Sorry, have been working on something else for the moment. Finally got Blood working 😀 But have been trying different methods to keep it working without breaking my other games (or building a boot menu.)
The problem with any HDD controller is that I would either need to replace my drives or end up wasting the controller. I have 3 40 Gb HDDs, but they are all ATA/33 interface drives. So, installing an ATA/66 or ATA/133 (or SATA,) interface wouldn't do any good.
Now that I have Blood working, the Voodoo 1 card is "sort" of back on the table. But I don't really want a VGA switch box, and I'm teetering on rather I really want to install a card and a switch box just for a single game that I don't actually have. There are only 4 games that were designed for the Voodoo 1 but don't work on the Voodoo 2 card, (Blood, Dreams to Reality, Tie Break Tennis '98, and Prost Grand Prix 1998.) Of those, Blood and Dreams to Reality work fine with the Voodoo 3 AGP I have. Tie Break Tennis '98 doesn't have an English version and I don't like tennis games anyways. So, Prost Grand Prix 1998 is the only game, that I am likely to ever play, that absolutely requires a Voodoo 1. As I said, do I really want to do this "just" for a single game?
I've also been toying with putting the Thrustmaster ACM back in, for the second game port. But, is it really worth it? Sure, I can adjust the timing a bit, but don't really need to (the AWE32 does a good job there, really.) I don't know of many DOS games that really need another port. It would allow me to actually get a driving kit in addition to my pilot's kit and have them both attached at the same time. But that sort of depends on being able to select which port to use in my games. The pilot games I've been loading don't allow that, so I sort of doubt if the driving games of the era would allow it.
A modem would just sit there and never do anything. So, from my research, that leaves only a floppy option board of some sort (Catweasel, Deluxe Option Board, etc...) or a USB board. I just don't know of any other options. The thing is, I don't have any USB devices I want to attach, and the MB has 2 USB ports already (probably USB 1.0 or 1.1 though.) The Catweasel is $125+, and the Deluxe Option board isn't available and would probably cost considerably more if it was.
So, unless something comes up in the near future, I'm probably just going to put the ACM in to fill out the system and call it quits. It isn't an ideal solution, but it would complete the build, and I can start looking for my next project. Everything else I would want for the system are externals (CM-32P, Driving Rig, etc...) Nothing is stopping me from opening it up and swapping the ACM card out in the future after all 😀