I've seen an old PC trick that uses the printer port and custom cable
to bit-bash interface an IDE hard drive or cdrom using a dos .sys driver.
Anyone think it's possible to do the same with a DRV-11 for the pdp11?
Features: built in BAR/WCR/CSR circuits, 16 bits in, 16 out. 6 function
bits,
Attention/Ready/Cycle Request/Bust handshake bits etc
Perhaps a small pld or fpga could use the spare handshake or function bits
to latch the 3 address bits for the IDE and generate the chip
select/read-write etc
while the 16 bit input and output busses could be joined via tri-state
buffers...
I'ts not a replacement for a scsi controller, but it beats hunting down the
hard
to find bus interface chips and provides a proven already working basic
interface.
I've got a dozen of the QBUS (and a few UNIBUS) DRx11 boards if someone
is interested in fooling with the idea. As a side note - I recall UW's CCNG
CE
dept fashioned an early MP cluster called using DRV11s to connect LSI11-2s
in the 80's.
regards
-h