Reading ESDI disks

Al Kossow aek at bitsavers.org
Thu Feb 11 14:59:19 CST 2021


On 2/11/21 12:51 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
> On 2/11/21 12:36 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
> 
>> To what extent are ESDI controllers interchangeable with already written drives?
> 
> That is completely unknown, since no one ever published any data about it.
> 
> It is likely that anything using the same chipsets will be similar, but beyond that
> no information is known.
> 
> The IBM controller in the RT did use a commercial chipset and they just added a bus
> mastering DMA controller.
> 

Another possibility is looking at the driver in the AIS sources. That's been
on my list to do, next to disassembling the controller code.

I don't know if it's possible to pull data out of the sector buffer without DMA

That would simplify hacking something together to try to use the board in a PC




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