Parallel drive (was: USB 5.25" floppy drive - do it

From: Dwight K. Elvey <dwight.elvey_at_amd.com>
Date: Fri Jun 11 19:35:54 2004

Hi
 I doubt one can fetch data with most PC's from the parallel
port fast enough to keep from being overrun, even on a byte
wise basis. That is why I've suggest the DSP. May of these can
run fast enough to do it on a BIT wise basis and
require no external hardware, other than buffers.
Dwight

>From: "Steven Canning" <cannings_at_earthlink.net>
>
>I've been looking into this for some time. The parallel port lacks the
>"through-put" to take the data on and off the floppy as serial data (as it
>comes off the drive "raw") but if you added some hardware (like a Western
>Digital FD controller) it will separate the data and convert it to
>"parallel" data which the parallel port can support. The inverse is also
>true (parallel data back to serial to fed the drive). The FDC can handle the
>Single density issue. Processing power of the computer is not an issue
>unless you have a painfully slow machine. I wish I had more time to work on
>this project. Anyone have the Kilobaud article were someone connected a FDD
>to a Heathkit ET-3400 ?
>
>Best regards, Steven
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Fred Cisin" <cisin_at_xenosoft.com>
>To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
><cctalk_at_classiccmp.org>
>Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2004 2:55 PM
>Subject: Parallel drive (was: USB 5.25" floppy drive - do it
>
>
>> On Thu, 10 Jun 2004, Jules Richardson wrote:
>> > Not sure if such as a PC parallel port is fast enough to cope with the
>> > data rate of a floppy drive and leave enough time for the CPU to do the
>> > processing though... but that'd be nice; little more than a cable and a
>> > bit of glue logic hooked up to a parallel port that could be quickly
>> > swapped between machines.
>>
>> MicroSolutions (DeKalb IL) in their "BackPack" line, made parallel port
>> floppy drives. I have a 2.8M 3.5" from them, but they also made a lot of
>> other models.
>>
>
>
>
Received on Fri Jun 11 2004 - 19:35:54 BST