^Maybe BIOS related somehow?
The PC/XT, PC/AT and PS/2 platforms have all different BIOSes in some ways or different standard i/o ports for things like HDD.
The interrupt vector tables might be different, too. Variables in memory, I mean.

Now, the AT BIOS is more or less a superset of the PC BIOS or XT BIOS.
It added new BIOS calls for Extended Memory and so on.

But the PS/2 BIOS was merely partly AT BIOS compatible, as far as I know.
Or let's say the PS/2 platform was both a fork and a dead-end.
It added features to AT BIOS that didn't went back into AT platform.
Things like memory above 64MB, larger HDDs etc.
That's why himem.sys and certain OSes have dedicated PS/2 support.

The PC BIOS and XT BIOS look same but differ in HDD support.
The PC/XT (Model 5160) had a bigger PSU and its BIOS supported loading an
Option-BIOS containg HDD BIOS (a feature which also was welcomed for EGA/VGA BIOSes).

Funnily, later BIOS revisions for the PC (Model 5150) added support for this, too if memory serves.
So there's an overlap between PC and XT BIOS at some point.
But even without this, there were some workarounds to use HDDs in PCs..
Please don't ask me which, I'm just a layman here. 😅

In this case, can we assume that "ide_ps2(l).bin" is strictly IBM PS/2 XTIDE BIOS ROM, while all other variants are more of "universal" kind?

For example, I only used "ide_386l.bin" in ISA LAN card (with XTIDE BIOS flashed in EEPROM) for one 386SX build and it worked fine. Later I tried the very same LAN card on s.7 mobo and it also worked without any changes. But I have no experience with the other variants of prebuild XTIDE ROM files and I'm just curious if PS/2 variants "ide_ps2(l).bin" are interchangeable (in some extend) with "ide_xt(l).bin", "ide_at(l).bin" and "ide_386.bin". Obviously this can't be understood from the file names and the related information in XTIDE-wiki is outdated.

P.S It would be much simpler and clear, if non-IBM naming is applied:

• "ide_tiny.bin" - "potato" version (works on everything)
• "ide_88(l).bin" - for 8088/8086 and newer
• "ide_v20(l).bin" - for V20/V30
• "ide_286(l)" - for 286 and newer
• "ide_386(l).bin" - for 386SX/386DX and newer
• "ide_ps2(l).bin"- for IBM PS/2 systems only??

In this case, can we assume that "ide_ps2(l).bin" is strictly IBM PS/2 XTIDE BIOS ROM, while all other variants are more of "universal" kind?

Hi, yes, I think so. I'm just a layman, though. 😟

The (l) versions are the Lite versions without the menu, if memory serves.

Jo22 wrote on Today, 09:08:

The (l) versions are the Lite versions without the menu, if memory serves.

Actually it's in reverse. In the end of the file names the letter "l" stands for "large version" i.e. with all the possible BIOS modules included. So, the "non-l" files are the lighter versions of the "l" files.

P.S. But you're somehow "right" in your confusion, as at first look someone may think, that the letter "l" is really for "light version". It would be better, if the letter "f" was used instead - as for "full version", 'cause who the f*ck reads the f*ckin' manual 😁