Re: [N8VEM-S100:6025] Dual IDE/CF V2a

David,

I went through the posts - good analysis. I only have used MYIDE as a CP/M transient. The board I/O code in my system is burned in my system ROM just as my prior ST506 code was since there is not room in the ROM for both sets of code. I boot my system from a 1.2 MB 5.25 inch floppy.

I got bold a few minutes ago and removed the pull up SIP and replaced the 74S03's with 74LS00's. No instant cure but in looking at the sectors on the CF card I think things are better but no eureka. It did not degrade performance. I also will replace those two 74LS00's with 74ALS00's to further reduce the loading. Also U18 has pins 1 & 2 being driven by one 8255 line and the same for pins 4 & 5. I will lift one of each of those pairs and tie it to Vcc.

Next step I will try is to remove the ICs driving the hex displays and LEDs. They are all LS TTL and put a somewhat higher load on the 8255 lines than do the CF cards themselves. I will pull U10, U12, U13, and U14. I will no longer have the benefit of the hex displays and the LEDs but to be honest they are not that useful when the board is in my system as I really can not see them and I do not trust observations when a board is on an extender.

One final note - I have been staring at the MYIDE code and at my ROM code that was mostly a copy of the MYIDE code. At least one place in the code (both sets) has me looking at adding a busy check. I don't want to make too much of that right now as I may just be grasping at straws.

I have only a little time today - more tomorrow.

I will report results.

Rich Leary

On Saturday, January 17, 2015 at 2:44:34 AM UTC-7, David Fry wrote:

Hi Rich,

I was the person who originally proposed the changing of the 680 ohm resistor sil to 330 ohm based upon my own personal findings, the upgrade to the 74S03 was necessary to cope with the increased current. At the time of this mod I was thinking that this was crazy, it shouldn't take this kind of brute force to drive a low power card but I can only report what my oscilloscope was telling me, the CF card R/W lines were loading down the driving gate, ejecting the card gave me full TTL levels.!!!
As you say, if the CF card input leakage current is 1uA then it shouldn't load the driving gate at all :-)

Having made the mod (and it's the only one !) my card has been reading and writing to CF cards for about a year now. I almost exclusively use the Kingston 4GB card with the white flower on.

One thought that has crossed my mind was a subsequent post I later made on corrupted CF writes to the directory area of the CF card, take a look at the post below and start reading from date 6/25/14 (it's a long post) to see if the resolution has any relevance to your symptoms.

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!searchin/n8vem-s100/memtop/n8vem-s100/iuHcpanZwq4/VAmvr6Q_O_MJ

regards

David Fry

On Saturday, January 17, 2015 at 5:14:42 AM UTC, Rich Leary wrote:
John,

It is puzzling. I am using all 74LS except the two 74S03s and have tried both NMOS and CMOS varieties of the 8255.

I have gone back to the CF and IDE specs and looked hard at the signal level specifications. My preliminary look seems to conflict with the build notes.

The CF spec defines three type of signals at the interface and one of them (Type 1) does specify a 4V Vih for some signals. Other signals use either 2.0V or 2.8V.

What is confusing is that the Type 1 signals are the address lines (An) and the data lines (Dn). The IORD, IOWR, and CSn (chip select n) lines are all Type 3 and the card inputs for those lines only require Vih of 2.8V to trigger the Schmitt Trigger that Type 3 uses. But the IORD, IOWR, and CSn lines are what are driven by the 74S03 or 74H03 ICs on the S100 board. RESET is a Type 2 signal and Vih need only be 2.0V.

The only on-board pull ups are those associated with the 74S03 or 74H03 ICs and they are very low value. The schematic shows 680 ohm but the notes suggest something like 330.

What is also important to note is that the CF card input leakage current is very low at +- 1 uA so whatever is driving all CF lines is doing so at a very low load level. Since the IDE An and IDE Dn lines all connected to the 8255 ports that probably explains why those lines may be OK. In my Toshiba TMP82C55A datasheet it shows a Voh of Vcc-0.8V for Ioh of -100uA. As long as the load seen by the 8255 is just one of two CF cards with a total leakage of +- 2 uA that would work. But any 8255 outputs driving TTL inputs may have a low or marginal Voh at least for Dn and An.

I can see no reasons for use of the high power - high speed gates and the low value pull ups on the IORD, IOWR, CSn, and RESET lines. As I read the specs it looks like those gates can be 74LS00's with no pull up or much higher pull ups (50K ?). In addition if we do not need to switch the higher currents associated with the low value pull ups that will reduce noise levels on the board.

I need to read the CF spec again and do a line by line gozinta versus gozouta analysis before reaching for the de-soldering braid and solder sucker. It is possible that I have completely misread the spec and if so I apologize for the confusion but right now I think there may be some low-hanging fruit that should be harvested. Even if what my initial look indicates proves correct there may be other issues.

I will get back to everyone hopefully by late on the 18th.

If anyone has reason to show me the error in my thinking please fire away - at my age my skin has absorbed many blasts and a little more will not hurt.

Rich Leary