I wonder how hard it would be to emulate a Backpack parallel port CD drive? There seem to be drivers for DOS and "Windows 95, 98, Me, 2000, XP and NT4", and Linux has one too. From looking at the Linux driver, it looks like they mostly just translate regular ATAPI commands. I could imagine starting with some existing ATAPI emulation code from another project, building on the translation layer and parallel port interface, trying to get Linux to talk to it first given that that is a driver which has source available so it's easier to debug, then trying to get the more interesting retro OSes's drivers to talk to it. The Linux code actually looks relatively hard to understand, but it's something.

I had a look at how hard it would be to do something like bolt the MSCDEX-facing side of SHSUCDHD to the network-facing side of something like ethflop and decided it's too hard for me at the moment because I'm not that great at assembler, have never done more than trivial modifications to drivers, and don't know NASM 😁

trivial with pico https://tomverbeure.github.io/2023/01/24/Fake … re-Tool-HW.html
easy with ESP32 https://www.hackster.io/news/adding-wi-fi-to- … rt-b841b673df43
~$10 in hardware. LPT is easy because its not synchronous communication and doesnt require very tight timings like ISA. Afaik SCSI is also easy for same reasons making BlueSCSI possible using pico and few buffer chips.

There is the IODD ST400 but that uses USB to interface with the host PC not IDE/SCSI as you would normally associate with an optical drive.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2023-09-22, 15:52:

There is the IODD ST400 but that uses USB to interface with the host PC not IDE/SCSI as you would normally associate with an optical drive.

AFAIU,that device and all non-hobby devices like it only handle ISO files, not CUE/BIN or any format capable of redbook CD audio on a mixed mode CD .

Without such capability, there will be no music in CD games like Stellar 7, Popple, Pitfall, Quake and quite a few others.

rasz_pl wrote on 2023-09-22, 12:42:

trivial with pico https://tomverbeure.github.io/2023/01/24/Fake … re-Tool-HW.html
easy with ESP32 https://www.hackster.io/news/adding-wi-fi-to- … rt-b841b673df43
~$10 in hardware. LPT is easy because its not synchronous communication and doesnt require very tight timings like ISA. Afaik SCSI is also easy for same reasons making BlueSCSI possible using pico and few buffer chips.

Thanks for the information!

However, I realised I don't know much about LPT myself. I forgot it's not just like a serial port. Also it doesn't seem like there is good emulation for it - it looks like I can't get Bochs to redirect the emulated parallel port anywhere, and I can get Qemu to redirect it to a socket but I presume there is a lot of signalling which is being lost in doing that. Perhaps I could do some development in PCem, since it has some emulated parallel-attached devices, then update the code to talk to an actual parallel port, but I can see myself needing to invest in a parallel port breakout box and maybe even a logic analyser. They'd be fun things to learn and play with but I was hoping for a much simpler project than that.

I'm going to start reading about how DOS device drivers work because I'd really prefer that solution anyway!

so who has IDE emulator Batch2 ?
can anyone do a review? i din´t find any in youtube

I'm also wondering about the "IDE emulator" (batch 2)...

Does it support CD audio and all copy protections, etc? (I don't see the 4-pin CD audio header on the boards?)

Is there anything else better that is available?

sofakng wrote on 2023-10-08, 16:43:

I'm also wondering about the "IDE emulator" (batch 2)...

Does it support CD audio and all copy protections, etc? (I don't see the 4-pin CD audio header on the boards?)

Is there anything else better that is available?

I'm guessing it's J8, while the pins aren't soldered on, the rest of the components are present.

I sent a message to the creator to ask some of these questions because I am curious too.
In his reply, he sent the attached photo showing the black CD-Audio connector soldered on next to the IDE connector.

He also confirmed that the optional WiFI module and OLED+Rotary Encoder share the wifi connector (you have to pick one).

There's no information which file formats are supported with the emulator.

This is somewhat different story but, I wish there was IDE-SATA converter with analog audio output because we can still buy new SATA ODDs with low cost.

This would be great for a ROLAND DISC LAB CDX1. These came with CD-RW drives in them.
High speed CD-RW media is or has become out of date so a system similar to the gotek would
be awesome.

Has anyone actually received one of Fixel's IDE emulators? I'm still waiting on shipment from batch 1. He's not very communicative.

kykypyza wrote on 2023-10-13, 12:57:

There's no information which file formats are supported with the emulator.

This is somewhat different story but, I wish there was IDE-SATA converter with analog audio output because we can still buy new SATA ODDs with low cost.

I don't see a practical way to do that.

Such a converter would need to extract the audio signal data embedded in the SATA data stream that it would need to tap into and decode in realtime. This is non trivial, AFAIU.

A complete hardware CD emulator is probably easier to implement, I would guess .

I could be wrong, of course.

justajeffy wrote on 2023-10-27, 21:10:

Has anyone actually received one of Fixel's IDE emulators? I'm still waiting on shipment from batch 1. He's not very communicative.

Not yet.

Someone on the discord showed a photograph two days ago, though he got that handed to him directly from fixel, and would be testing it with possible reports on the discord or twitter https://twitter.com/cyothevile

I hope someone does a very long review youtube video about it
playing a game under pure DOS games with cd audio tracks, maybe on a 486 computer

then playing under windows3.11 games with cd audio tracks, maybe on a 486 computer too

and then playing on win95 and win98 to see how it gets detected. maybe on a pentium computer for this

i hope the needs are finally resolved because cd-rom drives are not forever.

SETBLASTER wrote on 2023-11-26, 00:09:

I hope someone does a very long review youtube video about it playing a game under pure DOS games with cd audio tracks, maybe on […]
Show full quote

I hope someone does a very long review youtube video about it
playing a game under pure DOS games with cd audio tracks, maybe on a 486 computer

then playing under windows3.11 games with cd audio tracks, maybe on a 486 computer too

and then playing on win95 and win98 to see how it gets detected. maybe on a pentium computer for this

i hope the needs are finally resolved because cd-rom drives are not forever.

CD drives are always my main worry with my retro PCs. While I can use Daemon Tools in Windows 9X and higher (or Alcohol), for DOS I really do need a device capable of running CD images with CD audio.

CRTs as well but you can have VGA-to-HDMI at least, and with modern upscaling devices that can emulate CRT shaders I'm confident there will be solutions (plus I have half a dozen good CRTs saved up)

For now I still have a handful of good CD drives but most I buy to expand my collection turn out to be duds so it seems it's becoming more & more rare to find ones in good working order.

red_avatar wrote on 2023-12-08, 22:59:

CD drives are always my main worry with my retro PCs. While I can use Daemon Tools in Windows 9X and higher (or Alcohol), for DO […]
Show full quote

SETBLASTER wrote on 2023-11-26, 00:09:

I hope someone does a very long review youtube video about it playing a game under pure DOS games with cd audio tracks, maybe on […]
Show full quote

I hope someone does a very long review youtube video about it
playing a game under pure DOS games with cd audio tracks, maybe on a 486 computer

then playing under windows3.11 games with cd audio tracks, maybe on a 486 computer too

and then playing on win95 and win98 to see how it gets detected. maybe on a pentium computer for this

i hope the needs are finally resolved because cd-rom drives are not forever.

CD drives are always my main worry with my retro PCs. While I can use Daemon Tools in Windows 9X and higher (or Alcohol), for DOS I really do need a device capable of running CD images with CD audio.

CRTs as well but you can have VGA-to-HDMI at least, and with modern upscaling devices that can emulate CRT shaders I'm confident there will be solutions (plus I have half a dozen good CRTs saved up)

For now I still have a handful of good CD drives but most I buy to expand my collection turn out to be duds so it seems it's becoming more & more rare to find ones in good working order.

I was happily able to get one of sintech (sinowin) 's prototypes. and it does play audio tracks as can be witnessed here https://youtu.be/fFdFw1K25Js?t=869

Zorix wrote on 2019-07-26, 16:34:

I'm actually working on one. It will be a while before it's done though. […]
Show full quote

I'm actually working on one. It will be a while before it's done though.

Hi Zorix, how is your ide emulator project coming along ?

weedeewee wrote on 2023-12-09, 10:25:

red_avatar wrote on 2023-12-08, 22:59:

CD drives are always my main worry with my retro PCs. While I can use Daemon Tools in Windows 9X and higher (or Alcohol), for DOS I really do need a device capable of running CD images with CD audio.

CRTs as well but you can have VGA-to-HDMI at least, and with modern upscaling devices that can emulate CRT shaders I'm confident there will be solutions (plus I have half a dozen good CRTs saved up)

For now I still have a handful of good CD drives but most I buy to expand my collection turn out to be duds so it seems it's becoming more & more rare to find ones in good working order.

I was happily able to get one of sintech (sinowin) 's prototypes. and it does play audio tracks as can be witnessed here https://youtu.be/fFdFw1K25Js?t=869

I've been hearing of prototypes for years now - I'm surprised it's taking so long to produce something "commercially" considering we've had replacement devices for pretty much every other area of 90's PC's.

red_avatar wrote on 2023-12-11, 10:40:

I've been hearing of prototypes for years now - I'm surprised it's taking so long to produce something "commercially" considering we've had replacement devices for pretty much every other area of 90's PC's.

My guess is that it's a demand issue. There is this very narrow window in the 90s. Post Win95/98 you can software emulate a drive, and you don't need a hardware solution.

Floppy drives were ubiquitous from the 80s through 90s and barely into the 00s. Also present in many machines. Lots of demand for sold state replacement = plenty of options.

The problem is that PC software that relies on CDROMs and does not run in Windows, sits in a niche from 93ish to 96ish.

For all other software there is an easier solution. Hence lower demand for the hardware based solution.

At least, that's my guess. I'm all for them obviously. I have a tattiebogle already, and have pre-ordered from Fixel. One thing I do NOT want to have to do again is install windows XP from a USB key from a weird linux installer because I did not have a working CDROM in the system. Total pain.