Re: //e Card Slot & HD quagmire

[david@wraith.cs.uow.edu.au (David E A Wilson)]

Cyrus Roton <croton@ridgecrest.ca.us> writes:
>On Sat, 8 Feb 1997, Bruce Maples wrote:
>> >Unfortunately, there is no easy way to override this on a IIe, as the
>> >5.25" controller will not pass control onto the next slot if there is no
>> >disk in the drive.

I had a similar problem in one of my //e computers. I have a SCSI card in
slot 4 and the Duodisk controller in slot 6 (putting the SCSI card in slot 7
prevents it from working with Pascal 1.3). I modified the monitor EPROM
so that it scans the slots 1..7 instead of the usual 7..1. If the HD is
not turned on the SCSI card passes control back to the monitor which continues
the scan at the next slot.

>> I don't believe this is true.  I had a DuoDisk and a 3.5 on my //e,
>> and it would boot off the DuoDisk (slot 6) if there was a boot disk,
>> or move on to the 3.5 (slot 5) if not.

>Interesting. Why will my duodisk not do that ??? Does it depend upon 
>which controller card is used ?? Actually, there is an "easy way to 
>override this on a IIe"; Just use CNTRL-RESET to stop the booting and 
>type IN#5 to boot slot 5. Well, at least that is "easy" for me.

I can only imagine a Duodisk working as described above if it were plugged
into a UDC. The ROM in a standard Disk ][ style controller card does not
have enough room to detect boot failures like smartport cards (or the //c).

>Here is a question I need answered: Can the duodisk daisy-chain off a 
>3.5 disk on the IIgs smart port?? When I try it, the duodisk works, but 
>not the 3.5. When I disconnect the the duo, the 3.5 works. Could this 
>depend upon the model of the 3.5 disk?

I seem to recall a modification was required to some DuoDisks to make them
work properly on a Smartport chain.
-- 
David Wilson	Dept CompSci Uni Wollongong Australia	david@cs.uow.edu.au