X68000 Hard drive/floppy disk questions

[McCracAttack]

Boy, this is a long shot but here goes. Does anyone here have experience installing Compact Flash or SD card adapters in Sharp X68000 computers? I nabbed an Elite model but what I didn't realize was that they have something called a SASI port instead of a SCSI port which is a problem for what I'm looking to do. There are solutions but they involve being able to write 5.25" floppy disks with custom disk images and booting the X68000 from those.

So, it seemed like step 1 was figure out how to write floppies. I managed to get a 5.25" drive installed on my PC but it's been one problem after another. There is one adapter out there that purports to work natively with SASI but I can't find any English resources on it or even figure out how to order one and ship it to the US.

Has anyone here been down this road before? Any resources I'm missing?

[kamiboy]

Well, seems like you already have a good handle on resources on the subject.

For anything else you might want to become a member and post your question here: http://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?board=14.0

[McCracAttack]

Well, seems like you already have a good handle on resources on the subject.

For anything else you might want to become a member and post your wiestion here: http://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?board=14.0

Yeah, I thought I had done my homework before hand but the SASI/SCSI difference snuck up on me and now I've got to do things the hard way. Oh well. Thanks for having a look. I have indeed cross-posted my question to those forums as well.

[Ed Oscuro]

There's been some discussion here of using the AztecMonster - seems it requires an adapter, at least if it's to be used externally.

[kamiboy]

I am using the Aztec myself, but I do not think it is designed to work with SASI, only SCSI.

[Ed Oscuro]

Yeah, that's right. Thought it was just a matter of adaptation though? If it has a different pinout it still might not be too hard to fix up.

[McCracAttack]

Yeah, that's right. Thought it was just a matter of adaptation though? If it has a different pinout it still might not be too hard to fix up.

You can still use SCSI adapters with a SASI port. The only trick is you need to write a custom driver to the SRAM... via a floppy disk. You also need to gin up a custom cable (that may be what you're thinking of) but you've gotta get that custom driver on there too which is why I'm over here messing with 5.25" disks.

[kamiboy]

For writing 5.25 disks there is no other option than getting hold of an old DOS machine. Even then it is a pain in the ass.

To circumvent the headaches you might want to get hold of a SCSI board for your X68000. They are cheap, from what I can gather, and give you a standard SCSI port on the back of your beast of a machine.

[McCracAttack]

To circumvent the headaches you might want to get hold of a SCSI board for your X68000. They are cheap, from what I can gather, and give you a standard SCSI port on the back of your beast of a machine.

Well, this may sound like a silly question, but how exactly would you install it? It can't just be plug-and-play, right? Would you need a driver disk or something of that sort?

[kamiboy]

No idea, you will have to ask that of people on that other forum.

[SuperDeadite]

For writing 5.25 disks there is no other option than getting hold of an old DOS machine. Even then it is a pain in the ass.

To circumvent the headaches you might want to get hold of a SCSI board for your X68000. They are cheap, from what I can gather, and give you a standard SCSI port on the back of your beast of a machine.

If you have an HDD setup, the X68000 itself is the best possible disk writer there is. Just have someone mail you a disk to get the SxSI driver in there. I could do it in 5 mins, but Im in Japan, and sending a single floppy overseas is a bit silly.

[kamiboy]

Alas, I have a Compact XIV.

[mvsfan]

well, it took me forever to find a solution to write 3.5 disks. Eventually i got an Ide ls-120 drive brand new in the box.

it still works with newer versions of windows.

But i guess theres no solution like that for 5.25 disks? or was there?

[kamiboy]

3.5" disks were easy for me. Bought a generic external USB floppy drive from a chinese seller on ebay and wrote images using some software via XP.