Henk in NL...Re: CF cards on classic machines (was Re: Another disk imaging project)

[Dan]

<cid:part1.04080404.03030504 at comcast.net>Henk,

I noticed you have a Netherlands email address. <GOOI at oce.nl>
Would you happen to know Henk Dijkstra ?
He also has a PDP machine there, can't remember which one.
He belonged to the Linux Users Group there too.
It was 8yrs ago since I saw him while working for Lucent in Holland.
Back then, we worked together at Betronic in Amsterdam.
And he helped me with some programming on a robot project.
I lost his email address since then, and I've moved back to the states 
in '02.
I was just wondering how he's doing.

thanks,
Dan

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[My Corner of Cyberspace                     http://ragooman.home.comcast.net/]
[Pittsburgh Robotics Society                       http://www.pghrobotics.org/]
[Pittsburgh Vintage Comp.Society http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pghvintagecomp/]
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Gooijen, Henk wrote:

>Ethan, the access that you describe is exactly what I do in my homebrew
>pdp8/e with the Core & I/O Board! I started out with a real IDE disk but
>bought an IDE-CF adapter, and it worked right away.
>BTW, in the source code is a description of the way I connected the
>IDE/CF card to the I/O Board.
>I started with an 8-bit datapath, that is fine for sending the commands,
>but reading the data is of course also 8 bits. In the beginning I did
>not consider that to be a real loss, but it annoyed me that I could not
>read properly the IDENT data result (manufacturer, type, size, etc.).
>So I "upgraded" the data path to 16 bit. But 8 bits works for sure!
>See www.pdp-11.nl/homebrew/pdp8/pdp8startpage.html  (a page that is
>almost weekly updated!)
>
>  - Henk, PA8PDP.
>
>
>On 8/5/05, Jim Brain <brain at jbrain.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>The IDE command registers are all 8-bits wide, but the Data register
>>is 16 bits wide. You have to support a 16 bit transfer in order to get
>>the data from the sector buffer (256 16 bit transfers nets you 512
>>bytes of data, the IDE std sector).  IN the newer 48 bit addressing
>>mode, the LBA registers grow from 8 bits to 16 bits as well.
>>
>>All the IDE code I've looked at does it this way.  I believe I have
>>the ATA r4 spec here that states that as well.
>>
>>But, if you've noted a way to switch IDE into 8-bit mode, let me know.
>>    
>>
>
>This is not an ATA feature I'm talking about, it's a CF feature...
>
>>From http://www.compuphase.com/mbr_fat.htm ...
>
>you can switch the Compact Flash card to use only 8-bit transfers, in
>case you need to connect the Compact Flash card to an 8-bit bus.
>
>Accessing a drive takes the following steps:
>
>   1. The address is asserted on lines A0-A2 and /CS0 + /CS1. In True
>IDE mode, only three of the address lines of the Compact Flash card
>are used, in combination with the /CS0 and /CS1 lines which select the
>"register set". Only either of the /CS0 and /CS1 lines is active (not
>both at the same time).
>   2. After a delay of 70 ns (or more), either the /IORD or /IOWR is
>activated, depending on whether you want to initiate a read or write
>instruction. The /IORD or /IOWR are the strobes.
>   3. Another delay, of 165 ns, is needed before inactivating the
>/IORD or /IOWR lines. At the same time of inactivating the strobe, or
>immediately before or after inactivating the strobe, you can read or
>write the data to the D0-D15 lines.
>   4. Although this is optional, it is recommended that both /CS0 and
>/CS1 are inactivated at the end of the read or write cycle. You may
>need another delay here, because a full cycle has also a minimal
>duration. Instead of a simple idle loop, you may however choose to
>perform other operations in that time --such as interpreting the data
>after a read operation, or fetching new data after a write operation.
>
>So... again, the problems I'm having are with certain cards and not
>others.  My records of success are 4MB HP - fail, 16MB Kodak - strange
>behavior/fail, 512MB Simple Technology - fail, SanDisk 1GB - works.
>
>I'm just trying to solicit input from anyone who might know a tidbit
>like "don't try that with cards under 32MB" or some other such nugget
>of wisdom.  I brought up the 8-bit mode thing because it's an unusual
>use of the CF card and might be relevant.
>
>Thanks,
>
>-ethan
>
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