Machine Independent Storage Idea...

Simon Fryer wrote: Hmm, I'd much prefer that to USB; USB is a comms mechanism not a storage system - using CF cards means that a bridge to all sorts of common interfaces is possible (and in the case of things like USB and IDE such bridges exist already). Question: do CF cards support 8 bit transfers though, and are they guaranteed to do so? IDE interfaces have been homebrewed to a lot of vintage machines, but quite often they only support drives that'll do 8 bit data transfers. Remember that the most common gadget found on old machines though is the floppy drive - and that generally-speaking they're *reasonably* standardised at the electrical interface. Typically that's the only device which is bootable, and for which controlling software exists within whatever passes for an OS on the machine, too. Maybe the sensible thing to do is make a gadget which looks like a floppy drive to a vintage system but which holds data on more modern storage (USB stick, CF card etc.) or allows for a comms link to a modern machine. I can't help feeling that requiring the building of a proprietary card for every different system and the writing of drivers for it on that system is a heck of a lot of work! It's IDE on a smaller pin pitch I think. Certainly there's no smarts to the IDE-CF convertor that I have here - CF socket, power socket, IDE socket, a capacitor, and a jumper for master/slave. That's it. And like SCSI, interfacing to IDE is mainly a software issue - the hardware tends to be a few buffers and little more. cheers Jules -- there's a carp in the tub there's a carp in the tub so nobody's taken a bath