CIA-IDE-HD
This brilliant interface was created by Maciej Witkowiak . It is the simplest & fastest way to connect an IDE Hard Drive of ANY Size !!! to a Commodore 64 or 128.
I built the my CIA-IDE HD in my C128DCR, for details on using a standard C128 or a Commodore 64, CLICK HERE !!
The only parts you need are :-
1. A 40-Pin IDE Male connector (can be de-soldered from any old PC Motherboard)
2. An IDE hard drive, Any size and a 40-Pin IDE cable ( Female to Female)
3. A "6526 CIA chip" (can be de-soldered from a spare C64, each C64 contains two 6526 CIA chips)
4. A 40 Pin IC Sockets (machined pin is best)
5. A 20-way ribbon cable (You can use an old IDE or floppy cable) You need to solder these wires from the IDE male connector to the 6526 chip.
6 An old PC Power supply (or a 4 Pin power cable cut off an old PC powersupply and soldered onto the 128DCR power supply)
At present it only works with GEOS but it can be used with any IDE hard drive. I used a 5 gig Quantum Hard drive and have 150 Partitions, each one holds 16mg.
The GEOS utilities/Driver that Maciej Witkowiak made for the IDE HD are very good.
The first program is called HDTOOLS 128 ( and HDTOOLS 64)
It has a pull down Menu which provides functions like:-
INTEROGATE DRIVE (ie- ask the IDE HD what size it is in MB?)
FORMAT HD, CREATE PARTITON, SET DEFAULT STARTUP PARTITION. etc
I found this GEOS HD utilites an absolute breeze to use and set up my hard drive with.
The second program provided in this package is HDSWITCHER128 (and HDSWITCHER 64)
It allows you to quickly switch from one partiton to the next. Note the Hard Drive is seen by GEOS as a 1541,(Drive-B), and my internal 1571 was seen as a second drive,(Drive-A), so I copied files onto the hard drive from the floppy. You cannot copy from the hard drive to the hard drive.
HDTOOLS & HDSWITCHER 128 can both be downloaded by clicking on the GEOS here ->
The C128D and 128DCR both have a strong Power supply in them. You can obtain power from this to supply power to your IDE hard drive. Even the C128DCR power cable wires are the same colours as the 4-wire IBM power cable:-
(1) Yellow = 12v (connect to Yellow wire on 128DCR power supply)
(2) Black = Ground
(3) Black = Ground ( Same as above, join both of these together and connect to black wire )
(4) Red = 5v (connect to red wire on 128DCR power supply)
