On 12 Nov 1998, Eric Smith wrote:
> The basic concept would be to simply sample the MFM (or RLL) channel
> code at somewhere around 50 MHz as it is being written, and store the
> data on the ATA drive. The interface would keep one track buffered in
> RAM. Whenever the host requests a head change or seek, the buffer would
> be written to the ATA drive (if it is dirty), and reloaded with the data
> for the new track.
>
> This would require a much larger ATA drive than the original drive it is
> emulating, 102K bytes per track. To emulate a Maxtor 2190, this requires a 2G
> ATA drive. You could even emulate drives larger than that by emulating more
> cylinders.
This is an intriguing concept. But would it be any more difficult to
decode the data being written by the MFM controller and written digitally
on the IDE drive to improve efficiency? Would this make reading the data
back difficult?
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar_at_siconic.com
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Received on Wed Nov 11 1998 - 23:02:54 GMT