HEXTIr - TI HexBus SD Drive

[Jim Brain]

In case anyone has a fondness for niche tech...

At VCF-SE this year, the TI folks had a great exhibit, and perusing it I 
saw an unfamiliar machine, the TI CC-40 (Compact Computer-40).  While I 
was investigating, the exhibitor (MillipedeMan aka Mark), told me the 
machines were frustrating to use, as TI only supported one 
communications method on the unit, a proprietary protocol called HexBus, 
and produced very low quantities of very few peripherals that work on 
the bus. Most frustratingly, they never producing a mass storage device 
in any appreciable quantity, and there was no other way to save programs 
written on the unit.

Mark did note there was an eBay seller liquidating units, so I bought a 
2 unit combo from eBay before I left the show.

Sadly, Summer happened, but I was finally able to get to the unit, and 
started working on an SD-based mass storage device for the unit.  It was 
an interesting journey to learn a new protocol.

The (development in progress) result is HEX-TI-r, the HexBus SD drive:

GitHub source code is here: https://github.com/go4retro/HEXTIr

Video of unit operating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LX5ahVCRdvM

I don't have a project page up yet, but will work on that.

Jim

-- 

Jim Brain
brain at jbrain.com
www.jbrain.com