Regarding Windows compatibility, I know from experience that Windows 95 can use 16-bit (DOS) CD-ROM drivers, and from reading the 98 Resource Kit it sounds like that does too. I'm reading the 98RK on a TechNet CD from May 2000, so I hope that if that was no longer the case it'd be updated. I don't know about Me, does anyone know about that? I'm not as concerned about that as 9x though. I imagine people might like drivers for Windows NT/2000/XP/etc. too, but I just wanted to point out that at least some versions of Windows should be supported by a DOS driver.

I've done some reading of https://cybermax.tripod.com/mscdex.txt which explains how to write a DOS CD-ROM driver that MSCDEX can talk to and it's more complicated than I imagined. It occurred to me that there is probably already software out there which can do one of the necessary parts, specifically emulation of the CD drive: PC emulators. I know that lots of emulators/hypervisors like VirtualBox, Qemu and Bochs support virtual CD drives, but I don't think any of those ones support audio tracks. PCem apparently supports audio tracks though, so I imagine that we could have a DOS driver on the (to use the SCSI term) initiator which forwards requests to a DOS application running inside PCem which sends the requests to the ATAPI CD-ROM driver which then passes them to PCem's emulated CD-ROM drive. I don't know whether the performance would be acceptable though, and I'm also not sure how to communicate with PCem: does it support bridged networking?

Are there other emulators which support audio tracks on CDs and also support some way of communicating with the outside world?

doshea wrote on 2022-01-31, 08:23:

Regarding Windows compatibility, I know from experience that Windows 95 can use 16-bit (DOS) CD-ROM drivers, and from reading the 98 Resource Kit it sounds like that does too. I'm reading the 98RK on a TechNet CD from May 2000, so I hope that if that was no longer the case it'd be updated. I don't know about Me, does anyone know about that? I'm not as concerned about that as 9x though. I imagine people might like drivers for Windows NT/2000/XP/etc. too, but I just wanted to point out that at least some versions of Windows should be supported by a DOS driver.

I've done some reading of https://cybermax.tripod.com/mscdex.txt which explains how to write a DOS CD-ROM driver that MSCDEX can talk to and it's more complicated than I imagined. It occurred to me that there is probably already software out there which can do one of the necessary parts, specifically emulation of the CD drive: PC emulators. I know that lots of emulators/hypervisors like VirtualBox, Qemu and Bochs support virtual CD drives, but I don't think any of those ones support audio tracks. PCem apparently supports audio tracks though, so I imagine that we could have a DOS driver on the (to use the SCSI term) initiator which forwards requests to a DOS application running inside PCem which sends the requests to the ATAPI CD-ROM driver which then passes them to PCem's emulated CD-ROM drive. I don't know whether the performance would be acceptable though, and I'm also not sure how to communicate with PCem: does it support bridged networking?

Are there other emulators which support audio tracks on CDs and also support some way of communicating with the outside world?

If my memory is correct I remember my IBM PS/1. Around 1994 I gave to it a SB16 MCD and TEAC CD-55A CD-ROM (Panasonic interface) to make it a true multimedia PC and open myself to a whole new world. Of course the CD-ROM drive only had a driver for MS-DOS.
And some time after Windows 95 was release, I decided to upgrade to it (quite a challenge as the computer had a 120 MB hard disk drive). There was no Internet at the time and the drive was quite unsupported by everything (SuSE, OS/2, Windows NT) but miraculously was recognized by Windows 95 when using the MS-DOS driver. However there were some problems but I don't exactly remember which ones (maybe speed issue or configuration options) because I quickly bought a Drivers collection CD-ROM from Sybex containing the precious drivers for Windows 95 and NT 4.0.
But to resume, indeed Windows 95 worked well enough with a MS-DOS CD-ROM drive driver.

doshea wrote on 2022-01-31, 08:23:

Regarding Windows compatibility, I know from experience that Windows 95 can use 16-bit (DOS) CD-ROM drivers, and from reading the 98 Resource Kit it sounds like that does too. I'm reading the 98RK on a TechNet CD from May 2000, so I hope that if that was no longer the case it'd be updated. I don't know about Me, does anyone know about that? I'm not as concerned about that as 9x though. I imagine people might like drivers for Windows NT/2000/XP/etc. too, but I just wanted to point out that at least some versions of Windows should be supported by a DOS driver.

I've done some reading of https://cybermax.tripod.com/mscdex.txt which explains how to write a DOS CD-ROM driver that MSCDEX can talk to and it's more complicated than I imagined. It occurred to me that there is probably already software out there which can do one of the necessary parts, specifically emulation of the CD drive: PC emulators. I know that lots of emulators/hypervisors like VirtualBox, Qemu and Bochs support virtual CD drives, but I don't think any of those ones support audio tracks. PCem apparently supports audio tracks though, so I imagine that we could have a DOS driver on the (to use the SCSI term) initiator which forwards requests to a DOS application running inside PCem which sends the requests to the ATAPI CD-ROM driver which then passes them to PCem's emulated CD-ROM drive. I don't know whether the performance would be acceptable though, and I'm also not sure how to communicate with PCem: does it support bridged networking?

Are there other emulators which support audio tracks on CDs and also support some way of communicating with the outside world?

UniPCemu also supports audio tracks, although it's only communication with the outside world is by ethernet(using it's ISP server for it's virtual modem running PPP(IPv4 and IPX, text-based authentication optional, PAP authentication otherwise(will run by default in Windows 9x without scripts, optional when not protected with credentials)) and SLIP(IPv4, which requires some text-based setup when connecting, scripts for Windows 9x are in the repository)) and a simple custom protocol that's documented (currently 3 commands: changing port E9 output filename, terminating the port EAh service(can be reactivated by making it log the command string read from port EAh afterwards) and setting VGA log verbosity). Port E9 text is written to it's log file after line endings(CR/LF, CR or LF, whichever comes first).

Just found this: https://github.com/akuker/RASCSI

"English fork of the Japanese RaSCSI project. RaSCSI allows a Raspberry Pi to function as emulated SCSI devices (hard disk, CD-ROM, and others) for vintage SCSI-based computers and devices."

Might be interesting for some of you vintage soundcard enthusiasts.

Some versions of the Media Vision Pro AudioSpectrum 16 had an SCSI interface, for example.

Just like some versions of the original Sound Blaster 16..

The ATA/ATAPI2SD looks amazing.

I wonder if it could also emulate a DVD burner and store the burn information to a file on the SD card ?

Either way I hope its made available, either as a kit or a finished PC board.

I don't have the ability to complete a surface mount kit.. but it would be a dream just to have one and imagine the day when it was brought into mass production.

jwillis84 wrote on 2022-05-04, 07:52:

The ATA/ATAPI2SD looks amazing. […]
Show full quote

The ATA/ATAPI2SD looks amazing.

I wonder if it could also emulate a DVD burner and store the burn information to a file on the SD card ?

Either way I hope its made available, either as a kit or a finished PC board.

I don't have the ability to complete a surface mount kit.. but it would be a dream just to have one and imagine the day when it was brought into mass production.

Last I heard of the author was that he was working on newer revisions.
Several bugs fixed wrt ata/atapi implementation, bugs fixed wrt zip drives as used in music gear.
Also the possibility to attach a real drive on the same cable as the emulator.
The version I have can emulate one or two devices but can not have a real device on the same cable.
Also the ability to monitor the ide bus was being implemented. (by now probably is)

I guess implementing CD/DVD burning could be possible, though it might just be easier to create an iso on your pc and copy it on the sd card.

weedeewee wrote on 2022-05-04, 09:47:

Last I heard of the author was that he was working on newer revisions. Several bugs fixed wrt ata/atapi implementation, bugs fix […]
Show full quote

jwillis84 wrote on 2022-05-04, 07:52:

The ATA/ATAPI2SD looks amazing. […]
Show full quote

The ATA/ATAPI2SD looks amazing.

I wonder if it could also emulate a DVD burner and store the burn information to a file on the SD card ?

Either way I hope its made available, either as a kit or a finished PC board.

I don't have the ability to complete a surface mount kit.. but it would be a dream just to have one and imagine the day when it was brought into mass production.

Last I heard of the author was that he was working on newer revisions.
Several bugs fixed wrt ata/atapi implementation, bugs fixed wrt zip drives as used in music gear.
Also the possibility to attach a real drive on the same cable as the emulator.
The version I have can emulate one or two devices but can not have a real device on the same cable.
Also the ability to monitor the ide bus was being implemented. (by now probably is)

I guess implementing CD/DVD burning could be possible, though it might just be easier to create an iso on your pc and copy it on the sd card.

Thanks for the details.

Your indeed lucky to have acquired a prototype.

I'm just as curious as to what chips he used as the software he must have written to enable it.

Here's hoping if he doesn't think there is enough commercial interest.. he releases the design files.. or at least makes some money from a limited run of the PC boards.

I guess the source code to the firmware wouldn't be of much interest without the hardware.. but I just wonder about how he went about designing a software "bit bang" approach to do all those cool things.

He definitely correct in making something that could copy an existing drive down to its serial number.. that goes beyond PC usefulness.. all kinds of industrial machinery might depend upon that.. or use it for software licensing.

It sparks so many questions in my mind.. what's his background, how did he conceive of this project.. what initiated his interest in pursuing it all the way to almost completion?

Its admittedly niche.. but 50 years from now.. someone may be looking for something like this.. it will be a historical watershed moment.. at least the future will know it was possible.

Beyond capturing a DVD burning session.. the use case I would like to explore.. would be using one card with the two ATAPI interfaces to emulate "both" a DVD burner and an HDD hard drive inside a DVD recorder.

The end use would be to 1. replace the old, failing HDD drive in a DVD recorder with its serial number and 2. allow the DVD recorder to "think" it was still operating with its original HDD drive.. and a DVD drive.

Old DVD recorders DVD burner either don't work.. or the media for the drive is very hard to find.. they are very picky.

But if the DVD recorder could capture a DVD burning session to the SD card !

That would be awesome.

jwillis84,

The main chips are an STM and a CPLD.
the main hurdle with expecting any release these days would be the state of the world, since the designer lives in moscow.

mothergoose729 wrote on 2019-07-03, 17:54:

However, there are no more IDE optical drives being made (at least I don't think so), and eventually all of the existing units will fail.

over 2/3 of my optical drives won't open. They read media fine, but I have to eject the tray by using a paperclip. I tried replacing the tray mechanism's rubber belt, i tried greasing the internals... but it doesn't last.

Socket3 wrote on 2022-05-09, 18:51:

mothergoose729 wrote on 2019-07-03, 17:54:

However, there are no more IDE optical drives being made (at least I don't think so), and eventually all of the existing units will fail.

over 2/3 of my optical drives won't open. They read media fine, but I have to eject the tray by using a paperclip. I tried replacing the tray mechanism's rubber belt, i tried greasing the internals... but it doesn't last.

Get rid of the gear and add a string. Problem solved .

Is the intensive work of the FPGA/CPLD something that could be carried out by a custom ASIC? If so there is a project running for open-source ASIC designs which will manufacture them for free (paid for by Google).

https://efabless.com/open_shuttle_program

Perhaps this is something that could be suitable for a community-run implementation of the IDE Simulator, Z-IDE or ATA/ATAPI2SD as it would remove a big chunk of the hardware cost?

weedeewee wrote on 2022-05-06, 11:29:

jwillis84,

The main chips are an STM and a CPLD.
the main hurdle with expecting any release these days would be the state of the world, since the designer lives in moscow.

weedeewee, Have you been in touch with sintech recently or heard of any progress?

Action Replay wrote on 2022-05-15, 16:05:

weedeewee, Have you been in touch with sintech recently or heard of any progress?

No, it's been over two months since I we exchanged mails.

MacSD, despite the name, purports Windows and DOS support. It is SCSI, however, but it does emulate both HDD and CD-ROM with analogue audio output. I have one, but have not yet tried it in an x86 environment.

18 pages..

No easy cheap purchacable gotek like solution yet? :’(

Could really use one on my next build. (Case has no 5 1/4” bay)

weedeewee wrote on 2021-12-20, 21:33:

ah yes, you've got this one https://shop.tattiebogle.net/product/prod_EkTnv3Tk2Trxhf […]
Show full quote

flynnsbit wrote on 2021-12-20, 21:03:

Here ya go. A5164D66-E05D-4502-88FE-2B9E4DF9E04B.jpeg

ah yes, you've got this one
https://shop.tattiebogle.net/product/prod_EkTnv3Tk2Trxhf

the website says it's only for cd/dvd.
Does it emulate two devices, ie master & slave, at the same time?
How do you like it?
What's the transfer speed?
... ?

So not for data cds?

sintech wrote on 2021-10-26, 21:07:

Hello guys! I'm an author of ATA/ATAPI2SD emulator. I saw some traffic from vogons on my YT videos so I searched and came here. […]
Show full quote

Hello guys!
I'm an author of ATA/ATAPI2SD emulator. I saw some traffic from vogons on my YT videos so I searched and came here.
Actually this thread inspired me to begin my project in the first place. I also was long curious about ATA (ATAPI) protocol and wanted to know how it really works, so I decided to make my own emulator.
But instead of making heavily specialized device I wanted to make a versatile gadget to cover most (if not all) possible scenarios.
This is the list of initial features that I wanted to implement:

• Emulation of ATA HDD of any size with CHS or LBA translation
• Emulation of ATAPI CD-ROM. Support for analog output of AUDIO tracks. SPDIF-out as an option.
• Emulation of other ATAPI devices like Iomega ZIP, MO, etc.
• Support for transfer protocols: PIO, MW-DMA, UDMA.
• Support for host mode where ATA/ATAPI drive is connected to emulator for device id dumping, sector viewing, making of drive image.
• Storage for images: SD-card. No requirement to convert images to some special format.
• USB interface for configuration and debug output via emulated serial port.
• Ability to connect generic OLED I2C screen for status display (as on Gotek)
• Minimum three physical buttons to select image or change settings.
• Ability to work with very old computers as well as with modern computers or devices.
• Compact size to fit standard 3.5" bay.

As of today I have done most of this among a lots of other things.

The most important new feature is a support for two emulated devices on the same cable which could be selected from any combination of ATA/ATAPI drives.
My approach for drive emulation is based on real device id info extracted from real drives, so it is not some generic "ATAPI emulator", but a real clone of any ATA HDD or ATAPI CD-ROM at least from the point of ids and capabilities saved in device id dump. Thereby emulated drive and image are a two different entities. When HDD image is loaded to some drive, device id is updated to match image size and transfer mode limitations.
Emulator has confirmed support for Iomega ZIP-100 and ZIP250 drives.
Another interesting feature is an ability to override device id data using per-drive config files. In other words, you can change any option you want on per-drive basis, for example change CHS parameters or serial number to match some specific piece of hardware.
On current board I use PCM5102 I2S DAC module for analog audio output. My MCU supports direct SPDIF output but it is not implemented yet.

Picture of rev1 proto board:
ATAPI2SD_Rev1.JPG

So is this working? Available for sale?

wrt tattiebogle

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-05-20, 07:57:

So not for data cds?

How do you get to that question? too early or too late, ie tired or not awake yet? 😁
from the site : This device simulates an IDE ATAPI CD/DVD ROM drive, with a number of features: Dual host USB SD card slot 44kHz 16-bit stereo audio

wrt sintech

So is this working? Available for sale?

As I mentioned earlier, Author is located in Moscow, Russia. Currently obtaining one, if any prototypes are available, might be difficult.

weedeewee wrote on 2022-05-20, 13:08:

wrt tattiebogle […]
Show full quote

wrt tattiebogle

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-05-20, 07:57:

So not for data cds?

How do you get to that question? too early or too late, ie tired or not awake yet? 😁
from the site : This device simulates an IDE ATAPI CD/DVD ROM drive, with a number of features: Dual host USB SD card slot 44kHz 16-bit stereo audio

wrt sintech

So is this working? Available for sale?

As I mentioned earlier, Author is located in Moscow, Russia. Currently obtaining one, if any prototypes are available, might be difficult.

I was trying to understand their comment that it only works with cd and dvd.. I mean aren’t those exactly what we want them to work with? Or were they talking about bluray and zip as other functions? Lost..

It emulates a cd/DVD drive, so yes, it's a gotek-like option that is available today. It takes ISO or bin/cue images and presents them as discs to the OS.

Unlike the Gotek it's very expensive, more so if you'd like an external display. It's largely designed for internal mounting, so there's no 3.5 or 5.25 drive bay case design, which can make accessing the USB port to change images tricky. It's also a bit of a side project for the developer, so firmware updates are infrequent. It does work, bit there are caveats.

If you can deal with SCSI, MacSD is also an option. It too is designed for internal mounts, so the SD slot isn't easily accessible. There's no display option at this stage, so in the PC world image swapping is accomplished by pressing a fake eject button to cycle from a list. A list that you have to manually build and maintain. Development appears to be more active than the Tattiebogle device and it is much cheaper, and quite available on Tindie.

Neither option is quite as convenient or ubiquitous as the Gotek, but they are available today. I'd consider the Tattiebogle an arcade-focused CD-ROM emulator, with bonus PC functionality. The MacSD, as the name suggests, is Mac focussed with bonus PC functionality.

Sphere478 , the tattieboggle one is currently, as far as I know, only for CD & DVD data & audio. It has, currently, no other functions like hdd, or zip.

It's just a weird jump to see the device mentioned as being for CD and DVD emulation and then the question comes, "So not for data cds".
anyway, nevermind

The one annoyance I have currently with the sintech adapter is that one switches between hard drive images, not hard drive devices.
Which means that switching between different size images using the buttons & display is not really a thing you want to do.
it would be great if a hard drive device was coupled with a set of images...
anyway

goodnight.

electric_monk wrote on 2022-01-24, 04:20:

Yes, mine supports a DOS utility I made (and I plan to add Win16 and Win32 apps at some point, and possibly Linux for a laugh) to control, as well as plugging in a Crystalfontz USB button/display module which gives you menus you can use to switch disk images/etc. On top of that you can control it via USB (not super useful for this, but some people use it for arcade stuff, usually with a Raspberry Pi).

Edit to add: things like HDD support and simultaneous master/slave have been on my TODO list for a long time, but aren't finished yet (too many other TODOs, projects and other aspects of life in general keep requiring attention). It does support writing to disk in ZIP disk mode, of course, but that's mega different to IDE hard disk 😉

Remember to grab the newest firmware from issues.tattiebogle.net in the "DOS compatibility" thread for the best support. Old firmwares had a couple of ISA timing issues.

@electric_monk
Is it possible the add to your great CD/DVD-ROM Simulator a 2-pin header with SPDIF output? Or are at least such spots (or I2S) on the PCB? Your projects will deserve it.
thanks