idea for a universal disk interface

[Fred Cisin]

On Wed, 13 Apr 2022, shadoooo via cctech wrote:
> The main board should include a large enough array of bidirectional 
> transceivers, possibly with variable voltage, to support as much 
> interfaces as possible, namely at least Shugart floppy, ST506 MFM/RLL, 
> ESDI, SMD, IDE, SCSI1, DEC DSSI, DEC RX01/02, DG6030, and so on, to give 
> a starting point.

Hmmm. rather than re-inventing the wheel, as we usually do, . . .

It may be possible to accomplish a subset of those, specifically including 
Shugart floppy, ST506/412 MFM, RLL, ESDI, IDE, SASI, SCSI by repurposing 
certain commercial hardware.

You would have a collection of boards, that you would remove/insert into a 
connector.

The main board would have RAM, and a ROM for certain basic (and BASIC?) 
functions, but would load software for various modules and output results 
to and from one or more interfaces that remain connected.

I don't doubt that you could design a far better system, but there already 
exists a crude version, ready to implement!

It has a marginal power supply, and it has a poorly designed group of 8 
62 pin connectors for the interfaces, although some of those would need to 
be dedicated for other functions of the device, including user interface 
hardware.  Some software is already available, but some crude tools are 
available for creating more.

It says "IBM", "5160" on the back panel label, although there were plenty 
of generic second sources.
The updated "5170" version of it could be more easily set up even for USB.