Latest firmwares for Gouda MSX-SCSI interface

Prophet (2497)

08-09-2015, 18:49

I just retrieved yesterday my old MSX-SCSI interface, along with a working SCSI SyQuest drive. And after some cleaning and rewiring...

... it sill works perfectly. Even all the old sources and files I had on the drive were intact :) !

I was using MFR and other SD card devices when I came back to MSX some years ago, but I must say this interface still rocks (in fact it looks as fast as SD card devices).

The only drawbacks I have are:

It does not work on a normal MSX 2 (only on turboR). An additional MSX-DOS 2 cartridge seems to be needed for MSX 2.
It's only FAT12 (so I have 6x 32MB partitions).

I was wondering if new firmwares have been produced to improve that ? (I'm currently using the Novaxis 1.51 firmware).

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Van meits

Scribe (6576)

08-09-2015, 19:08

There's indeed no DOS2 in this cartridge. It's a dutch product and the dutch reviewers of MCCM were quite straight forward when it comes to copyrights. In the beginning they questioned MSX2+ upgrades for MSX2 as well. I always thought it was quite silly as DOS2 was as dead as MSX was.
The Gouda interface was the fastest SCSI interface I ever saw on MSX (indeed, I never saw the mega SCSI in action) and it worked flawless on my MSX2 with 7MHz (twice the speed ) and internal DOS2...
If SCSI still was the way to go and there was some guy making the interface flashable, I think I'd be sorry I sold it back in 98

Van Jipe

Paragon (1625)

08-09-2015, 19:17

the rom on this cartrige is a 27128 and the tail is 16K
the dos 2 required a 27512 -> 64K

Van Manuel

Ascended (19685)

08-09-2015, 23:02

I love the Novaxis! It can handle 32 partitions of 32MB (so 1GB) per drive.

It's indeed VERY fast. I had MSX-DOS2 built in into my MSX2 (with some other upgrades).

Van Haohmaru

Paladin (774)

09-09-2015, 00:04

I could do without all the clutter to be honest, so huzzah for modern storage media! (:

Van Louthrax

Prophet (2497)

09-09-2015, 01:08

Jipe wrote:

the rom on this cartrige is a 27128 and the tail is 16K
the dos 2 required a 27512 -> 64K

And I think the DOS 2 rom needs some kind of mapper no ? Maybe that could be done using a MegaFlashROM and forcing the right mapper type ?

Haohmaru wrote:

I could do without all the clutter to be honest, so huzzah for modern storage media! (:

In fact, I think I enjoy the little ticking of the SCSI drive, even that becomes vintage now
I do not have the external power supply on my setup, using a 5V output line directly from the turboR instead (Jipé made that for me 2 decades ago !).
By the way, can you access your SCSI partitions from the MFR ones ? I gave it a quick try with no success (went to a Padial SD card that worked for that purpose).

Manuel wrote:

I love the Novaxis! It can handle 32 partitions of 32MB (so 1GB) per drive.

Thanks Manuel. If forgot about the "MAP32.COM" tool to access more than 6 partitions. I can now have all my .DSK images on the SCSI drive I'm glad I added the option to jump to another drive in SofaRun, but this can't handle "hidden" extra partitions. I'll try to add some "next.bat" and "previous.bat" at the to of each drive to shift to other disks.

Van Manuel

Ascended (19685)

09-09-2015, 09:34

I used all kinds of bat files that mapped in the right partition

I used my Nowind together with the Gouda Novaxis to back up my SCSI disk to my PC.

You can try a bit in openMSX whether the combination of MegaFlashROM SCC+ SD and Novaxis SCSI works. I do remember it works to use Sunrise IDE and Gouda Novaxis SCSI at the same time, it's possible to copy files from one to the other.
The drive mapping is a bit weird, though

Van gdx

Enlighted (6439)

09-09-2015, 09:38

Be careful with Novaxis. The extended partitions mode is not enabled by default. This parameter is saved in the SRAM of the MSX clock. We need to think about when trying his Novaxis on other MSX. Also that MSX1 don't not have clock.

Van meits

Scribe (6576)

09-09-2015, 13:48

Isn't there an alias available to replace all those bat files?
MSX-DOS2.4x has it, but somehow I think it's full potential has never been explored by the masses.

Van Manuel

Ascended (19685)

09-09-2015, 22:39

I did use COMMAND 2.41 and quite some aliases. But mostly to associate extensions with programs.

Van Lord_Zett

Paladin (807)

09-09-2015, 22:50

novaxis is so nice and fast. but.... dont have a hdd anymore for it.. good hardware it is