MSI was an early marketer of Optical (i.e. WORM) storage. This card is probably an interface to an early WORM drive. It doesn't seem to be for ESDI or ST506 interface (no differential drivers or receivers).
Do you mean it shouldn't have differential drivers. There are a pair of DS26LS32CN which are differential receivers
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I've never seen an MFM controller like that, kinda cool!
You cannot just "connect" an MFM Hard drive to an 8bit controller card and expect it to work.
the Hard Drive and the controller card are "married" during the low level format. you cannot take a drive and connect it to a different controller without using that controllers LLF procedure.
http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWWNbpd56Xs&t=926s
This video may be a little dry, but ti really helps explain the concepts.
Gee... thanks for the reminder. I hope I did not fry my st225, which has become harder to find. I did, after I tried with this card, attach it to my other MFM card and it did pass the low level format, fdisk, and dos format and was able to boot. Should be good right?Be very careful attaching an unknown interface card that looks like an MFM/RLL controller to a hard disk - it could always be an ESDI controller which uses the same cables, but is electrically a whole different thing.
It will probably fry the controller and/or the drive. Find out what it is first.
I did, after I tried with this card, attach it to my other MFM card and it did pass the low level format, fdisk, and dos format and was able to boot. Should be good right?
You are right. At least from what I observed, it didn’t work right off the bat with my ESDI drive.The fact that it's ESDI does not necessarily mean that it will work with an ESDI hard drive. ESDI doesn't mean 16-bit; it's still a serial protocol. My guess is that the firmware on the card is specifically written for a WORM drive. There's likely no BIOS support.
So you probably have the card to the MSI ATX-3000 optical drive. To complete this setup, you need the drive itself--I don't know how common ESDI-interface WORM drives are, some media and, of course, the driver software. Simple...
I think the EPROM on the board likely belongs to the 8032 MCU (ROM-less versio of the 8052) and is not BIOS code.