10 Sep
2007
10 Sep
'07
11:54 a.m.
As for storage,
obviously some flavor of FLASH is great for most
things. CF is easy to interface to, and CF cards 1GB and smaller are
quite inexpensive. MMC/SD are also inexpensive and even easier to
interface to, with a bit more work on the driver side to man the SPI
interface.
None of the above for cost or availability reasons. I'd opt for IDE
using one of the many 40-500mb drives I have. You envision what sould like a Laptop. I can't
easily fabricate that
but a toteable like Kaypro, Osborne and a few others is very doable.
You might want to look at some of the "Laptops" that others have built for
things such as the Amiga. It might not be as difficult as you might think.
The basic machine description is a 128kW using 32kx8
static parts (8pcs),
Boot roms/ODT, MMU, two serial, parallel (PC conpatable for printer)
and IDE disk. Things like OS in Eprom have surfaced to my idea pool
to consider especially if it were not RT11 (CUBIX influence). Terminal
logic would be VK170 (base VT52 on a dual size card) and a monitor in
the 7-9" size.
Right now it's a static project from the build it perspective but
as new ideas surface and other projects supply different expereinces
it morphs some. What I'd have built say 6 years ago and noew would
be very different. It will eventually get attention as I have parts
stored away for it.
Sounds fun.
Zane