can't be read while the sound card is being used under DOS. However I wonder what would be possible with two sound cards in a setup ?

I don't understand. What does reading audio tracks from a disc have to do with a sound card using used in DOS?

http://macsd.com/index.php
or
dosbox w/hxrt
or
9x command prompt