Amstrad PCW and 6128 IDE interfaces

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JonB

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Hi

I am offering a new IDE adapter for Amstrad Z-80 based microcomputers. They are universal and will connect to any Z80 computer via a shim card interposed between the Z80 and its socket (assuming it is socketed).

However, there are also specific connectivity options for Amstrad PCW and 6128 machines, as well as CP/M Plus / Locoscript FID based drivers for the PCW (6128 CP/M driver coming soon, but AMSDOS is not yet supported).

There are two variants:


  • uIDE-8, which uses A7-A3 of the Z80 address bus to decode the base adress of the IDE registers (this was designed for the PCW), and
  • uIDE-16, which uses A15-A3 (for use on machines that use OUT (C),A and expect a device to decode all address lines, for the Amstrad CPC6128 )

Also, I have produced left and right handed Z80 shim cards which should be chosen according to the space and/or orientation around your computer's Z80 socket. You can fit these instead of the expansion port adapter if your PCW / 6128 has a socketed Z80 and your expansion port is in use already.

For more details, see the uIDE Wiki page on the CPCWiki (an Amstrad / Schneider CPC site). I will extend this with more information as it becomes available.

As this is a "for sale item", I will copy the price list from the CPC wiki page:

ItemPrice
uIDE-8 bare board£7.50
uIDE-16 bare board£9.00
Z80 Shim bare board (LHS or RHS)£2.50
PCW expansion port adapter with composite video output bare board£4.00
PCW expansion port adapter "lite" (without composite video output) bare board£3.00
CPC 6128 expansion port adapter bare board£3.00
128MB DOM suitable for use with uIDE-8 and uIDE-16£4.00

All assembled boards (mentioned on the wiki page) are spoken for so I can only offer the PCBs for self assembly at this time.

All sales are subject to the constraints described in the CPCWiki page so please review it and post here if you are interested in any of these items. I have an initial run of ~20 boards available. and will acquire more if there is demand.

Cheers
JonB
 
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So what can you do with a 128MB DOM and a 6128? Can you for example copy games from the FDD and run them from there?
 
uIDE supports CP/M Plus on the PCW and 6128. So if your game runs under CP/M you should be able to copy and run from uIDE. One example is HeadOverHeels of the PCW8256, it runs fine from CP/M.

However, it is not a floppy drive emulator and it does not have AMSDOS support at the present (so I think you cannot access it from BASIC). If you mean the types of game that boot from the floppy, then I think definitely not (you should consider an HxC floppy emulator for this kind of use. Also, please note that the 6128 drivers aren't written yet, although this won't take long once I have a built example of uIDE-16. I prototyped uIDE-8 for the PCW and it is running fine (with driver) on my PCW9512 and there are links to my YouTube channel where you can see it running.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdH2u50ocnjPxPmEOyNVLsg

Regards
JonB
 
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Interested in one uIDE-16 PCB + one shim board (LHS). Sending PM with some questions!
 
I have purchased the PCW vercion from JonB and can say they are an awesome addition to the computer :D
 
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