A new ISA 8-Bit SCSI Controller... a Trantor T130B - but new problems too
Tuesday, May 6, 2014, 08:20 PM
Posted by Administrator
Looking still around for a better SCSI Controller which fits in my original IBM PC/XT, I found a Trantor T130B, which should be more suitable for a generic usage, because it comes with an external SCSI connector, and more important, there is an ASPI driver for DOS existing.
![](../images/trantor130b.jpg)
Unfortunately there were two versions sold, some with, and some without a BIOS ROM.
I got one without a BIOS ROM, but I own an EPROM burner, so no problem yet.
But I then I discovered there is another empty socket U6 on the card, a 20 pin DIL one.
I figured out that there is also a PAL on the "boot-capable" version, but my version didn't have one. Fortunately some other smart PC owners already figured it out, what content the PAL chip has to have. See
http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum ... AL-Part-13 for a thirdteen pages entry which describes what was done for figuring it out.
So I am confident it will be a booting harddisk soon, I only have to get the "burned" PAL.
Because PALs aren't reprogrammable, i choosed to take a GAL 16V8 instead of a PAL16L8.
Stay tuned for an update ... hopefully all things will go well.
Related link for a short description of that card.
Added later: I got a boot ROM message from the controller, but the controller itself does not recognize at boot time any hard drive. Seems I didn't programmed the GAL correct, or, also possible, the PAL file from the vintage-computer.com forum does not fit.