Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!linac!uwm.edu!wuarchive!psuvax1!rutgers!ub.d.umn.edu!cs.umn.edu!mosquito!rennolet
From: rennolet@mosquito (Rennolet (Kumar))
Newsgroups: comp.sys.nsc.32k
Subject: Re: Intel-based floppy controller
Summary: Another possibility
Message-ID: <1990Nov29.144925.3516@cs.umn.edu>
Date: 29 Nov 90 14:49:25 GMT
References: <9011280218.AA24024@Shiva.COM> <1990Nov28.224659.862@lth.se>
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Reply-To: rennolet@mosquito.UUCP (Rennolet (Kumar))
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In article <1990Nov28.224659.862@lth.se> xrolfa@dna.lth.se (Rolf Andersson) writes:
>
>>I've recently found out about the Zilog Z80180 (aka Z180) which is a
.... stuff deleted to conserve bandwidth ...
>
>How about a board with a 64180, a 2797 floppy cont., 512K ram, 32K eprom,
>centronics port and a NCR5380 SCSI controller?
.... stuff deleted to conserve bandwidth ...
>And if anyone can help me getting the parts cheap the better. Because
>here in Sweden components are expensive (10MHz 64180 = $45).
>
>The board could also drive a floppy compatible tape drive. I have an
>second hand IRWIN-125 with some manuals.
>
>Happy Hacking
>
>Rolf 

I have a design which I did a few years ago which has: an 80188 (blush!)
a 5380, a FDC (I can't for the life of me remember which.  But I'm pretty
sure it was the DP8473) a signetics 2681, a 32K ram and an EPROM.  I used
it to put a 3.5in diskette drive onto a machine I had which had SCSI but
no 3.5in drive.  It worked, after a fashion (not fast, but reliable if you
stuck to the subset which worked.) and would format, write, and read
720K IBM format diskettes.  That's all I had a need for at the time.  I'm
sure the design would work for 1.44M floppies as well.  I'd be happy to
share my design if you are interested.  Most of the code was written in C.
The whole board fit on a 3.5in form-factor wire-wrap board.

charles@thurse.MN.ORG
rennolet@umn-ai.cs.umn.edu