Another disk imaging project

[Chris M]

there are a few contraptions out there by which you
can connect a CF or SD card to a Commodore 64,
presumably an IDE drive too. Try ide64.org for
starters. There was another one on Epay recently,
which I think used an MMC/SD card.
 The notion of adding such a device to an old puter
has intrigued me also. Old RLL/MFM drives are a waste
of time IMHO, and new IDE drives probably won't work,
provided you even had an IDE interface (they do exist
for XT class machines, but most of mine have
proprietary buses). 
 I know this is a broad question, but to what degree
can an FPGA take the place of early custom ic's? Say
for instance you wanted to replace the video ic like a
NEC uPD7220 and couldn't find a replacement, or the
custom video or sound ic in a Mindset or Atari ST. 

--- Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> > The idea is to make a small single-board computer
> with a microcontroller,
> > a WD2793 or similar floppy disk controller, enough
> memory to buffer a
> > few tracks, and a high-speed serial port for
> communication with the PC.
> > The board would have connectors for 5.25"/3"
> drives and 8" drives, and
> > would properly interface to all drive types.
> 
> Remeber that the WD chips are not still being made
> (are they?).
> 
> I've thought about something similar. A single-board
> computer with a raw 
> bitstream reader/writer (similar to a catweasel
> board, but not 
> proprietary). Save the data on a CF card or similar
> (there's rather too 
> much to send over an RS232 link in a sane time, and
> it would seem to be 
> easier to interface a CF card to a classic computer
> than to add a USB 
> port to a classic computer (this is important to me
> as I only have 
> classic computers).
> 
> -tony
> 



		
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