Hi! This one could be one of the options if you can find one 😉

The only soundcard I could find with a primary IDE interface is the Turtle Beach Tropez 32. There's a jumper to set it to primary or secondary. It's definitely my favourite soundcard in my collection and searched for over a year to get it. They seem to be very rare these days unfortunately..

I have an ESS card, where the IDE interface can be configured as primary channel.

That's the Formosa sc-1630 I mentioned above 😀

Ah ok, didn't know that. If you still need this particular card, you can have it.

Where is your location? Mine is germany.

I'm in germany too 😀

This is great 😀

BastlerMike wrote:

I have an ESS card, where the IDE interface can be configured as primary channel.

Seems that it has no MPU401 🙁

It has, but it must be initialized from DOS first before you can use it.

It's a great card, btw. I have two of them now, one with a 128 mb DOM and a Dreamblaster S1 attached. 😀

How can I do this. It has only jumpers (and none for the mpu401) and "esscfg" tells me MPU401 is at 300 and disabled.
I can activate it and place it at IRQ2/330. But after a reboot it's disabled again.
How can I enable it, so I can use "softmpu" with joystick/Midi cable.

Is there a TSR or another tool, or a batch file to activate the mpu401?

If you configure the card using esscfg, it should add a line to the autoexec.bat with the given options.

1esscfg.exe /A:220 /I:7 /D:1 /B:330 /J:E
2essvol.exe /V:8 /C:8 /W:8 /M:0

This is what I have found... I will be testing this.

Also keep on mind that some (actually all I have 😀 ) cheap sound cards don't have IRQ14 connected at all, thus although you could configure them for primary IDE, it still won't work. The card from BastlerMike is OK, but a lot of cheap cards misses most pads on that "small" ISA connector.

seems to work on my A2000 with A2286/8 BB...but I have to wait till my A2386 arrives because with EMM286 softmpu does not work.

Your other option is to use XT-ide with a sound card that has a secondary IDE port on it, as XT-ide can boot off a secondary port. You just have to make sure that the secondary port is native and doesn't need a driver to activate it. I've done a similar thing as dr.zeissler on my A2000 and A2286 bridgeboard, using a Creative SB16 CT2910 and XT-ide.

It's in this old post:
Large IDE drives on 286/AT/ISA class machines

Afaik, XT-IDE collides with the Janus software. Also, you'd need another ISA card to put the BIOS on. But then, you can also just use an XT-IDE card and don't need IDE on a sound card at all. The whole point of his question is to save one ISA slot.

currently this setup is not working, because the etherlinkIII always does a negative FIFO test regardles which adresse I configure.
I don't think that the etherlink is defective. The etherlinkIII is preconfigured at 300H and I5, but the 300H collides with the SC1630 Formosa, which has MPU401 at 300h.
With the esscfg I do route the MPU401 from 300H to 330H but either is does not work, or something different is wrong.
currently no LAN available on my A2000. If I take out the SC1630 the I do not have a harddisk anymore. It had been the best option for me:

1. VGA 1MB ET4000
2. SC1630 SBpro/Adlib/MPU401 and primary IDE with 8GB-CFcard (4x2GB)
3. ETHERLINKIII

Greetings
Doc

derSammler wrote:

Afaik, XT-IDE collides with the Janus software. Also, you'd need another ISA card to put the BIOS on. But then, you can also just use an XT-IDE card and don't need IDE on a sound card at all. The whole point of his question is to save one ISA slot.

XT-IDE BIOS has no issues with the Janus software, I have it running on my A2000 and A2286 bridgeboard. By using the IDE port on the soundcard, you are already saving a slot, no multi I/O card needed. I have an ET4000 in the first slot, CT2910 with a 4GB CF card connected on the secondary IDE port in the second slot and a 3Com 3C-509B NIC in the third slot. The 3C-509B card serves 2 purposes, it houses the XT-IDE BIOS and it allows the Amiga side of the A2000 to use the network card through the bridgeboard. Admittedly it is slow, about 60KB/sec, but still more than fast enough to transfer ADFs and WHDload files.

dr.zeissler wrote:

currently this setup is not working, because the etherlinkIII always does a negative FIFO test regardles which adresse I configure.
I don't think that the etherlink is defective. The etherlinkIII is preconfigured at 300H and I5, but the 300H collides with the SC1630 Formosa, which has MPU401 at 300h.

Have you soldered in the 16 bit extensions on the 8 bit ISA slots in the A2000? Just wandering why you have the Etherlink III at IRQ 5 rather than 10 or 11 so that it doesn't conflict with the SB part of the soundcard. Also set the address of the Etherlink III to 280h rather than 300h or 330h to prevent conflicts with the MPU-401.