drac030 Posted September 16, 2005 Share Posted September 16, 2005 (edited) Does anyone here have the ICD Multi I/O board for Atari XL/XE, and/or have some nice high-resolution and good quality photos of this? Edited September 16, 2005 by drac030 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JR> Posted September 17, 2005 Share Posted September 17, 2005 Does anyone here have the ICD Multi I/O board for Atari XL/XE, and/or have some nice high-resolution and good quality photos of this? 932535[/snapback] I've got one right here. What do you need to know? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drac030 Posted September 18, 2005 Author Share Posted September 18, 2005 Could you please make a few good photos of that device and send to me? I need them to a web-based article about Multi I/O, and it seems that the board is so rare, that even photos are almost nowhere to be found - and a photo I found has very low quality. Until I found that one I even had no idea how does the MIO look like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted September 18, 2005 Share Posted September 18, 2005 Wish I still had one to take pictures of. I used a 1MB MIO board a long time ago as part of a large collection of hardware I ran an Atari 8-bit BBS on. Sadly, I sold most of that hardware when going off to college in 1988. I'm hoping I can one day get my hands on a 1MB version, but I may have to settle for the 256K version. Look forward to seeing your article when it's done. ..Al Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danwinslow Posted September 18, 2005 Share Posted September 18, 2005 I have one. I will try and get some pictures up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JR> Posted September 19, 2005 Share Posted September 19, 2005 Could you please make a few good photos of that device and send to me? I need them to a web-based article about Multi I/O, and it seems that the board is so rare, that even photos are almost nowhere to be found - and a photo I found has very low quality. Until I found that one I even had no idea how does the MIO look like. 933795[/snapback] Here are some pics. They are large files (1.2 - 1.8 MB each). I can compress them more if you want, but you said you wanted good Hi-Res.. Let me know if you need anything else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mos6507 Posted September 19, 2005 Share Posted September 19, 2005 I forgot about that video port! They were going to make an 80 column expansion but I guess that never materialized. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drac030 Posted September 19, 2005 Author Share Posted September 19, 2005 Here are some pics. They are large files (1.2 - 1.8 MB each). I can compress them more if you want, but you said you wanted good Hi-Res.. Let me know if you need anything else. No, these pics are just great. Thank you. As about "anything else", can you please, if possible, tell me how does this device perform as a harddisk interface? I mainly mean the I/O speed. Specifically, if you could run this program: http://drac030.krap.pl/rwtest.arc and tell me, what did it report, it would be great. Also, I'd like to hear more about that video port. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JR> Posted September 19, 2005 Share Posted September 19, 2005 (edited) No, these pics are just great. Thank you. As about "anything else", can you please, if possible, tell me how does this device perform as a harddisk interface? I mainly mean the I/O speed. Specifically, if you could run this program: http://drac030.krap.pl/rwtest.arc and tell me, what did it report, it would be great. Also, I'd like to hear more about that video port. 934499[/snapback] Here's the results on a hard drive: DOS writing: 14144.406 B/sek DOS reading:14403.5164 B/sek DOS average:14273.9884 B/sek Do you have numbers from other devices for comparison? Just for fun I ran it on the MIO Ramdisk and got these results: DOS writing: 37809.2307 B/sek DOS reading: 45197.2413 B/sek DOS average: 41503.236 B/sek As for the Video port, what I have heard is that an 80 column video add on board was planned, but never released. Here's what the manual had to say: 80 Column Video Interface The MIO has a video port on its front left side. This is for use with an optional 80 column adapter which plugs on top of the MIO circuit board. pin assignments are listed in the 80 Column Adapter Users Manual. Edited September 19, 2005 by JR> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drac030 Posted September 20, 2005 Author Share Posted September 20, 2005 (edited) Here's the results on a hard drive: DOS writing: 14144.406 B/sek DOS reading:14403.5164 B/sek DOS average:14273.9884 B/sek Do you have numbers from other devices for comparison? Yes. If you are interested, here are the numbers for an IDE disk attached to the KMK/JŻ IDE: DOS writing: 8713.666 B/sek. DOS reading: 36714.887 B/sek. DOS average: 22714.276 B/sek. Could you please yet tell me, what are the dimensions of the Multi I/O? Edited September 20, 2005 by drac030 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JR> Posted September 20, 2005 Share Posted September 20, 2005 Yes. If you are interested, here are the numbers for an IDE disk attached to the KMK/JŻ IDE: DOS writing: 8713.666 B/sek. DOS reading: 36714.887 B/sek. DOS average: 22714.276 B/sek. Could you please yet tell me, what are the dimensions of the Multi I/O? 934922[/snapback] That's pretty good. Why the large discrepancy between read and write speeds? Is it doing a write with verify? Are those interfaces still available for purchase? The MyIDE (original external cart version with 3.1 drivers) is a dog by comparison: DOS writing: 2806.680942 B/sek. DOS reading: 2849.391304 B/sek. DOS average: 2828.036123 B/sek. Anybody run this on a Black Box? The dimensions of the MIO are 9.5" X 6.25" X 1.3" (1.5" with the feet). I'll let you do the Metric conversion, my tape measure doesn't have cm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drac030 Posted September 20, 2005 Author Share Posted September 20, 2005 (edited) That's pretty good. Why the large discrepancy between read and write speeds? Is it doing a write with verify? No, this is the side effect of the 256-byte sector emulation. IDE drives have sector size fixed at 512 bytes. The firmware stores two 256-byte sectors inside one physical sector, and so while writing 256 bytes to the media it has to do a 1024-byte I/O (read 512 - replace half - write 512). Of course, the emulation mode can be switched off. This speeds I/O up a lot. However, there is no DOS that can work with such a sector size. Are those interfaces still available for purchase? Yes, there is a guy who occasionally sells them on eBay or Allegro. The MyIDE (original external cart version with 3.1 drivers) is a dog by comparison: DOS writing: 2806.680942 B/sek. DOS reading: 2849.391304 B/sek. DOS average: 2828.036123 B/sek. Hmm, this is hardly believable. If the speed is measured correctly, the program must run for about 46 seconds (it first writes a 64k data file in four portions 16 each, and then reads it back). Maybe there's a bug in the program, but at the other hand all other figures look reasonably. The dimensions of the MIO are 9.5" X 6.25" X 1.3" (1.5" with the feet). From the bad photo I had previously, I estimated the size as 25x15x2 cm, and later from your photos I corrected this estimation to 25x15x3 cm. The real dimensions you gave are 24.13x15.875x3.302 cm. So, not bad Thank you again. Edited September 20, 2005 by drac030 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JR> Posted September 20, 2005 Share Posted September 20, 2005 The MyIDE (original external cart version with 3.1 drivers) is a dog by comparison: DOS writing: 2806.680942 B/sek. DOS reading: 2849.391304 B/sek. DOS average: 2828.036123 B/sek. Hmm, this is hardly believable. If the speed is measured correctly, the program must run for about 46 seconds (it first writes a 64k data file in four portions 16 each, and then reads it back). Maybe there's a bug in the program, but at the other hand all other figures look reasonably. 934990[/snapback] Yeah, that's right. It takes almost 50 seconds to complete the test. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drac030 Posted September 20, 2005 Author Share Posted September 20, 2005 Well. It is slow, then. Hardly faster than a good serial disk drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JR> Posted September 20, 2005 Share Posted September 20, 2005 The MyIDE (original external cart version with 3.1 drivers) is a dog by comparison: DOS writing: 2806.680942 B/sek. DOS reading: 2849.391304 B/sek. DOS average: 2828.036123 B/sek. Hmm, this is hardly believable. If the speed is measured correctly, the program must run for about 46 seconds (it first writes a 64k data file in four portions 16 each, and then reads it back). Maybe there's a bug in the program, but at the other hand all other figures look reasonably. 934990[/snapback] Yeah, that's right. It takes almost 50 seconds to complete the test. 934996[/snapback] Interesting.....those numbers were using an old 2.5" laptop IDE drive. I just tried again using a Compact Flash card instead of the drive and got much more respectable numbers: DOS writing: 15855.4838 B/sek. DOS reading: 12288 B/sek. DOS average: 14071.7419 B/sek. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drac030 Posted September 20, 2005 Author Share Posted September 20, 2005 Yes, that's very interesting indeed. What is the type of that "slow" IDE drive? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JR> Posted September 21, 2005 Share Posted September 21, 2005 Yes, that's very interesting indeed. What is the type of that "slow" IDE drive? 935047[/snapback] That particular drive wa a Toshiba HDD2339 - 262 MB 2.5" drive. I have since tried a couple of other IDE drives and all have given results from around 2800 up to about 7500. So far only the CF card yeilds decent results on this test, although in actual use I don't really notice a large difference in performance between the CF and IDE drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drac030 Posted September 21, 2005 Author Share Posted September 21, 2005 (edited) Perhaps this is a question of LBA mode availability. CF cards AFAIK all have LBA, some hard drives don't. If the drive does not support LBA and CHS routines in MyIDE are extremely slow, then it may result in significant performance loss, I guess. Edited September 21, 2005 by drac030 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Larry Posted November 2, 2005 Share Posted November 2, 2005 Here are the results for the Black Box (3-1/2" Conner SCSI drive) Dos Writing 7110.5967 Dos Reading 20373.8859 Dos Average 13742.2413 I can add a little about the video port, based on a call to ICD around 1987 or so. The 80-column TTL RGB video was completely designed, and the firmware revisons written, but ICD believed there was not a significant market for the 80-column feature. I can't remember if this was before or after Atari finally released the XEP80. But ICD saw added cost, with little or no added revenue, so it was economically not feasible. Neither of my MIO's have the video port, although IIRC, at least one has an area stenciled on the board for the video components. -Larry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CharlieChaplin Posted November 6, 2005 Share Posted November 6, 2005 Well, does anyone have some software for the MIO ?!? I mean original software (drivers and such) by ICD and/or PD software ... ?!? If so, please send me a copy... greetings and thanks - Andreas Magenheimer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Almost Rice Posted November 10, 2005 Share Posted November 10, 2005 Well,does anyone have some software for the MIO ?!? I mean original software (drivers and such) by ICD and/or PD software ... ?!? If so, please send me a copy... greetings and thanks - Andreas Magenheimer. 961168[/snapback] Did you just buy this off ebay? If not, maybe you could contact this buyer. It looks like he will have the original disk to copy from. I was going to bid on it until it hit the stratosphere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CharlieChaplin Posted November 13, 2005 Share Posted November 13, 2005 Nope, a friend of mine bought the MIO at a local flea market, alas with no software. Since I also do not have any software for the MIO, that`s the reason why I ask... -Andreas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted November 13, 2005 Share Posted November 13, 2005 I was going to bid on it until it hit the stratosphere. 963333[/snapback] HOLY CRAP $717!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted November 13, 2005 Share Posted November 13, 2005 HOLY CRAP $717!! 964833[/snapback] Geez ... for that kind of money, I can't help but wonder if somebody could make some money taking a few more high-res photos like the ones earlier in this thread, reverse-engineering the thing, and building some clones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danwinslow Posted November 14, 2005 Share Posted November 14, 2005 The price reflected rarity rather than functionality. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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