25 Nov
2006
25 Nov
'06
12:51 p.m.
Subject: Re: Northstar Horizon
From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>
Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2006 10:02:05 -0800
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>
On 25 Nov 2006 at 13:29, Dave Dunfield wrote:
I would not say badly implemented, more like dirt simple. NS* took the
software can replace hardware path. For example the code in the rom
sets the drive select, does the step direction and timing and walks
through the find the right sector, wait for sync flag and start reading
process.
Allison
Well - then I guess NorthStar was obscene... :-)
My comment was directed toward your reference to the Tarbell
controller, not the NS.
The single-density controller does indeed have
256 byte of ROM (in three chips!)
The double-density one has 512 bytes of ROM.
A question crops up: why? What's the point--you need only enough to
load a sngle sector. Was the NS controller so badly implemented
that it required that much code to read a single sector?