Recent | Online | Vintage | Modern | Win | Mac  OS9 | DOS | Amiga | Atari ST | Graphics | Midi io | Sequencers | Roland "MC" | E-mu | Ensoniq | Akai MPCs | Samplers | Akai "S" | Roland "S"Synths | VST Samplers | VST Synths | Roland "JV" | Modules | Drums | Mixers | Timeline | HackintoshArtists | Graphics

Welcome to Oldschooldaw.com! (Online since 2014) if you are human, Register & Login to gain more access to all boards here; Some guest permissions have been limited to reduce traffic from bots and encourage registration, while other Guest permissions have been added such as guest posting of attachments and guest responses to threads!

Author Topic: vst ultratek/66 (PDC 20262) >> Promise Ultra66  (Read 4495 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline chrisNova777

  • Underground tech support agent
  • Administrator
  • Posts: 9649
  • Gender: Male
  • "Vintage MIDI Sequencing + Audio Production"
    • View Profile
    • www.oldschooldaw.com | vintage audio production software + hardware info
vst ultratek/66 (PDC 20262) >> Promise Ultra66
« on: May 28, 2019, 11:05:06 AM »
some of these cards, similar to the turbomax/33's seem to have SOCKETED EEPROMS

https://eshop.macsales.com/Reviews/Framework.cfm?page=/Hard_Drives/vstultratek/VSTUltra.html

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/comp.sys.mac.system/ultratek$20promise|sort:date/comp.sys.mac.system/wao9LDfMDRg/NDG1vzI_PH0J

https://www.macgurus.com/forums/showthread.php?11983-Promise-UltraTek-ATA-66
https://www.macgurus.com/forums/showthread.php?11983-Promise-UltraTek-ATA-66&p=42168#post42168

https://web.archive.org/web/20020210043145/http://www.vsttech.com/Downloads/Software/UltraTek_FW_Readme.asp
https://web.archive.org/web/20020204141223/http://www.smartdisk.com/Downloads.asp

Quote
https://www.macgurus.com/forums/showthread.php?11983-Promise-UltraTek-ATA-66&s=221b3c8ba9f9834ebf8e7dc9e9de5f66&p=42168#post42168

04-23-2002, 10:52 PM #4
trag
trag is offline Guru Moderator

    ForwardSlash, I imagine you are trying to convert the Promise card into a VST UltraTech/66. It is doable, but not as simple as you may be hoping. There are several resistors that must be move, the 66 MHz metal can oscillator on the Promise needs to come off and getting the VST firmware into the Promise Flash chip is non-trivial.

    The VST flasher checks for a previous version of the VST firmware before it agrees to flash the card. It will not flash a card with the Promise firmware installed, nor will it flash a card with a blank flash chip.

    There was some discussion of this a few years ago on the Mac news groups. I'd try a google/dejanews search in comp.sys.mac.hardware.* on likely keywords. I think a fellow named Peter had the most to say on the topic. It may also have been in comp.sys.mac.misc or comp.sys.mac.system.

    Also note that OWC is working with the folks who wrote the original firmware for VST (FirmTek) and they're rather vigorous about complaining if you violate their copyright. Personally, it's no skin off my nose as the FirmTek person (not George, Geoge is cool) adamantly refuses to admit that there are either firmware bugs or incompatibilities in the card that I've amply demonstrated. They rarely manifest but they are existant.

    The easiest way to accomplish your goal is to get a VST card and do a side by side comparison with a Promise card. Of course, at that point you would already own a VST card and probably the bundled copy of SoftRAID as well (SoftRAID rocks and is worth much more than the cost of the VST card) so why would you need to do the conversion except for fun?

    You'd still need to figure out a way around the firmware flasher, though. I'll give you a hint. It involves a DIP socket, two Flash chips and a willingness to switch the chip with the power on.



Offline daniel

  • Newbie
  • Posts: 1
  • new to the site
    • View Profile
Re: vst ultratek/66 (PDC 20262) >> Promise Ultra66
« Reply #1 on: June 01, 2019, 09:48:19 AM »
I removed the rom image from the flasher, along with images from a few other flashers. Here they are.

Offline chrisNova777

  • Underground tech support agent
  • Administrator
  • Posts: 9649
  • Gender: Male
  • "Vintage MIDI Sequencing + Audio Production"
    • View Profile
    • www.oldschooldaw.com | vintage audio production software + hardware info
Re: vst ultratek/66 (PDC 20262) >> Promise Ultra66
« Reply #2 on: June 01, 2019, 06:44:12 PM »
right on!!!!  ;D