MR8 IDE port

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mrx

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Anyone see the post on the Fostex board by the guy that took his MR-8 apart and says there appears to be an IDE port in there?

1) Wonder if the MR-8 and VF series share the same guts...

2) Someone has way too much time on his hands...
 
I wouldn't know what to do with an IDE port if I had one anyway!


bd
 
Or, perhaps more likely, a CD drive. The VF80 uses an IDE interface (or whatever it's called) for the CD writer.
 
Good point - a CD would use it as well.

With prices so low, though, it makes no sense to fool with the innards of these things.

(When I had my Korg PXR4, some guy on a forum had actually modified the circuits to allow start/stop from MIDI, and then got all irate when no one else wanted to know how to do it...)

Although, who knows what Fostex may come up with, as Zoom has just come out with a USB board for some of their recorders...
 
I would love to be able to interface a hard drive to this instead of using the (limited) compact flash.Has anyone sucessfully done this?
 
machinenmann said:
I would love to be able to interface a hard drive to this instead of using the (limited) compact flash.Has anyone sucessfully done this?
Click to expand...

Just fantasy at this point - either the port is there for future expansion, or the MR and VF series share some of the same system boards.
 
I read that thread after seeing this post.....

Then, I took a screwdriver to MR. Eight.

It does look like one...maybe ill try and hook an ide cable up later, to see if it fits, if I can find an extra.
 
machinenmann said:
I would love to be able to interface a hard drive to this instead of using the (limited) compact flash.Has anyone sucessfully done this?
Click to expand...

The ish is, is the hard drive fast enough? Since we can't use just any CF card (the cheap ones won't let you ping-pong tracks) I'm assuming any HD's or CD's would need to have enough performance/speed.
 
If a hard drive connects, I expect most any modern drive would have sufficient performance. If there is a performance problem, it's probably more likely to be the MR8 than any modern hard drive.

Ed
 
wow, someone is paying attention!!

Looks like somebody found my post!! I thought no one was interested.

The terrible thing is that the MR8 seemed to have an IDE hookup by there is not a power supply for a hard drive. So you would need an external power supply for the drive.

I'll have to check it out again though... I;ve got some time on my hands right now. Maybe I'll try hooking an IDE to my MR8 and I'll tell ya what happens.

And YES, I do have too much time on my hands- or at least a crazy way or priorititzing it!!
 
its not an IDE!!

So I ripped open my MR-8 again in an attempt to hook up and externally powered IDE HDD to it. The IDE connector wouldn't go on and that is when I noticed that the connector on the MR-8 is a 50 pin, not a 40 Pin like on an IDE device.

50 Pins are commonly used for SCSI drives. So now the question is - Does the MR-8 have SCSI capabilities? I was going to hook up my ZIP drive to it, but my power connector broke and my ZIP drive fried!!

Anyone else want to give the MR-8 SCSI port a whirl?
 
Attached below is a response I received from Fostex on this subject:

=====================================
Issue: I have the MR-8. Looking for 512MB cards. Your list seems very short. Some web forums seem to show a somewhat larger list of compatible cards. Which is correct?

One somewhat related question.

Inside the MR8 there is a 50 pin connector that looks somewhat like a normal SCSI connector.

Can you tell us what this is, and if it is a SCSI connector, whether an external hard drive could be used with the MR8?

Ed

Issue #: 5332


-------------
Ed Dixon,

You may be able to use non-compatible cards if you are not performing track bouncing to track 5/6 or 7/8.
The most of the non compatible cards exhibit audio skipping problems during track bouncing.
The connector inside the CF card socket may be 50 pins, but it is not a SCSI connector, you can not connect any SCSI or IDE device to MR-8.

From Matt at Fostex
==============

Seems to say that SCSI hard drives are not going to work either.

Ed
 
I smell a cover up........

why would they put an open port in the mr 8 for no reason...

sniff sniff....

b
 
he says "The connector inside the CF card socket may be 50 pins, but it is not a SCSI connector, you can not connect any SCSI or IDE device to MR-8."

inside the CF card slot.....you guys said there's one on the INSIDE of the machine though right? i think he just got a lil confused, and said you cant hook anyhting to that slot? who knows....im hoping as mcuh as you guys that we can get a HD working :(
 
Hey, I'm right here rootin you guys on! Go team go! Oh, and don't fry yer machines.


bd
 
Hey, guys - haven't been here in a while - lotsa busy. Now that my warranty is winding down and I'm not so nervous about voiding it, I'm interested in what you guys find out about this thing. I'm a little too scared to try it myself though - I don't know enough about how these things work. I dunno, though - my whole reason for buying this thing in the first place was the light, tight, "wee red box"-ness of the whole thing.
 
At 3-4 times the cost of the MR8 it should have more features.

Ed
 
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