ICS/Baildon Electronics IDE/I²C Interface podule

The ICS/Baildon Electronics IDE Interface provides IDE capabilities to the Acorn Archimedes range of computers when plugged into a suitable backplane. The firmware for the IDEFS filing system does not support partitions and as such, the maximum drive size is 512MB.

The internal IDE connector is a 44-pin powered IDE bus which can support the connection of a 2.5" HDD or an IDE to CF or SD adapter. In the photo below you can see that I've fitted a CF adapter to the board which is waiting to be populated with a Compact Flash card.

In addition to the IDE interface, the podule also sports an I²C bus using a connector that resembles a 3.5" floppy drive power connection. It is presented externally to allow for I²C bus devices to be connected easily.

There was only ever one I²C device manufactured to be plugged into this I²C bus and it was called the AnDi Oddule. It consisted of some Phillips (NXP now) I²C parts that provided analogue and digital interfaces. The press release for the AnDi Oddule can be seen below.

Press release image courtesy of Dave E. J. Hitchins