I think I tried to use such a card as Secondary FDC, and failed...
but it was many years ago, before this - https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/dos … c-driver.74244/
Looks like it's worth to give it a try...

Thanks. I'm hoping if I can get the drives picked up by a BIOS, then getting DOS to see them should be easy. I've just come across Sergey Kiselev's floppy BIOS, which I'll give a try when I'm home from work.
Cheers
Andrew

The BIOS on that card does not override the jumpers. It reads from them at startup. However, the BIOS on that card also requires that it be set as the primary FDC. If you wish to use it as a secondary FDC you must use the main system BIOS to control the primary FDC and disable the LCS ROM. Then to access the drives on the secondary FDC you can use my DOS driver found here:

https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/dos … 244/post-919840

Alternatively if you can get your hands on a MR BIOS for your motherboard it can manage all 4 drives on both controllers simultaneously (in theory, I've not gotten it to work)

Skip94 wrote on 2022-06-30, 01:46:

Thanks. I'm hoping if I can get the drives picked up by a BIOS, then getting DOS to see them should be easy. I've just come across Sergey Kiselev's floppy BIOS, which I'll give a try when I'm home from work.
Cheers
Andrew

To the best of my knowledge no option ROM (including S. Kiselev's) exists that can manage a secondary FDC.

I agree with Max ! Have a couple of BIOS driven 8bit floppy controllers for XT and early AT that support HD floppies but it must be set as the Primary.
fixed a typo, One of my cards supports 4 floppies but that does not matter as the add-in card overrides sort of like a scsi adapter with it's own bios .;p

All good thoughts, thank you.
Sergey's BIOS does seem to support a 2nd floppy controller, according to the documentation. I had a little play this more and made some progress. I had to hex edit the values in as for some reason the config utility can't write to the EEPROM, but the photo below shows what I have so far.
Next I think I need to add some bits to my config.sys file, then DOS should pick the drive up.

Skip94 wrote on 2022-06-30, 06:37:

All good thoughts, thank you.
Sergey's BIOS does seem to support a 2nd floppy controller, according to the documentation. I had a little play this more and made some progress. I had to hex edit the values in as for some reason the config utility can't write to the EEPROM, but the photo below shows what I have so far.
Next I think I need to add some bits to my config.sys file, then DOS should pick the drive up.

That's awesome that his BIOS supports secondary FDC, but you're going to have to edit it further to tell it both FDC are at IRQ6/DMA2. The LCS card is hard wired to those (as are 95% of FDC) and they can be shared with proper port writes to the respective DORs (if Sergey's BIOS does this)

As far as DOS, once you've got BIOS support you just need to add a DEVICE=DRIVER.SYS line for each drive in the CONFIG.SYS

maxtherabbit wrote on 2022-06-30, 13:15:

Skip94 wrote on 2022-06-30, 06:37:

All good thoughts, thank you.
Sergey's BIOS does seem to support a 2nd floppy controller, according to the documentation. I had a little play this more and made some progress. I had to hex edit the values in as for some reason the config utility can't write to the EEPROM, but the photo below shows what I have so far.
Next I think I need to add some bits to my config.sys file, then DOS should pick the drive up.

That's awesome that his BIOS supports secondary FDC, but you're going to have to edit it further to tell it both FDC are at IRQ6/DMA2. The LCS card is hard wired to those (as are 95% of FDC) and they can be shared with proper port writes to the respective DORs (if Sergey's BIOS does this)

That should be easy enough, I actually set them to separate IRQ and DMA's, as I didn't want to cause a conflict. I'll happily admit, I'm still very much a novice when it comes to this stuff.
I'll write a config.sys file tonight.
Cheers
Andrew

maxtherabbit wrote on 2022-06-30, 13:15:

That's awesome that his BIOS supports secondary FDC, but you're going to have to edit it further to tell it both FDC are at IRQ6/DMA2. The LCS card is hard wired to those (as are 95% of FDC) and they can be shared with proper port writes to the respective DORs (if Sergey's BIOS does this)

What's DOR? Some register?

Once upon a time I tried to install two FDCs, but no luck: the very presence of Secondary FDC caused the Primary to fail.
I blamed it on IRQ and/or DMA conflict, and assumed the Secondary must be set to different IRQ/DMA - impossible with generic multi-I/O cards, but possible with eg. AHA-1542B.

Grzyb wrote on 2022-06-30, 17:09:

I blamed it on IRQ and/or DMA conflict, and assumed the Secondary must be set to different IRQ/DMA - impossible with generic multi-I/O cards, but possible with eg. AHA-1542B.

Some generic multi IO cards do actually allow one to set the FDC to the secondary port, same for the IDE, for example the Goldstar Prime 2 https://arvutimuuseum.ee/th99/c/E-H/20334.htm

weedeewee wrote on 2022-06-30, 17:46:

Some generic multi IO cards do actually allow one to set the FDC to the secondary port, same for the IDE, for example the Goldstar Prime 2 https://arvutimuuseum.ee/th99/c/E-H/20334.htm

I/O address can be changed from 3F0-3F7h to 370-377h.
IRQ, however, can't be changed, it's always 6.
DMA can't be changed, either, it's always 2.

AHA-1542B allows to change I/O address to 370-377h, IRQ to 10, DMA to 3.

Grzyb wrote on 2022-06-30, 17:09:

What's DOR? Some register? […]
Show full quote

maxtherabbit wrote on 2022-06-30, 13:15:

That's awesome that his BIOS supports secondary FDC, but you're going to have to edit it further to tell it both FDC are at IRQ6/DMA2. The LCS card is hard wired to those (as are 95% of FDC) and they can be shared with proper port writes to the respective DORs (if Sergey's BIOS does this)

What's DOR? Some register?

Once upon a time I tried to install two FDCs, but no luck: the very presence of Secondary FDC caused the Primary to fail.
I blamed it on IRQ and/or DMA conflict, and assumed the Secondary must be set to different IRQ/DMA - impossible with generic multi-I/O cards, but possible with eg. AHA-1542B.

Yep. Digital Output Register. Selects drives, turns on motors, and controls whether IRQ/DMA is enabled on the controller.

http://www.isdaman.com/alsos/hardware/fdc/floppy.htm#DOR

By toggling that bit on and off in the two FDC situation you can effectively "share" the IRQ/DMA by ensuring only one FDC is using them at a time. Again this is all contingent on whether S. Kiselev's ROM has this functionality coded.

No joy yet sadly. I have just ordered the bits to build myself Sergey's "Monster floppy" controller thats seems to allow up to 4 drives per controller. More for interest than anything. I'll continue playing over the weekend.
Andrew