I have the matching monitor, keyboard and mouse.
SHARP X68000 BIOS PRO
The unit I would like to do something with is an X68000 Pro (black desktop case). I recently decided that having three pristine X68000 machines in my collection, but not being able to use them was a bit of a shame, so I am embarking on doing something with at least one of them. Another surprise on the hard file is a module disk player that is comparible to OCTAMED for Amiga, it even has some cool music from old computer games installed on there (check out pic of me playing Sonic 1 on MegaDrive!)Īnyway thats enough talk i hope you enjoy looking at the pics and following this thread! I belive that i could be possibly the only guy in the UK to have done such a feat for this lovely machine! Enjoy! You simply select you game with the cursor keys or for more demanding games, just type the exec in pure DOS mode. This is probably the closest the Sharp has to WHDload on the Amiga. More importantly it also saves the disk drives themselves from getting worn out. This was due to using a single slot CF card reader (rather than a 2 slot one like in the previous attempt) and formatting the 1GB compact flash in MASTER rather than SLAVE.Īfter prowler had redone the compact flash card with that image and i had gotten the replacement SCSIDE i finally had some success and the compact flash was finally recognised by the Sharp X68000! I can now enjoy playing games from the compact flash card without having to bootup from floppy disks and the pain of disk swapping. The second time formatting the hard file onto the compact flash card proved to be a better success. This took 2 attempts as the first time it was done, the sharp didnt recognise it at all. Once again i didnt have the resources to achieve this so once again prowler stepped in and helped out. I also wanted to do something extra, not just have it as a blank disk, but i also wanted to have the below disk image onto the compact flash card:īasically its a hard file image with a load of Sharp X68000 games on and some music files (and player!) This would make this project even all the more awesome! But putting the image onto the compact flash card and getting it recognised by the Sharp X68000 caused some problems. It is sort of a cobbled together job, but it was the best i could do! Next problem was setting up the compact flash card to be compatible and work with the Sharp X68000 machine. I managed to get around this somewhat, by mounting it on the old hard drive mounting bracket. Another tricky thing i encountered was where to mount this in the machine.
This didnt work however and so in the end i played it safe and paid a bit extra to buy the AEC-7720U which was already confirmed as working. Well for my SCSIDE, i ended up getting the confirmed working Acard AEC-7720U, see pic below:īefore i bought the above, i did try the Acard AEC-7720UW SCSIDE, basically the same as the above apart from it was a 68 pin Ultrawide SCSI version. After that came the most major headache! (and most costly!) This was a) getting a compatible SCSIDE interface, and a compatible 1GB compact flash card. As this socket was only 3 wires (and the SCSIDE used a 4 socket MOLEX floppy drive cable), i had to cut thes end socket off and put a floppy drive connecter in its place. This was used to power the old SASI hard drive that was installed.
SHARP X68000 BIOS MOD
Next problem was a had to physically mod the socket to the power cable that would provide the power to the SCSIDE. Here is a link where i got the resources from (and it ll probably explain it better as this whole thing is way above my knowledge!): He kindly managed to setup the floppy disk with the program installed just fine. The Sharp X68000 uses 5 1/4 floppy disks as its media, and as i dont own any 5 1/4" floppy disk equipment, i had to call prowler to help me out. This was the first propblem i encountered. So a master disk with the BIOS SCSI reflashing program installed was needed.
SHARP X68000 BIOS UPDATE
Firstly a BIG BIG BIG THANKS to prowler for helping me out with this project! (cheers again buddy!) I should mention this project has taken me 1/2 a year to achieve and has costed me way to much as it shouldve done - but at least its over now! Right the idea of the update in this project was to replace the old SASI 30MB hard drive with a 1GB hard drive (or compact flash) How is this done you may ask? Well i m not quite 100% sure how it works, but it involves reflashing the BIOS or something so that it can read SCSI formatted devices and beyond 30MB (upto 1GB i think). This thread is an update to the above project. I wont explain the whole thing in detail again here is the link for original info thread: A while back i bought myself a Japanese Sharp X68000.
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