three 'where to find?' hardware questons....

story is that I'm just more of sketching this mini-system idea into 
notes and quick diagrams on paper but if it seem good enough and not 
that expensive I might try get it onto a prototype board at some date.

where would one find a supplier of floppy controllers?
(I only could find old database pages underneath a lot of linux faq 
sites so....I had to wonder)

if you had used any what was your choice of ide controller? (name too)

is Texas Instruments the only supplier or someone else also makes 
firewire PHY and host controller ics?  (I'm looking for the 1349A 
100/200/400mbps type)

well thats all I can think of right now, thanks very much for any help.

oh yeah one last thing: I'm from north america

p.s=I'm not using the x86 architecture so I don't have simplification of 
their chipsets features choice hence the ide/floppy questions for one

dr wrote:
> story is that I'm just more of sketching this mini-system idea into 
> notes and quick diagrams on paper but if it seem good enough and not 
> that expensive I might try get it onto a prototype board at some date.
> 
> where would one find a supplier of floppy controllers?
> (I only could find old database pages underneath a lot of linux faq 
> sites so....I had to wonder)
> 
> if you had used any what was your choice of ide controller? (name too)

Winbond W83877F works good, cheap, ttl bus,
IDE, floppy and 2 serial ports.  $4.16, no
stock, 5 weeks on Arrow website.  Documentation
kinda sucks.

Be warned that you *will* pull your hair out
writing the floppy driver.  The chip is based
on the old NEC upd765, perhaps one of the least
programmer-friendly chips I've ever seen.  Can
you say "you have to check flags to see if it's
safe to check flags?"  I knew you could (:

> is Texas Instruments the only supplier or someone else also makes 
> firewire PHY and host controller ics?  (I'm looking for the 1349A 
> 100/200/400mbps type)
> 
> well thats all I can think of right now, thanks very much for any help.
> 
> oh yeah one last thing: I'm from north america
> 
> p.s=I'm not using the x86 architecture so I don't have simplification of 
> their chipsets features choice hence the ide/floppy questions for one
> 

> ... old NEC upd765, perhaps one of the least
> programmer-friendly chips I've ever seen.  Can
> you say "you have to check flags to see if it's
> safe to check flags?"  I knew you could (:

You bring me 20 years back... On a 1 MHz 6809,
bringing the 765 (the original one... and I will not contradict
your description) to work at HD (1.2/1.44M) drives,
without using DMA, was pretty challenging, but
it did work...

Dimiter

------------------------------------------------------
Dimiter Popoff               Transgalactic Instruments

http://www.tgi-sci.com
------------------------------------------------------

Didi wrote:

>>... old NEC upd765, perhaps one of the least
>>programmer-friendly chips I've ever seen.  Can
>>you say "you have to check flags to see if it's
>>safe to check flags?"  I knew you could (:
> 
> 
> You bring me 20 years back... On a 1 MHz 6809,
> bringing the 765 (the original one... and I will not contradict
> your description) to work at HD (1.2/1.44M) drives,
> without using DMA, was pretty challenging, but
> it did work...

Definitely makes you an "Old Geek" (:

> story is that I'm just more of sketching this mini-system idea into
> notes and quick diagrams on paper but if it seem good enough and not
> that expensive I might try get it onto a prototype board at some date.
>
> where would one find a supplier of floppy controllers?
> (I only could find old database pages underneath a lot of linux faq
> sites so....I had to wonder)
>
> if you had used any what was your choice of ide controller? (name too)
>
> is Texas Instruments the only supplier or someone else also makes
> firewire PHY and host controller ics?  (I'm looking for the 1349A
> 100/200/400mbps type)
>
> well thats all I can think of right now, thanks very much for any help.
>
> oh yeah one last thing: I'm from north america
>
> p.s=I'm not using the x86 architecture so I don't have simplification of
> their chipsets features choice hence the ide/floppy questions for one
>

You might consider the "ALFAT" chip which you can get from Saelig. This
would let you store your data on a CF, MMC or SD card which is a lot more
convenient these days than floppy discs: it does all the FAT work for you. I
haven't used them but others here have recommended them.

    Andrew

dr wrote:

> story is that I'm just more of sketching this mini-system idea into 
> notes and quick diagrams on paper but if it seem good enough and not 
> that expensive I might try get it onto a prototype board at some date.
> 
> where would one find a supplier of floppy controllers?
> (I only could find old database pages underneath a lot of linux faq 
> sites so....I had to wonder)
> 

http://www.smsc.com/main/catalog/fdc37c78.html

> if you had used any what was your choice of ide controller? (name too)
> 
A "controller" is kind of over kill. Its a simple parallel interface.
If you have a 8-bit parallel buss, there are lots of bit-banged interfaces.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&q=IDE+disk+controller+schematic

> is Texas Instruments the only supplier or someone else also makes 
> firewire PHY and host controller ics?  (I'm looking for the 1349A 
> 100/200/400mbps type)
> 
> well thats all I can think of right now, thanks very much for any help.
> 
> oh yeah one last thing: I'm from north america
> 
> p.s=I'm not using the x86 architecture so I don't have simplification of 
> their chipsets features choice hence the ide/floppy questions for one
> 

hello there again

andrew: thanks for the suggestion but then again I'll like to get a disk
drive in as its the most conventional small file sharing way for me now 
considering I own two pre-pci macintoshs' as well

donald & jim: thanks for the two links from both of you, I've looked at 
the pdf files for both and decided to go after the smsc ones

didi: at least lets hope I don't even have to touch my hair hehe