DEC RK07 drive interface specs wanted

From: Tony Duell <ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sat May 15 18:20:06 2004

> Don't remind me of the sudden death of my /home disk last week...=20
> (I had a backup.)
>
> > Mechanical parts can be rebuilt....
> Including crashed heads? ;-)

Hmmm.. Certainly the heads can be replaced at home, but that assumes you
have the right replacements. I think making heads is beyond a home
workshop, but I would love to be proved wrong (and probably will be
sometime -- _never_ underestimate what a hacker can do if he tries...)


>
> > I hate to say this, but you're proposing replacing one device (the old
> > disk drive) with maintenance problems with another device with even
> > worse maintenance problems (do you believe that CF cards and the same
> > FPGAs will be available in 20 years time??)
> No. But I have the design so I can stick the entire design into a single
> FPGA in 20 years to rebuild my replacement with then current technology.

Anybody who believes that designs will port to a new FPGA without
problems has almost certainly never tried to do this. I speak from bitter
experience...

> Programming a FPGA is a lot less expensive then building a new
> machinical drive.

That depends on thw tools you have and what you'd need to get. Certainly
programming an FPGA for me would be _very_ expensive and time-consuming.
I think I could make a floppy drive (not a hard drive...) -- apart from
the heads themselves -- in less time, and certainly for less cost.

> > Personally, I find a soldering iron to be a lot easier to use (and=20
> > quicker for small changes, bug fixes, etc) than any FPGA software I've
> > seen.=20
> Depends, IMHO.

I have bitter memories of compiles that took all night, and which had
totally mangled my circuit so I then had to spend a day or so sorting out
the mess. And then repeating when I needed to make some small change. No
thanks...

-tony
Received on Sat May 15 2004 - 18:20:06 BST