25 May
2005
25 May
'05
12:12 p.m.
Am 25 May 2005 10:57 meinte Chris Muller:
Anybody know if there exist adapters for old disk
drives (e.g.- MFM, RLL
etc.) to USB?
Preferably USB 2.0. I may need to read the contents of a bunch of old hard
drives. I can probably cobble together some old ISA systems with the right
controllers if I really must, but maybe someone's created a simple solution.
USB to ISA interfaces have been among the first USB stuff implemented.
A google search should help here. As usual not the interface but the
drivers are the real hassle.
If you can't find any ready made hardware, it's an easy job to use
an existing USB-ISA bridge chip as the SMSC USB97C100. This one is
especialy handy, since it contains not only a 8051 to run your own
interface specific code, but also a PC compatible 8237 DMA controler
(Hey, if you want to go back in time, we should realy use the old
stuff), and an almost complete ISA bus.
It's a no brainer to add ISA to any USB host capable device. At the
lowest level, just create a simple block protocoll to transmit register
read/write to the 8051, or send and return data from there.
I found it quite easy, but there may be other, better suiting chips.
Hans
--
VCF Europa 6.0 am 30.April und 01.Mai 2005 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/