Hey All,
On 06/12/06, Warren Wolfe <wizard at voyager.net> wrote:
I have an idea... (everybody duck)
[Using USB memory sticks as universal drives for old machines]
[Interfaces for each class or type of machine]
[Software on the stick]
Comments, anyone? Has this been done? Would
people see it as an
abomination or boon? Who would be interested in (and capable of)
producing a USB interface card for "their" computers?
I was thinking of doing the same sort of thing but using compact flash
cards and building some electronics as the interface for the QIC tape
interface. Thinking about it is about as far as I got. From what I
understand, the electronics and software for interfacing Compact Flash
is a little easier than USB.
My initial need for something like this, again comes back to the
problems with aged QIC tapes. I have quite a few and I don't expect to
get more than a read off them. Therefore I am looking for one good
read into a ADC, a little signal processing, then a way to emulate the
tape drive to get the OS onto the machines in question. For what it is
worth, the tapes are DomainOS and assorted utilities.
I look at it as, well, I would really like to use the original tapes
and drives, but I also want to preserve the information on the tapes
for n rereads in the future. I am therefore going to acknowldge that I
am not going to undertake the OS load using all original hardware.
However I am going to undertake it using as much of the original
hardware as I can, substituting new hardware where I think there is a
high probability something will go wrong.
I can see the strange irony in this project is the micro controller
that runs the interface is likely to have more CPU power and memory
than the host machine!
Simon
--
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"Well, an engineer is not concerned with the truth; that is left to
philosophers and theologians: the prime concern of an engineer is
the utility of the final product."
Lectures on the Electrical Properties of Materials, L.Solymar, D.Walsh