Never heard of one with a PATA SATA or SCSI connection but they do exist with a USB connection
http://iodd.kr/wordpress/product/iodd-2531/
https://www.zalman.com/EN/Product/ProductDeta … ?productSeq=914

The problem with SATA optical drives is that they typically do not have an analogue audio out connector or a headphone jack, so they will not allow cd-audio to be played when playing mixed-mode CD games under DOS .

If it's win2k you are after supporting then I'm sure I've had it pxe booting before via dnsmasq, with tftpd to serve the initial loader and then samba for the install media.

Gopher666 wrote on 2021-02-05, 20:00:

I wonder if anything like this exist on a reasonable price for ATA which similarly to the Gotek can take .iso images and boot from it.

ATA (and the ATAPI command subset need for optical media emulation) are a pain in the *ss to work on compared to SCSI and/or USB, from hardware developer standpoint. Plenty of documentation and libraries are available for the most popular microcontrollers and embedded ARM processors, and you don't need to layer communication as would be required for ATAPI (it is basically SCSI over ATA). That's why all the emulator devices are made with SCSI or USB (basically SCSI over USB) on mind.

megatron-uk wrote on 2021-02-06, 00:32:

If it's win2k you are after supporting then I'm sure I've had it pxe booting before via dnsmasq, with tftpd to serve the initial loader and then samba for the install media.

Well if you know a simple way to pxe install win2k to NTFS please share it.

As I said I was looking for a generic solution to get rid of CD/DVD drives for life same as getting rid of floppies. There are so much hassle with them, ppl are complaining about old hdds slow, noisy, failing and use CF to IDE adapters but just how much more problems we had with optical media?! Spend tons of money buying them, tons of time writing them out, they get dirty, scratchy, the layer rots down from them and ultimately yeah time is money so even if retro computing is your hobby you might want optical media out of your life forever. These days you can get a 10TB hdd for nothing and put tens of thousands of images on it.

Win2K was just an example as I said, there are so many other like what if I want to install Novell Netware 6.5 which ditched dos already or AIX 5.1 on my RS6000 from CDs or Solaris or some older Linuxes like Kororaa 0.3?!
With Linux what makes pxe an extra pain is the module and kernel version changes (in case you don't use the last version of a line) for example for some reason you want to install Debian Wheezy 7.5 not 7.11 the last official version which was released. You made a shiny pxe installer back then for it it used to work until a point when they went over 7.5 and the kernel modules it would try to fetch from the official repo got newer that is when its gonna break. In the meantime if you just got the CD or DVD images for 7.5 that would install fine forever not to mention that doing network install with these legacy OSes will just become more and more pain over the years as some of them gets scrapped from the archives or their whole repo is shut down completely.

What I liked back in the days before this download all teh things era is that you have bought a software like Windows, Starcraft or Diablo and you owned it. You could install it any time just take a look at what they did to Steam and xp compatibility anyway we are getting out of topic. If you know how to PXE install win2k to NTFS please share.

This looks good btw but for 200$?!
https://shop.tattiebogle.net/product/prod_EkTnv3Tk2Trxhf

well like i said you can install 2000 over pxe using 2000 server or 2003 server with RIS installed you said you didn't want to do that. But how hard is it to put one of them in a VM. I have done it through a VM its easy.

I personally cannot get rid of CDs becasue I play games on my retro computers that require CD audio, and daemon tools only takes you so far for windows games with wdm drivers but doesn't work with dos games or vxds.

1With Linux what makes pxe an extra pain is the module and kernel version changes (in case you don't use the last version of a line) for example for some reason you want to install Debian Wheezy 7.5 not 7.11 the last official version which was released. You made a shiny pxe installer back then for it it used to work until a point when they went over 7.5 and the kernel modules it would try to fetch from the official repo got newer that is when its gonna break. 

Well, yes, of course you need to keep the network installer kernel and initrd image in sync with the version of the OS you want to install.

I maintain the Linux netboot installation service for our institution (www.ncl.ac.uk) and yes, if you want to netboot Ubuntu 20.10 (for example), you're going to have to get write a new PXE menu entry for it, download the correct network installer kernel and initrd and put the 20.10 package tree somewhere. You can't just rely on the 18.04 netboot kernel, or even the 20.04 release to work correctly. It's not a set-up and forget service - it needs constant updating to keep all the new versions working. So does RIS/WDS and now MECM if you want to run a Microsoft-only netboot service for Windows.

But do it properly and you can have virtually every flavour and version of Linux or *BSD served by the same service.

There are some limitations however; IRIX doesn't like to be network booted from a Linux tftp/nfs server - it prefers a *BSD based one due to differences in the Linux NFS implementation. Solaris/SunOS is another - it uses rarp and bootp, so there's another set of services to keep configured compared to the generic dhcp+tftp+nfs trio needed for most modern x86 operating systems. There are ways around most of these issues.

The creator of that Tattiebogle emulator is here on Vogons, by the way. He did also participate in this thread. Seems he is still actively developing and improving the device.

However, all of these projects seem to be quite far from becoming the Gotek of optical media in terms of price, availability and usability.

Merged threads.

Gopher666 wrote on 2021-02-06, 06:06:

This looks good btw but for 200$?!
https://shop.tattiebogle.net/product/prod_EkTnv3Tk2Trxhf

I really would like CD emulation myself (and actually think $200 isn't outrageous for this), but you have to realize that the expense is caused simply because emulation of a much higher throughput device requires a much higher power CPU. My understanding of this device is that the bulk of the cost is right in the microcontroller itself. What would be amazing is if someone could build a 3D printed drive case along with a holder for a small OLED display and a couple buttons/rotating selector like the Gotek drive. That would take this device from being an interesting and moderately useful device to killer app territory.

Hojo82 wrote on 2021-02-11, 16:30:

I really would like CD emulation myself (and actually think $200 isn't outrageous for this), but you have to realize that the expense is caused simply because emulation of a much higher throughput device requires a much higher power CPU. My understanding of this device is that the bulk of the cost is right in the microcontroller itself. What would be amazing is if someone could build a 3D printed drive case along with a holder for a small OLED display and a couple buttons/rotating selector like the Gotek drive. That would take this device from being an interesting and moderately useful device to killer app territory.

I have to wonder how the Raspberry Pi Pico will affect things. It's a $4 quad core microcontroller that should have more than enough power to handle something like this. I've seen talk of using regular Pis in this type of system, but the Pico seems like a better solution for something that doesn't need a UI.

Just got my ATAPI simulator in from tattiebogle, crazy fast shipping, and it’s working in Windows 98SE!

Now I just need a tool to change which image is currently loaded, I know something is in the works, is there a beta version of the tool available?

Chadti99 wrote on 2021-04-06, 00:47:

Just got my ATAPI simulator in from tattiebogle, crazy fast shipping, and it’s working in Windows 98SE!

Now I just need a tool to change which image is currently loaded, I know something is in the works, is there a beta version of the tool available?

I am happy for you. When you get a chance, please tell us about audio quality .

IMHO, the only features missing or issues on his device are

a) S/PDIF output (probably not a biggie if analogue audio out works well).

b) A hardware interface to select images and/or the ability to swap USB flash drives by hotplugging while powered on (which would allow for one image per flash drive being a usable workaround). I read that an optional LCD panel with physical controls is supported but the website for it seems to indicate they are on hiatus currently (and no specific compatible model is mentioned). Price of required hardware is also a concern.

c)
I don't see a software utility running on the PC side of things to switch images to be practical beyond use for single disc games (where you the image from DOS before starting the game). Multi disc games would require either a TSR, which would not be all the convenient or compatible . A possible workaround that would make a software utility workable for multi-disc games would be the ability to define image groups. That way, cycling between images in a given group could possibly be handled by using a momentary switch on a set of pins normally used for the LCD interface (if hardware/firmware can allow this).

If it had at least b or c (with image group support) , I probably would have ordered one or two already . If these features (or something equivalent/better) ever get added, this device would become perfect for PC use .

EDIT: I podted this before fulling reading the thread, sorry . The only thing useful In what I have written is the image group idea .

Chadti99 wrote on 2021-04-06, 00:47:

Now I just need a tool to change which image is currently loaded, I know something is in the works, is there a beta version of the tool available?

Some support is in the firmware, but it's still WIP. I can send you it to test once I get my 486 plugged in again (it has the project and I've been fiddling around with another machine), but it has some limitations - MSCDEX and drivers like OAKCDROM.SYS don't allow direct SCSI commands, and so I tried ASPI for DOS. That also had downsides - ASPI.SYS (I think, the OAK one?) just crashes my 486. ATAPIMGR.SYS worked fine but refused to send vendor-specific commands, I've yet to try moving my commands into a non-vendor-specific area (e.g. just reusing "official" commands that the driver might relay but don't actually need to be used for a normal drive). Since people probably won't want the ASPI driver loaded anyway (even if there's ways to load/unload drivers from command.com) I also added some code to talk to the IDE port directly. This works fine, but freaks out EMM386 as it thinks something might want to use DMA, even if DMA is explicitly disabled. There's solutions to some of these problems but I need to get back into finishing it off.

On the plus side, the code will work fine on Windows as well since it can take ASPI drivers and they're much more commonly available there, so if you want the tool for Windows 98 that won't be too much of a bother (I've been looking forward to getting back into some Win16/Win32 programming after having done very little for 15 years).

darry wrote on 2021-04-06, 01:52:

a) S/PDIF output (probably not a biggie if analogue audio out works well).

b) A hardware interface to select images and/or the ability to swap USB flash drives by hotplugging while powered on (which would allow for one image per flash drive being a usable workaround). I read that an optional LCD panel with physical controls is supported but the website for it seems to indicate they are on hiatus currently (and no specific compatible model is mentioned). Price of required hardware is also a concern.

Good grief, I just checked Crystalfontz on Thursday before I added the wiki entry for the LCD (the link was meant to take you straight to the right model - CFA633, 16x2 with buttons and USB) and added the new stock and all their links were fine, I hope they come back soon. That's very annoying.

Regarding a), I think you mentioned that before so I have it on my todo list, hopefully I can include it in a future version.

Edit: And right as a post the CrystalFontz site is working again 😉

electric_monk wrote on 2021-04-06, 02:09:

Some support is in the firmware, but it's still WIP. I can send you it to test once I get my 486 plugged in again (it has the pr […]
Show full quote

Chadti99 wrote on 2021-04-06, 00:47:

Now I just need a tool to change which image is currently loaded, I know something is in the works, is there a beta version of the tool available?

Some support is in the firmware, but it's still WIP. I can send you it to test once I get my 486 plugged in again (it has the project and I've been fiddling around with another machine), but it has some limitations - MSCDEX and drivers like OAKCDROM.SYS don't allow direct SCSI commands, and so I tried ASPI for DOS. That also had downsides - ASPI.SYS (I think, the OAK one?) just crashes my 486. ATAPIMGR.SYS worked fine but refused to send vendor-specific commands, I've yet to try moving my commands into a non-vendor-specific area (e.g. just reusing "official" commands that the driver might relay but don't actually need to be used for a normal drive). Since people probably won't want the ASPI driver loaded anyway (even if there's ways to load/unload drivers from command.com) I also added some code to talk to the IDE port directly. This works fine, but freaks out EMM386 as it thinks something might want to use DMA, even if DMA is explicitly disabled. There's solutions to some of these problems but I need to get back into finishing it off.

On the plus side, the code will work fine on Windows as well since it can take ASPI drivers and they're much more commonly available there, so if you want the tool for Windows 98 that won't be too much of a bother (I've been looking forward to getting back into some Win16/Win32 programming after having done very little for 15 years).

darry wrote on 2021-04-06, 01:52:

a) S/PDIF output (probably not a biggie if analogue audio out works well).

b) A hardware interface to select images and/or the ability to swap USB flash drives by hotplugging while powered on (which would allow for one image per flash drive being a usable workaround). I read that an optional LCD panel with physical controls is supported but the website for it seems to indicate they are on hiatus currently (and no specific compatible model is mentioned). Price of required hardware is also a concern.

Good grief, I just checked Crystalfontz on Thursday before I added the wiki entry for the LCD (the link was meant to take you straight to the right model - CFA633, 16x2 with buttons and USB) and added the new stock and all their links were fine, I hope they come back soon. That's very annoying.

Regarding a), I think you mentioned that before so I have it on my todo list, hopefully I can include it in a future version.

Edit: And right as a post the CrystalFontz site is working again 😉

Wow, thanks for the very fast response ! I actually pm-ed you regarding the image group idea because I believe that might feasible at low cost and wanted to be sure you saw that . What are your thoughts on this idea ?

darry wrote on 2021-04-06, 02:16:

Wow, thanks for the very fast response ! I actually pm-ed you regarding the image group idea because I believe that might feasible at low cost and wanted to be sure you saw that . What are your thoughts on this idea ?

Apparently I can't reply here yet anyway, I must have posted too little 😊 I think there might be something possible there, there's no exposed GPIO on the board itself but I could add a mode for one of the USB ports perhaps, I could maybe get three pushbuttons on one of the USB ports if I fiddle around with detecting the pins that are normally dedicated to USB.

This project is looking really cool so far.
I seen that you can script commands to switch iso's using terminal connection on the usb port over a emulated serial port.
Would it be possible for a future revision that just has the serial port header directly on the pcb?
Sending commands over a standard serial port is much easier to script and also makes it usable in pure DOS and even on Amiga/Mac's that support IDE.

Even adding something as simple as 3.3v tty pins on the board would greatly increase my interest in this and would definitely get me to buy a couple off you.

electric_monk wrote on 2021-04-06, 02:37:

darry wrote on 2021-04-06, 02:16:

Wow, thanks for the very fast response ! I actually pm-ed you regarding the image group idea because I believe that might feasible at low cost and wanted to be sure you saw that . What are your thoughts on this idea ?

Apparently I can't reply here yet anyway, I must have posted too little 😊 I think there might be something possible there, there's no exposed GPIO on the board itself but I could add a mode for one of the USB ports perhaps, I could maybe get three pushbuttons on one of the USB ports if I fiddle around with detecting the pins that are normally dedicated to USB.

Thank you for looking into this. The LCD solution is the most practical and functional one but the added cost may be a bit much for some people not to mention that it is a bit conspicuous and some people might prefer a more visually discrete option, if possible .

electric_monk wrote on 2021-04-06, 02:09:

Chadti99 wrote on 2021-04-06, 00:47:

Now I just need a tool to change which image is currently loaded, I know something is in the works, is there a beta version of the tool available?

Some support is in the firmware, but it's still WIP. I can send you it to test once I get my 486 plugged in again (it has the project and I've been fiddling around with another machine), but it has some limitations - MSCDEX and drivers like OAKCDROM.SYS don't allow direct SCSI commands, and so I tried ASPI for DOS. That also had downsides - ASPI.SYS (I think, the OAK one?) just crashes my 486. ATAPIMGR.SYS worked fine but refused to send vendor-specific commands, I've yet to try moving my commands into a non-vendor-specific area (e.g. just reusing "official" commands that the driver might relay but don't actually need to be used for a normal drive). Since people probably won't want the ASPI driver loaded anyway (even if there's ways to load/unload drivers from command.com) I also added some code to talk to the IDE port directly. This works fine, but freaks out EMM386 as it thinks something might want to use DMA, even if DMA is explicitly disabled. There's solutions to some of these problems but I need to get back into finishing it off.

On the plus side, the code will work fine on Windows as well since it can take ASPI drivers and they're much more commonly available there, so if you want the tool for Windows 98 that won't be too much of a bother (I've been looking forward to getting back into some Win16/Win32 programming after having done very little for 15 years).

Please do, would love to help test.

Just a heads up, could be my system specifically. CD Audio sounds fantastic on the single game I’ve tested, Mechwarrior 2 for Windows. A problem I’m running into is that the audio track doesn’t repeat mid-mission and if I exit the game mid-track it will continue playing long after I’ve exited the game.

No rush but hoping this is something you can look into and please let me know how I can help!

More news to report on the Tattie ATAPI Simulator. The Quake and Quake 2 rips I have are both multi bin format with cue file and it can’t seem to load these properly. I see the files on the corresponding optical drive in windows but can’t open the readme for example. Hoping firmware updates can resolve.

Both work with Daemon tools so the images are known to be good.

Drive E is the Tattie and Drive H is Daemon in the attached image.