17 May
2013
17 May
'13
1:12 p.m.
On May 17, 2013, at 3:38 PM, Dave McGuire wrote:
Unless you have a microcontroller that has CML-based gigabit transceivers
(and some do, specifically usually for either PCIe or SATA), "lucky" is a
vast understatement. But SATA *is* pretty ATA-like once you get past the
physical layer; it's essentially ATA encapsulated over a different
transport layer. Of course, initializing the transceiver usually takes
more code than the entire ATA driver did, so there's that.
And yes, ATA and its derivatives are distasteful compared to their more
refined and less commercially successful cousins (or, at best, their
niche-market-successful cousins, which is not really the same as not
successful), but the drives exist, are plentiful and are cheap. If you
want to get a machine running and are stymied by lack of functioning
drives (which is increasingly the case for me with SCSI disks), having
even a crappy alternative is a godsend.
I should point out that I traded for a Power Mac 8600 with a Mac-
bootable IDE card with (IDE-speaking) CF cards attached with Cory, so
I know he's familiar with the problem. :-)
I, for one, would welcome some sort of easily available PDP-8 IDE or
SATA adaptor, but I don't have a PDP-8 yet. So I'm hardly going to
push the market one way or another.
- Dave
True. I'm
just not too fond of IDE. ;)
Oh, IDE blows dog, there's no question about that amongst people who have
any technical clue whatsoever. But it IS easy to interface to...I've even
done it (as have many others) with a microcontroller and a few dozen lines of
code. Try doing that with (for example) SATA...one would be lucky to even
get the physical layer talking. There is *nothing* ATA-like about SATA
beyond the name.