Atapi/IDE Cd Drive 

        by john/indi



** WARNING **

This  is  a  hardware  hack  for  the  1200.   No responsibility will be
accepted for any prangs resulting from use of this information.

If in doubt, buy the interface, it's only thirty quid.



I've  been  reading a lot lately in Amiga magazines about the dangers of
fitting an IDE CD drive to the 1200 without adding a buffered interface.
Read on and form your own opinion.......

About  18 months ago when the atapi software first made an appearance it
was  being  sold  as a ridiculously expensive package along with various
buffers,  CD drives etc.  It prompted a mate of mine to try a bit of DIY
to get a CD drive fitted on the cheap and heres the result.

This assumes you already have a 3.5 hard drive fitted.....


Get down to your local computer shop/fair and buy the following.

 One 3-way 3.5 IDE ribbon cable ( about £3 )
 One PC power supply unit ( about £5 )
 One cheap IDE CD drive ( prices from £30 - see below )

Notes on CD drive types....

From  personal  experience  anything faster than 6 speed should be OK as
these all conform to the atapi standard.  Some quad speeds are also safe
i.e  Mitsumi  400 and Mitsumi 410.  Some older drives will also work but
it is NOT recommended to try them.

Now for the tricky bit..


Take the hard drive ribbon cable out of your 1200 and ( gulp!  ) cut the
3.5  connector  off.   Do the same at one end of the 3-way IDE cable and
then  make off and solder through all the 40 cables making sure that all
the joints are properly insulated.  Always keep the coloured edge of the
ribbon  (  usually pink ) to the same side.  When complete test out each
cable  with a multi meter to make sure all the connections are sound and
in the right order.  Also check for short circuits to other cables.

See ATAPI_CABLE.IFF for more info.



    3.5 40 way            3.5 40 way
        _                     _          2.5 44 way
       | |-------------------| |             _ 
       | |-------------------| |------------| |
       | |-------------------| |------------| |
       | |-------------------| |------------| |
       | |-------------------| |------------| |
       | |-------------------| |------------| |
       | |-------------------| |------------| |
       | |-------------------| |------------| |
       | |-------------------| |------------|_|
       |_|-------------------|_|
                                            Connect to
    Connect to            Connect to      internal IDE port
     CD drive              hard drive

        Your finished cable should look like this



General  opinion  is that the shorter the cable the less likely it is to
cause  any  problems,  the  one that I have connected just now is 2 feet
long  and is working OK.  Best keep it as short as practical though, i.e
between the IDE port and your hard drive.
  

Fit  the  cable  and your hard drive back into the amiga and then decide
where  you want the ribbon to emerge from the casing.  Use a sharp craft
knife  and  cut  a slot out of the casing for the cable, there is a nice
thin lip on the bottom half of the casing which is easy to cut.


Fit  your  CD  drive  and  connect  the  PC power supply to it, note the
rounded  corners  at  one  edge.   Make  sure  the  CD  is  set to SLAVE
operation.   Fire up and run the atapi installer, the CD drive should be
mounted as unit 1.

If  you  can  get  hold of an old 5.25 external floppy drive it makes an
ideal case, same fixings and internal PSU.
                                                                            
                                                                                
As  of writing this I know of 6 other people running this set up with no
problems  reported.   Most  of  these  use their computers for 2-3 hours
daily so it seems a safe enough bet.





[A  friend  of  mine had an ATAPI CDROM fitted to his A1200 a while back
for  about  35quid  except he had the whole lot fitted into a PC desktop
casing so I've seen it working.  Kei]


end