17 May
2023
17 May
'23
12:49 p.m.
On 5/17/23 12:22, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
If you know of an external USB drive that does have
the cpabilities of a
standard PC disk controller, please tell us what you can of make, model,
supplier, availability, etc.
Interestingly, the Micro Solutions Backpack floppy drives do have all
the capabilities of a standard PC controller; they're basically and FDC,
an 8051 MCU and some added SRAM. You can fire off FDC commands over a
parallel interface (I know, "what's that?")
For commercial applications, the USB Mass Storage Device standard is
patterned after SCSI; as a matter of fact, it uses SCSI CDBs embedded in
a USB packet to work. As users of SCSI floppy drives know, that's just
a subset of the stuff that can be done with a legacy FDC setup.
That isn't to say that someone hasn't rolled a one-off project for
this--I know of at least one. It requires its own Windows drivers.
As much as Tony doesn't like it, I need to point out that a modern MCU
quite often has as much (or more) RAM, and runs faster than many older
PCs. Consider, for example, the lowly STM32H7A3 series. 1.4MB of RAM,
2MB of program flash, 5 DMA controllers, ethernet, TFT LCD, up to 164 5V
tolerant GPIOs, USB OTG...I won't go on.
Why tinker around with a PC when your MCU is more powerful? I store my
retrieved data on a 32GB SD card.
Yeah, I know, this is a "classic" list and I shouldn't discuss anything
much past an 80386.
--Chuck