20 Oct
2007
20 Oct
'07
10:33 a.m.
At 01:42 PM 10/19/2007, you wrote:
Grant Stockly wrote:
The base eZ80SBC from howard is $250. Add $100 for the disk board...
-----REPLY-----
Hi,
By the time you add in all the costs of the CPU board with IO, case, power
supply, cables, documentation, plus the specialized disk controller, AND
write most if not all of the software this project is quickly going to
become uneconomical for all but the most patient and financially well off.
You could use a throw away old 486 or Pentium II computer with ISA and/or
PCI slots to provide any interface you'd like (ethernet, SCSI, ST506, USB,
whatever) for a whole lot less time and effort. A double sided 48tpi floppy
drive will read practically any format given the right controller. The same
can be done for whatever sort of drive you'd like to test.
I have made and am using a few bench stations for testing floppy drives,
ST506/ST412 hard drives, SCSI, etc for a small fraction of what the cost you
are proposing. I am sure many others here are doing the same thing as well.
In addition, reusing old PCs effectively removes them from the waste stream
which is not only economical it is environmentally friendly as well. Get a
small enough PC and they are portable assuming you choose standard interface
for peripherals like VGA, PS/2 keyboards & mice, etc.
On top of the above, as an added bonus much of the software is already
written. You can use ImageDisk for soft sector floppy disks, SpinRite II
for ST506/ST412 hard disks, etc.
Respectfully, it seems like the proposals being discussed are reinventing
the wheel by developing and/or repurposing a new CPU and IO board rather
than reusing proven and cost effective solutions which already exist.
It is just my $0.02. Best of luck with your project. Thanks!
Andrew Lynch
What do you guys think? The thing has a
peripheral expansion header.
We could hook a modern floppy chip to that, connectors for
different drives, and off we go...
What's the cost like? Is the board made up of separate components
(CPU, ROM, RAM, USB chip, buffers for I/O, Ethernet chip etc.)?
I'd find Ethernet more useful than USB, and in an ideal world I'd
prefer a board where the functional areas are segregated (rather
than some complex and expensive single chip, where if disaster
strikes the thing basically needs throwing out and replacing as a
complete unit) 
21 Oct
21 Oct
8:47 p.m.
From: lynchaj at yahoo.com
---snip--->
Hi,> > By the time you add in all the costs of the CPU board with IO, case,
power> supply, cables, documentation, plus the specialized disk controller, AND>
write most if not all of the software this project is quickly going to> become
uneconomical for all but the most patient and financially well off.> > You could use
a throw away old 486 or Pentium II computer with ISA and/or> PCI slots to provide any
interface you'd like (ethernet, SCSI, ST506, USB,> whatever) for a whole lot less
time and effort. A double sided 48tpi floppy> drive will read practically any format
given the right controller. The same> can be done for whatever sort of drive you'd
like to test.>
Hi
Most of us have older PC's that will read most standard formats.
That isn't the issue. The Catweasel is the closest thing out there
but it is, as Dave D. says, not open documented.
As for the BlackFin processor that Dave mentions, the interface
to read data might be as simple as a 7474 chip. Writing would
require even less.
You'd need the needed line drivers to control the normal signals
like step, dir, wgate and such. Other than that, there would not
be any disk controller chip. It would all be handled by the
BlackFin chip.
The idea is to create something that would work with current
day hardware and parts. Not something that continues to depend
on obsolete technology.
Since the actual translation of the disk data is done in software,
the hardware portion would be trivial. The software can be written
in a relatively portable language like C so that it can more easily
migrate to current processors as things like the BlackFin become
obsolete.
Unless I were to get something like the CatWeasel, I can't read
the double density hard sectored disk I currently have that I'd
like to archieve. I don't know of anything else that will plug
into a PC that will do the job.
Dwight
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9:30 p.m.
On 21 Oct 2007 at 20:47, dwight elvey wrote:
Most of us have older PC's that will read most
standard formats.
That isn't the issue. The Catweasel is the closest thing out there
but it is, as Dave D. says, not open documented.
It isn't? At least from a software point of view it is--and the
operation is straightforward enough that I could probably toss one
together without too much trouble.
As a matter of fact, if you have a reasonably quick PC, I suspect
that you could probably toss something together that could hook to a
printer port that would scarcely be more than a timer and a couple of
flip-flops (and maybe some drivers) that could do the job for most
5.25" FM and MFM low-density disks.
The Catweasel, at least on the reading end, isn't rocket science.
Heck, it doesn't even use DMA and stepping is all done by banging the
STEP/ line at software-determined intervals. Compared to the
Catweasel a Deluxe Option Board is rocket science.
At least on the CW MK I and MK III, most of the board is taken up by
Amiga-realted nonsense like joystick ports and SID sockets.
Cheers,
Chuck
22 Oct
22 Oct
7:31 a.m.
From: cclist at sydex.com
---snip---
As a matter of fact, if you have a reasonably quick PC, I suspect
that you could probably toss something together that could hook to a
printer port that would scarcely be more than a timer and a couple of
Hi Chuck
I agree that it doesn't take much. The problem is that my
printer port is a USB!
I do think that a faster sample rate can help to capture data
from flakey disk.
Dwight
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10:11 a.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
As a matter of fact, if you have a reasonably quick
PC, I suspect
that you could probably toss something together that could hook to a
printer port that would scarcely be more than a timer and a couple of
flip-flops (and maybe some drivers) that could do the job for most
5.25" FM and MFM low-density disks.
Hmm, I thought all modern machines emulate a parallel port connected via an
ISA bus - i.e. it's still slow compared to the rest of the machine, and a
modern xGHz system won't drive the port any quicker than a syatem of ten years
ago...
At least on the CW MK I and MK III, most of the board
is taken up by
Amiga-realted nonsense like joystick ports and SID sockets.
That's another thing putting me off a CW... I just want a floppy-access
device, not half an Amiga thrown into the mix.
cheers
Jules
10:55 a.m.
On 22 Oct 2007 at 18:11, Jules Richardson wrote:
Then get a CW MK4 - Jens has left all of the Amiga stuff off of it.
The MK3 was interesting in that it was a "flippy" card--you could
plug it into a PCI bus or whatever the Amiga used for a bus.
As I said, it's not rocket science and even a USB catweasel reader
can probably be constructed easily with off-the-shelf components. If
a standard is needed, the only things I can really think of are the
meaning of the high-order bit (in the CW, it's the presence of the
index signal) and the clock frequency used (the CW, depending on
model, uses two or three fairly odd ones--probably related to the SID
accommodation).
Cheers,
Chuck
Hmm, I thought all modern machines emulate a parallel
port connected via an
ISA bus - i.e. it's still slow compared to the rest of the machine, and a
modern xGHz system won't drive the port any quicker than a syatem of ten years
ago...
If it's an IEEE 1284-conforming port, then it can execute at least 2M
transfers/second, which should be sufficient for most 5.25" DD and SD
floppies. If you want to get more exotic, add some RAM (like the
Catweasel) or a FIFO. Still no big deal.
At least on
the CW MK I and MK III, most of the board is taken up by
Amiga-realted nonsense like joystick ports and SID sockets.
That's another thing putting me off a CW... I just want a floppy-access
device, not half an Amiga thrown into the mix. 
3:26 p.m.
On 10/23/07, Ensor <classiccmp at memory-alpha.org.uk> wrote:
Hi,
Yes... Zorro was the name for the 100-pin Amiga system bus. "Zorro I"
refers to mostly-square cards for a very few expansion products for
the A-1000. I saw one, once, in 1986. Mostly what you are likely to
see are "Zorro II" cards - PC-form-factor, with lots more pins, and on
the opposite end of the card - allowing products like the GG2 Bus+ to
exist (which has along one edge, ISA *and* Zorro II fingers).
-ethan
....The MK3 was interesting in that it was a
"flippy" card--you
could plug it into a PCI bus or whatever the Amiga used for a
bus.
"Zorro" rings a bell there....
3:20 p.m.
On 10/23/07, Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
Hmm, I thought all modern machines emulate a parallel
port connected via an
ISA bus
Perhaps you've been skipping the recent thread where we've been
beating this topic to death?
Macs have never had parallel printer ports, not even the new Intel Mac
Pros. PC-type laptops made in the past two years aren't coming with
parallel ports, and rack-mount x86 hardware made in the past, what, 5?
years haven't come with them.
So far, most PC desktops still come with a DB25 parallel port, but I
think even that's no longer universal.
-ethan
5:13 p.m.
Hi,
So far, most PC desktops still come with a DB25
parallel port,
but I think even that's no longer universal.
I've seen one or two motherboards advertised over the past year which have
no serial/parallel ports and something like 8 USB2 ports on the back panel
instead....oh, and NO floppy support at all!
I suspect that's the direction things are headed in the future.
TTFN - Pete.
5:27 p.m.
On 23 Oct 2007 at 1:13, Ensor wrote:
I suspect that's the direction things are headed
in the future.
I agree. Add to that the decreasing popularity of desktop systems.
I've seen loaded desktop Athlon 64 systems selling for about $250
shipped lately. Some of the silly prices that people selling old
used systems on Craigslist remind me of the real-estate market.
Soon, a desktop system will bear a distinct similarity to a Mac Mini.
o floppy, no legacy mouse, keyboard, printer or serial interface--and
pretty much use-and-discard.
Cheers,
Chuck
5 Nov
5 Nov
4:13 p.m.
So far, most PC desktops still come with a DB25
parallel port,
but I think even that's no longer universal.
Just looked at the back of the machine on my desktop...
4x USB
1x IEEE 1394
2x ESATA
1x VGA
1x HDMI
1x 1000bTX
+ analog and digital audio I/O
More audio, USB and IEEE 1394 on the front panel
That I didn't need to look for a parallel port before now tells me
that most new desktops don't need it, and probably won't ship with it.
I can't even remember the last time I saw a printer for sale that had
the possibility for parallel I/O.
Of course that's no reason not to develop a universal floppy interface
with parallel capability... You can just use USB to IEEE 1284
converter for a usb interface. A USB-1284 converter with a 6 foot USB
cable costs less than a 6 foot IEEE 1284 cable anyway.
Eric
22 Oct
22 Oct
8:55 p.m.
Ethan Dicks wrote:
On 10/23/07, Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at
yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
That thread's not recent.
It's, uhhh, parallel.
Doc
Hmm, I thought all modern machines emulate a
parallel port connected via an
ISA bus
Perhaps you've been skipping the recent thread where we've been
beating this topic to death? 
23 Oct
23 Oct
2:11 a.m.
On Tue, 23 Oct 2007, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Pros. PC-type laptops made in the past two years
aren't coming with
parallel ports, and rack-mount x86 hardware made in the past, what, 5?
Well if you buy those cheap 500 EUR laptops then maybe you don't get
neither a parallel nor a serial port. But good business notebooks (like
the HP/Compaq NC6320 bought last year) have both (that was BTW the reason
why I had chosen this model over e.g. a Thinkpad).
So far, most PC desktops still come with a DB25
parallel port, but I
think even that's no longer universal.
YGWYPF.
On the other hand the ExSys cards (or other cards with e.g. ax OX16PCI954)
are really nice (four serial plus one parallel). As nearly everything is
integrated on board today, such cards will finally render the mostly
useless slots useful again.
Christian
2:28 a.m.
Ethan Dicks wrote:
On 10/23/07, Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at
yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
Ahh. I meant that I thought all PC-type machines *with a parallel port*
present it to the system as though it were an ISA-connected port (as in the
original PC) and *not* a high-speed I/O port running at close to the system's
main bus speed - i.e. using a new machine with a parallel port doesn't give
you any speed advantage over using a machine from ten years ago with a
parallel port.
That could well be wrong, in light of what Chuck said. I know that more modern
ports are capable of higher rates using different modes - but I thought those
were purely for point-to-point data transfer between port and device, and not
really suited to twiddling individual port lines at high speed. BICBW :-)
Finding a new system with a parallel port is a separate challenge. I miss my
old Thinkpad laptop as there's no useful ports on this crappy Dell :-(
cheers
J.
Hmm, I thought all modern machines emulate a
parallel port connected via an
ISA bus
Perhaps you've been skipping the recent thread where we've been
beating this topic to death? 
7:52 a.m.
Ahh. I meant that I thought all PC-type machines
*with a parallel
port* present it to the system as though it were an ISA-connected
port (as in the original PC) and *not* a high-speed I/O port running
at close to the system's main bus speed - i.e. using a new machine
with a parallel port doesn't give you any speed advantage over using
a machine from ten years ago with a parallel port.
I don't see how the one follows from the other. Just because its
CPU-facing interface looks like an ISA bus's doesn't necessarily mean
that there is anywhere, even internal to some chip, that actually has
ISA bus signals - and, in particular, it doesn't necessarily mean that
anything limits its speed to ISA bus speeds.
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