Non-interrupt use of uPD765/8272

I still haven't figured out how to get interrupts from the uPD765 FDC in the Quay. I think they're probably routed via a Z80-PIO input, but no luck so far. While the DMA support in the uPD765 is by design optional, they clearly *really* intended that interrupts be used. The Quay boot ROM just uses a very long fixed delay after the recal before doing a read. That's obviously not great if you want good performance. I tried several unsuccessful approaches to waiting for a recal or seek to complete before finally noticing that the FDC will reject the "sense interrupt status" command as illegal if there isn't a pending interrupt. Now my code issues that command repeatedly until it does not report an illegal command. Has anyone found an easier way to use the uPD765 without interrupts?