XT-IDE on PCjr

[jmetal88]

So the 60 pin'er isn't soldered. It's a friction lock connector. You press it in with a vice or a rubber mallet and firm surface. Just make sure you have it oriented correctly before going all the way. The only way to get it back apart again (or salvage an existing one) is to push each pin out with a pair of needle nose.

If anyone attempts the mallet method, place the female side of the pins (connector oriented towards the JR) down on a flat surface. Place the male pin shroud over the male pins on the top side. Start lightly tapping the top of the shroud increasing pressure gradually. For the final few millimeters, you will be smacking the crap out of it but the shroud edges can handle it. The female pin tails on the flat surface will keep them from protruding from that side of the connector or bending. The tricky part is to keep the stack aligned correctly with the card floating unsupported while you pound. So stop frequently and check and recheck the squareness of the connector stack verses the card. Then continue.

-Alan

Oh yeah, I keep forgetting about that. The original connector I used was off a Microsoft Booster, and it WAS a soldered connector.

[Eric]

The one I stole from my parallel port sidecar was soldered, too.

I stole it from it because I somehow broke my connector while building my JrIDE and decided to do that.

I prefer it to be soldered for certain reasons, so it's okay. (except for the part where I accidentally ripped a few vias from the pcb and totally screwed over the parallel port sidecar. I'm not sure how that happened, but it was never a mistake I made before or again… Speaking of which, I should replace that and get a Xircom ethernet adapter when I get my PCjr running.)

[alanh]

SVN repo back up fyi

[monzamess]

Dumb question: Would I need a power sidecar if I have these three sidecars: JR IDE, Parallel Port, and Speech?

[Brutman]

It depends.

If you have the long internal power card that puts out 45 watts. If you have the short one that puts out 33 watts.

The general rule of thumb was add a power sidecar if you have more than three sidecars. Since you are at the edge, if you have a 33 watt internal card definitely add the power sidecar. If you have the 45 watt internal card it would not hurt, but it might not be needed.

Some sidecars pull more current than others. The cluster sidecar is a notable example - DO NOT USE A CLUSTER SIDECAR WITHOUT A POWER SIDECAR. Sorry for the ominous warning, but there was a PCjr owner years ago who did not do this and he melted some of the internal power supply card. IBM put just enough of a power supply in to support a 64K system with a cluster sidecar - there was no margin for a diskette controller, 64KB expansion, or diskette drive with the fan.

And as always, put the power supply sidecar in the chain first. Adding it to the end does not help. : - )

[jmetal88]

I still have one kit left if anyone else still wants one pre-assembled.

[Eric]

DO NOT USE A CLUSTER SIDECAR WITHOUT A POWER SIDECAR. Sorry for the ominous warning, but there was a PCjr owner years ago who did not do this and he melted some of the internal power supply card.

Are we talking about Pitz who put the power sidecar after the cluster adapter or someone else?

I'm sure a few powerboards have become toasty doorstops, but that particular incident came to mind when you mentioned that.

[GHiero]

I got mine yesterday from jmetal88, who did an excellent job on soldering a densely populated and small PCB. Shipping was unkind to the IDE pins and they needed a bit of straightening. It worked great and it worked the first time. I needed the RTC.COM program, found here : http://www.retrotronics.org/svn/jride/t ... ebuilt/jr/, to set the Dallas 12C887 real time clock and retrieve the settings once the computer starts in autoexec.bat. I was using a Compact Flash to IDE Adapter with a 256MB Compact Flash card, onto which I had previously installed IBM PC DOS 3.3. I had partitioned this card for one 32MB primary partition, but haven't bothered to create an extended partition and assign more 32MB logical drives in it. For CF card power, I ran a CD S/PDIF 2-pin cable from the 2-pin berg AUX power header on the card to two pins on the floppy power connector my adapter uses. Fortunately, drive connectors have a pin arrangement that goes like +12v GND GND +5v, so the cable was easy enough to fit. My adapter specifically leaves pin 20 on the IDE connector unconnected. I housed the jrIDE in the shell belonging to a defective IBM Memory Expansion with the IDE and the "power" cable running out the back. I had to bend the AUX power pins so the shell would close completely. JRCONFIG identifies the full 736KB without a command line argument.

The jrIDE opens up a whole new world of possibilities from the 128K PCjr. The first serious possibility was the ability to run the computer completely silently by disconnecting the floppy fan power supply. Second was to use a serial mouse with a serial adapter, and the 1.91 Cutemouse driver worked instantly. Note that I have the IBM modem installed, so I did not need to instruct the driver to use custom COM port and IRQ settings. Third, to use Hargle's cartridge floppy. I haven't played River Raid, Demon Attack or Pitfall II on vintage hardware since I let my Atari 2600s go a few years ago. Fourth, to run my friend Trixter's INTROJR PCJr. demo and SHAKEJR "game" as they were meant to be run. The former worked fine, the latter required me to reserve 64KB for video using the JRCONFIG -v64 switch and I also had to disconnect the second joystick or it would crash.

I have the long version of the power supply, and I believe my unit is able to run the jrIDE with Compact Flash along with the Parallel and Speech Sidecars. I seriously doubt that the Speech and Parallel sidecars will ever be seriously working at the same time.

[jmetal88]

I got mine yesterday from jmetal88, who did an excellent job on soldering a densely populated and small PCB. Shipping was unkind to the IDE pins and they needed a bit of straightening. It worked great and it worked the first time. I needed the RTC.COM program, found here : http://www.retrotronics.org/svn/jride/t ... ebuilt/jr/, to set the Dallas 12C887 real time clock and retrieve the settings once the computer starts in autoexec.bat. I was using a Compact Flash to IDE Adapter with a 256MB Compact Flash card, onto which I had previously installed IBM PC DOS 3.3. I had partitioned this card for one 32MB primary partition, but haven't bothered to create an extended partition and assign more 32MB logical drives in it. For CF card power, I ran a CD S/PDIF 2-pin cable from the 2-pin berg AUX power header on the card to two pins on the floppy power connector my adapter uses. Fortunately, drive connectors have a pin arrangement that goes like +12v GND GND +5v, so the cable was easy enough to fit. My adapter specifically leaves pin 20 on the IDE connector unconnected. I housed the jrIDE in the shell belonging to a defective IBM Memory Expansion with the IDE and the "power" cable running out the back. I had to bend the AUX power pins so the shell would close completely. JRCONFIG identifies the full 736KB without a command line argument.

The jrIDE opens up a whole new world of possibilities from the 128K PCjr. The first serious possibility was the ability to run the computer completely silently by disconnecting the floppy fan power supply. Second was to use a serial mouse with a serial adapter, and the 1.91 Cutemouse driver worked instantly. Note that I have the IBM modem installed, so I did not need to instruct the driver to use custom COM port and IRQ settings. Third, to use Hargle's cartridge floppy. I haven't played River Raid, Demon Attack or Pitfall II on vintage hardware since I let my Atari 2600s go a few years ago. Fourth, to run my friend Trixter's INTROJR PCJr. demo and SHAKEJR "game" as they were meant to be run. The former worked fine, the latter required me to reserve 64KB for video using the JRCONFIG -v64 switch and I also had to disconnect the second joystick or it would crash.

I have the long version of the power supply, and I believe my unit is able to run the jrIDE with Compact Flash along with the Parallel and Speech Sidecars. I seriously doubt that the Speech and Parallel sidecars will ever be seriously working at the same time.

I'm glad it arrived working! I haven't heard about other two I sent out as of yet. I appreciate the shipping feedback, and will try to make sure the IDE pins are better reinforced if I continue to use the bubble mailers.

[bloguidice]

Mine looks good, but I'm waiting on a 40 pin female to female IDE cable to go from the JrIDE to the CF adapter before I can test it.