USB Universal Floppy Disk controller

[Doc Shipley]

Vintage Computer Festival wrote:

> On Tue, 15 Mar 2005, Dwight K. Elvey wrote:
> 
> 
>> I tend to agree with you. We should be thinking this way.
>>Still, I believe that development work should be done in
>>an environment that is handy and convenient. The USB is
>>just a machine interconnect. One just has to keep in mind
>>what the final product will be like. In other words, don't
>>lock the design into one specific format.
>> The only issue I have with USB is that it requires drivers
>>for each machine it is connected to. These have to be
>>specific to the USB device we use to interface with.
>>RS-232 is generic enough that we could run things from
>>text files using simple terminal modes on almost any machine.
> 
> 
> I dispute Barry's assertion that serial is going away.  Perhaps in
> consumer products it will be supplanted by USB.  But in development
> products and applications, and low level controller and embedded system
> devices, it'll be around for quite a while yet.
> 
> I'd argue that the serial port is the most under-rated device is
> computing.  It is the most widely deployed communcations protocol and
> allows computers 1 month old to connect and transfer data to computers
> that are over 30 years old.

   For purposes of connecting old storage to new computers, Barry's 
point stands.  The discussion here doesn't really include development 
hardware, low-level controllers or embedded systems.  If I were going to 
design hardware for a "next-gen compaticard", it would not be on a 
serial port.

   I won't argue that serial is underrated, and it's true that it's not 
disappearing, but a rising percentage of commodity desktop systems come 
with no serial interface.

   It's the usual story that numbers, not quality, define success.  USB 
is going to be "it" for a good long while.

> As for Dwight's main argument that the interface is not the main focus, I
> agree.

   Just to throw a monkey wrench into the mix, we might consider 
ethernet.  Even more universal than USB, doesn't exclude older systems, 
and only comes in three common connectors (that I can think of.  A lot 
of the appliance-oriented microcontrollers and CPUs now have builtin 
ethernet, right?  With microcoded TCP stacks and even DHCP clients. 
Plug your 8" floppy drives into your *network*....

   I think that while the hardware costs would be higher, the 
development issues would be greatly reduced.


	Doc