https://web.archive.org/web/19970503160903/ht … ext/2277w95.txt

There are (2) versions of the 2177/2277. If you have the 2177/2277 and/or
your simms are vertical then Win95 drivers are available. Part number
#900088-89b. Please contact Sales Dept. @ (408)942-4000 and order the
2177/2277 Win95 drivers and Eprom upgrade kit for $25.00 + shipping.

If you have a 2177A/2277A and/or your simms are horizontal then Win95 drivers
are currently being developed. Part number #400510-89a.
There is no ETA (estimated time of arrival) for the completion of that project.

I see a bios and driver here from 1998:

https://web.archive.org/web/19980611074043/ht … drivers/ide.htm

But it looks like it is for the Tekram card (2277vl) , not the Atronics (2277a) card.

There are some cached snapshots from 1999/2000 that suggest additional info but it was all SHTML and it didn't wayback correctly and seems like a pretty long shot that they came out with an updated driver for a 5-6 year old product while business was falling apart.

NJRoadfan wrote on 2023-10-26, 00:55:

Correct. Caching cards need their own BIOS in order to work as your onboard BIOS' Int 13h firmware wouldn't know what to do with it. The card might expose the standard IDE registers, but that would bypass any caching.

That's not precisely true. Both Tekram caching IDE controllers (DC-680 is the VL one) and the Promise DC4030 behave like a virtual IDE hard drive to the computer to receive read/write commands. These commands are handled by the local processor (typically an 80186), and served from/to cache if possible. If actual disk access is required, the disk access is performed by the 80186 processor. You can use the standard IDE mainboard BIOS to talk to the caching card, and you get full caching. You actually can't directly perform arbitrary IDE commands on the target drives on the Tekram one (I am sure about that one), and I think this also applies to the Promise card. These caching cards do not (only) have a BIOS extension which is executed by the host PC (and can be dumped by standard ROM dumping tools without a ROM reader), but they also contain ROM(s) with the software for the integrated 80186 processor. These ROMs are not visible to the host processor, and can only be dumped with external ROM readers.

The DC-680T is special in this regard: It contains a minimal 32-bit IDE BIOS integrated in the main controller chip (not a dedicated ROM chip). If you run firmware 2.0 on them, they disable the host BIOS ROM chip, and just provide the stub ROM integrated in the controller. This ROM is sufficient to perform 32-bit reads, 32-bit writes and to retrieve and execute the initialization/setup tool from the cache firmware (it is stored in the firmware ROMs and can be provided over the IDE interface using a vendor-specific command).

The ATronics 2020L card is..... different. It has two IDE headers. One for "Drive C" and the other for "Drive D". You have the option of running two drives on each channel acting as a single combined drive. It does claim to support translating drives over 528MB, but I recall the onboard ROM setup had a weird restriction on the total number of heads on the drive. Something like the field only supported 4 digits total (9999 heads). One of these days I have to reinstall the card in a machine and document its quirks.

It does have two ROM chips onboard, so I believe the setup is similar to the Tekram card in that one is the option ROM and the other is for the SoC.

NJRoadfan wrote on 2023-10-26, 21:16:

The ATronics 2020L card is..... different. It has two IDE headers.

The 2177a card that I have sounds very similar, but it has a 1994 label on the BIOS and doesn't have a floppy controller or connector.

I did a pair of promise controllers and it was one of the most interesting sets so far.

• Used the Promise VG4 v3.3 driver. https://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=2076
• I stopped doing the DTC bios, because it was boring, always somewhere between 1%-15% faster than the 1.41 MrBios I have on the board.
• I tested the MrBIOS settings for 32 bit block mode and it didn't seem to change anything.
• Speedsys gives some ATA speed info "Selected DMA Transfer Mode : DMA X" when it thinks that DMA mode 0, 1, or 2 was in use, but I'm not sure it is accurate.
• It was really nice to see XUB shine on the 20230 controller. Seems like a really attractive combo
• The DMA mode on the 20630 was also very nice, too bad it didn't work with the Jmicron Sata bridge. I tried lower speeds and it didn't help
• This gives a pretty clear showing how it's not just your storage device, or just your controller, or just your BIOS, but a combination of all 3.

douglar wrote on 2023-10-26, 23:46:

I did a pair of promise controllers and it was one of the most interesting sets so far.<snip>

Very nice! Now we know how much faster the 20630 is! Quite a bit indeed... There is also the newer EIDE2300.SYS 3.11 Beta which will work with those chips... Tempted to try that as well?

mockingbird wrote on 2023-10-27, 02:11:

There is also the newer EIDE2300.SYS 3.11 Beta which will work with those chips... Tempted to try that as well?

I see this driver package here: https://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=2016

The EIDE2300.SYS has the same v3.3 version and the same 1995-06-23 date as the VG4.SYS that I used. It is 4 bytes smaller.

Is that the one you would like me to test?

douglar wrote on 2023-10-27, 12:08:

The EIDE2300.SYS has the same v3.3 version and the same 1995-06-23 date as the VG4.SYS that I used. It is 4 bytes smaller.

Is that the one you would like me to test?

Interesting. The 3.11 Beta has a file date of 3/16/1995. I do not think you need to do that since yours is in fact newer. I will attach said driver here though if you do want to look at it. Thanks again for your good work.

I'll try to post benchmarks with my PDC20630 and a Marvell bridge. I wonder how it compares.

Anyone have any advice on a quick way to check to see if a device driver supports eCHS, LBA28 or LBA48 ?

My plan was to attach a 256GB SD via Sinitechi, Add the Xtide Universal Bios (XUB) option rom, boot from the Gotek and load the device driver .

I thought if I started the free DOS fdisk, it would quickly tell me if how much space it could see, but I'm not sure if that's working.

Any other thoughts?

EDIT: I found this thread: Are there any utilities available to test BIOS disk access routines for reliable LBA28 functionality ?

NJRoadfan wrote on 2023-10-26, 21:16:

It does have two ROM chips onboard, so I believe the setup is similar to the Tekram card in that one is the option ROM and the other is for the SoC.

Indeed. The ROM chips are labelled "-F" (for firmware) and "-B" (for BIOS). The -F one is for the 80188, the -B one is the option ROM for the host.

I got stuck on the ADD2 controller for a bit. It's a puzzle

Anyone have experience with the DOS driver? The installation tool is supposed to create the parameters you need but I've had trouble getting it to bake me a config string.

The sample config string from the readme.doc looks like this:

1D0:S/20 R/68 W/FF M/FF P/11

Here's my best guesses:

• D0 = Primary Drive First Controller
• S/20 = Speed 20?
• R/68 = Recovery 68?
• W/FF = Config bits?
• M/FF = Config bits?
• P/11 = PIO3 ?

I'm not sure what recovery means in this context but it sounds like a timing thing where S & P combine to make your I/O cycle.

Can anyone recommend a good tool for disassembling or decompiling old device drivers?

I have this note in the other thread:

1It does not look like the driver for VLSIO2C3 (ADD2) is actually doing anything.
2With, or without it, performance is the same. Further investigation will be needed.

I remember trying quite a few things.
Driver appears to load properly, but no observable difference in performance with or without it, including varying the control arguments.

At minimum, this is PIO3 only silicon, so our expectations should be modest.

Back in the day, mid 90s drives and controllers, it only ever seemed like Pio mode 4 or DMA mode 2 were in use any faster than default modes in DOS... i.e. unless lower PIO modes or DMA modes worked by default it wasn't worth eating up your UMB or conventional RAM with the driver. So basically circa 1997ish only DMA mode 2 would get me excited as to performance possibilities... Maybe there were technical benchmark differences, but drives had tiny caches then so getting your 16.67MB/sec burst for like half a percent of the transfer before it was down to the 4 or 5 MB/sec your consumer drives could actually manage sustained was not really noticeable.

In the interest of preservation, attached is the manual for the DTC 2x77VL (ATronics), along with a high res. board scan.

I also pulled the stickers off the ROMs to see what ATronics put on them. The VIC41-F chip is rev 5.0, while the VIC41-B chip is rev. 4.12. Also ATronics called this the "IDEal Cache/VL"

Hello,
to douglar,
I have a huge request for help regarding the VLB controller on SIS 83C611 + WinBond W83757F.
After installing the driver from http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=2036, the computer hangs. The controller without driver works normally. Tested with a compact flash card and a Seagate 500 MB drive. Could I ask you for a photo of your controller (if you have one) and some technical documentation of this controller.
Thank you in advance and best regards
Peter

piokum77 wrote on 2024-01-19, 13:33:

Hello, to douglar, I have a huge request for help regarding the VLB controller on SIS 83C611 + WinBond W83757F. After installing […]
Show full quote

Hello,
to douglar,
I have a huge request for help regarding the VLB controller on SIS 83C611 + WinBond W83757F.
After installing the driver from http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=2036, the computer hangs. The controller without driver works normally. Tested with a compact flash card and a Seagate 500 MB drive. Could I ask you for a photo of your controller (if you have one) and some technical documentation of this controller.
Thank you in advance and best regards
Peter

Does your card look like this one?

The Jumpers are here: https://th99.dosreloaded.de/c/S-T/20650.htm

I've been poking around with a UM85C418F based card.

It had a combo VGA/IDE BIOS. The IDE section listed this:

1GCW757VL VESA local bus IDE BIOS
2TEST ROM FOR UM82C418
3Copyright 1992  UMC CO.,LTD
4Date:6/8/1993

https://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=2141

The GCW757VL reference was strange. I searched for it and found that it's a completely different card.

1GCW757VL VESA local bus  
232 bit IDE BIOS Version 1.0
3Copyright 19XX  GIT CO.,LTD
4Date:10/20/1991

One of the error messages in the BIOS needed a proofreader…

1Press any key to continue ...  VEAS Card Error !!

https://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=2144

So, maybe the firmware crew for UMC bought the rights to the GCW757VL ROM as a starting point?

Hello everyone, I have an Octek VL-Combo-2. The IDE control chip on it is OP VIC3 423. Can anyone tell me its information?

zwrr wrote on 2024-01-28, 04:41:

Hello everyone, I have an Octek VL-Combo-2. The IDE control chip on it is OP VIC3 423. Can anyone tell me its information?
八十进制组合-2_1_2.jpg

That’s an interesting looking board.

I have not been able to get one of those yet, but I suspect that “vic” could be an abbreviation for Via IDE Controller and it might work with this driver: http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=2 … menustate=56,55

Edit: Or more likely “Opti VESA IDE Controller” http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=2 … menustate=56,55

Edit: Jumpers are here: https://arvutimuuseum.ee/th99/c/M-O/21034.htm

Edit: Drivers and ROMs can be found here: https://web.archive.org/web/19980614085407/ht … ay_Card/COMBO2/

Any chance you could upload the rom? There might be some ide info in it.

douglar wrote on 2024-01-28, 01:36:

I've been poking around with a UM85C418F based card. 7

That is a graphics chip. The ide and i/o ones are the small 86#.
Their ide performance is disappointing.