#XTIDE

2025-06-29

I just stumbled upon this upgrade I would have leapt at a few years back when I was building up my "new" Tandy 1000HX:

Tandy 1000 EX/HX 3-in-1 V2 Adapter --- 640K RAM + 2x Serial + Parallel + XTIDE Upgrade by Rob Krenicki

ebay.com/itm/197473626636

It looks like the creator of this device, who posted the project to GitHub, has made his last production run, sadly. Several are available still on eBay.

It doesn't look like the RAM expansion has the DMA chip, but that really doesn't much matter. What a great unit. I upgraded my own 1000HX to this spec -- but did it the Hard way (note the capital H).

github.com/rkrenicki/Tandy-EX-

#Tandy #Tandy1000 #Tandy1000HX #Tandy1000EX #vintagecomputing #retrocomputing #retrogaming #XTIDE #modernretro #eBay #x86 #TRS80 #RadioShack

2025-02-12

Crap, MFM drive is dying, Windows 1.03 won't load. Teris fortunately still did. And DOS of course. #retrocomputing
Time to test that fancy new IDE thing? #xtide

Daniele Verducci 🧉penguin86@social.ichibi.eu
2024-12-30
Hang on... this is bonkers! Booting an IBM PC compatible pc mounting a drive via the #serialport ! Something like the modern computers #netboot !
https://youtu.be/g7ScyiO19Pg?si=OcAB5Qsfl4xOykZ0
He uses the #xtide #opensource #bios (https://www.xtideuniversalbios.org/) and a null modem cable to a windows computer. Unfortunately it seems the disk #emulator app is available only for Windows, but I imagine it could be implemented in a #serial #wifi #modem firmware (like #zimodem or #theoldnet 's). Imagine having a #samba share on your #NAS and telling the wifi modem to mount an image on that, then turn on the old pc and boot it from your NAS via WIFI... awesome!!!

#retrocomputing #tandy #pc
2024-12-01

#386 #laptop repair and restore complete!
Backlight working again (cable break where it went through the hinge), keyboard ribbon repair.
A #vogons user integrated #xtide into the #bios for me (original bios has fixed parameters for 20, 40, 60 and 80Mb disks only) so now running 512mb CF card.
#floppydisk drive still works.
Dont have original psu and NiCad original battery bound to be dead so converted to usb c power - adding where was a space for a modem expansion
#retrocomputing

386 sx 20 icl nb386s laptopSide of the laptop with usb c port where a blank space for modem port would be

On the bright side, it turns out that someone in the late 90s also found the BIOS of this otherwise excellent board (MSI MS-5120) to be lacking, so they *wrote a new one*.

Version 2.3 by Rainbow Software on The Retro Web:
theretroweb.com/motherboards/s

Not only does it now nearly instantly detect hard drives at boot, it also supports a bunch of other stuff including booting from CDs. On top of that, RAM throughput is nearly 33% faster!

Screenshot of Speedsys 4.78, which shows a ton of information about the computer, as well as graphs for CPU, hard disk, and cache/RAM performance.

This image depicts the speed of the system with the original AMI BIOS, version A379. Highlighted are the hard drive speed score, the throughput of the L1 cache, L2 cache, and RAM, and that the BIOS has the Y2K bug.Another screenshot of Speedsys 4.78, this time while running the Rainbow Software custom Award BIOS. The hard drive scores about 80 points higher (though the read speed is only about 70KB/s faster), the L1 cache is 3-4% faster, L2 cache is about 8% faster, and RAM is about 33% faster. Also the Y2K warning is gone!

Big thanks to Rainbow Software/Ondrej Žáry!

My Pentium machine's BIOS had a pretty underwhelming hard drive detection routine. I swap drives and CF cards pretty often, and setting things up manually every time was annoying.

I thought XTIDE Universal BIOS might help. I spent most of the day getting it set up, but even at best, drive speeds with XUB were about a quarter the speed as without. Damn. I guess it was a stretch expecting that to work, but still a bummer!

(TBC)

mattinxmattinx
2024-03-23

Next installment in my V86P XT-compatible laptop tinkering is up - this time replacing the hard disk controller and drive knm.org.uk/blog/2024/03/upgrad #8086

2024-02-12

@paulrickards Nice. I got a 1000EX (in rough shape) off of eBay to get its RAM card to add to my 1000HX setup (which I found locally on Craigslist). I have an XTIDE and a serial card plugged in via a single ISA riser and an ISA cable. Works well.

#Tandy #Tandy1000 #PC #DOS #vintagecomputing #retrocomputing #TRS80 #RAM #vintagetech #XTIDE #IDE

Kevin Karhan :verified:kkarhan@mstdn.social
2023-11-11

@polpo potentially...

I really want to get my hands on the #Hand386 amd #Book8088 simply because they are nifty machines...

All I need for those would be an #ISA-based dock with stuff like the #TexElec #QuadFlop and ISA #XTIDE controller and some #Ethernet card that does at least #10BaseT...

2023-02-08

Got myself and 8-bit ISA IDE/CF card a while back. But of course the PSU of the intended target, a Sinclair PC200, blew a fuse and well, they have all been collecting dust ever since. sigh.
#Sinclair #PC200 #SinclairPC200 #xtide #retrocomputing

2023-01-15

#notsoarchaic #x11 #application

#xtide (flaterco.com/xtide/) is an #x11 application (ports to other systems exist), written by David Flater.

XTide is a package that provides tide and current predictions in a wide variety of formats. Graphs, text listings, and calendars can be generated, or a tide clock can be provided on your desktop.

XTide can work with X-windows, plain text terminals, or the web. This is accomplished with three separate programs: the interactive interface (xtide), the non-interactive or command-line interface (tide), and the web interface (xttpd).

Harmonics data files are "restricted" to the US, due to freedom of data. Other countries with similar data (such as the United Kingdom) used to supply tidal data, but has become harder to maintain for various reasons.

Not to be used to judge whether to take your prized yacht to a nearby gala race...

#xtide will not be appearing under the x11cp due to the fact this software is actively maintained.

2022-11-30

@ephemeris -- indeed. #sunclock (and #xtide) are on my list, as they're #x11 applications I've used a lot in the past.

#sunclock is "a fancy clock for the X Window system, providing local time a fancy clock for the X Window system, providing local time (legal time and solar time), sunrise, sunset and various geographical data through a point and click interface".

Translated -- this means it has an interface, which even after reading the manpage makes bugger all sense. ;)

I do love it though -- and it's still packaged my most Linux distros, and you can certainly still find it on the BSDs.

This application is worth exploring as it can do a lot of things I wouldn't know where to begin to highlight here.

Screenshot below. For me (in England), it's night-time, but perhaps not too long now until dawn? :)

#x11cp

🅹🅴🅳🅸🅴 🇺🇦🕊️jedie@chaos.social
2020-08-14

#doom unter #FreeDos auf einem #386 genauer gesagt #Am386DXL mit 25MHz und 8MB (!) RAM
Platte: #CompactFlash mittels #XTIDE BIOS
Spielbar ist es, wenn man Details und Fenster Größe etwas kleiner macht.

Die Terratec soundkarte bleibt allerdings stumm... Auf dem PentiumII System geht es mit der selben Karte...

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