Tim's own version of the Catweasel/Compaticard/whatever

From: CLASSICCMP_at_trailing-edge.com <(CLASSICCMP_at_trailing-edge.com)>
Date: Tue Jul 4 15:53:52 2000

>The only problem I'd point out is the the 9500 series CPLD's drive only 8 mA
>per output and, unless you were planning to pair them up, i.e. use multiple
>pins tied together to drive the FD cable, you might have problems.

The biggest problem is with the outputs that'll drive the floppy disk bus.
Typically it's an open-collector output terminated to +5V with 150 ohms, so
you have to be able to sink 30 mA or so. So yes, this may be a concern.
(Or you can cheat and tie the lines high with "only" 220 or 300 or 470 ohms -
shouldn't be a big problem as long as there's only one drive on the bus.)

Do any CPLD's have "real" open-collector outputs, or can you fake it by
sending the output into tristate mode? (I'm asking this as a guy who's
never designed with CPLD's but does know 74XX00 series logic pretty
well.) I don't think it's an issue either way with exactly one controller
and one floppy drive on the bus.

-- 
 Tim Shoppa                        Email: shoppa_at_trailing-edge.com
 Trailing Edge Technology          WWW:   http://www.trailing-edge.com/
 7328 Bradley Blvd		   Voice: 301-767-5917
 Bethesda, MD, USA 20817           Fax:   301-767-5927
Received on Tue Jul 04 2000 - 15:53:52 BST

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Fri Oct 10 2014 - 23:32:56 BST