On 7/26/07, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Does anyone make an interface card that will permit a "thumb drive" to be
addressed by the classic machines?
The other is that I remmeber seeing adverts in Elektor magazine for a
device so use USB flash memory sticks with microcontrollers. IIRC it was
called something like 'Vinculum', and looked to be a panel mounting
module with an IDE socket on it that you pluged the flash memory stick
into.
The one that gives you a UART or SPI interface to a FAT-formatted USB
thumb drive is at
http://www.vinculum.com/prd_vdrive1.html
From their online store, looks to be about 14 quid.
Dunno about the IDE socket, though.
The interface to the microcontroller was SPI or
something equally
simple, and it should be possible to bit-bang that on most classic
machines. I am not sure of the higher level bits of the protocol, but
presumanly it's documenented...
It's documented and meant to attach to microcontrollers. One could, I
think, rather easily attach one to a 1980s micro as well.
I haven't used one, but the docs seem to suggest it's easy to use.
-ethan