Software-based floppy disc data separator

On 16/06/10 23:31, Keith wrote: "Bender, you said 'wink wink' out loud!" "No I didn't... raise middle finger..." :) Interesting -- the SX2DEV can transfer data that quickly? Or are you dumping to FRAM then reading the FRAM data back to the host in some way? Ah wait -- that schematic's out of date. A 2Mbit serial link to an FTDI chip, then onto USB? Not bad. I'm dumping a track at a time to static RAM, then dumping the SRAM to the PC over a USB link. Unfortunately it's only USB Full Speed (10Mbps give or take), so the peak transfer rate with protocol overheads is, at best, 500Kbytes/sec. In theory the DiscFerret could be made to do that, but I'd need to add bus arbitration logic to allow the PIC and analyser to share the bus. At the moment I'm taking the easy way out: no arbitration, one at a time, the PIC transfers the data after it's all been acquired. I'll need to add an arbiter later on anyway -- the Mk2 disc writer engine needs to go in, and that needs access to the SRAM too. Shouldn't be too hard though. I do note with some interest that the SPS are getting quite far along with the "Kryoflux" reader, which is supposedly going to be open-source. Given the fact that their capture and analysis stuff is still very hush-hush despite promises of OSS releases and more information on it, I'm taking their statements with a pinch of salt... -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/