From: Jim Brain (brain_at_jbrain.com)
Date: 2008-03-06 17:00:33
Marko Mäkelä wrote:
> As an improvement to my original idea, it is not strictly necessary
> to have an extra input to the device. It could keep serving the loaders
> in a round-robin fashion (e.g., C64, VIC-20, C16, C128, PET) until the
> computer gives a special signal that indicates that the loader has
> started. The loader would implement a special protocol that allows
> random access to the file system.
>
I apologize, I didn't catch your inference that this "loader" would
handle such things.
> The only advantage of this over the serial bus based solutions is that it
> would work on any Commodore that is equipped with a tape port. (Okay,
> except the B series, whose KERNAL lacks tape routines.)
>
I vote to just add IEEE support to an IEC-based interface. Most AVRs
have some extra IO (OK, the Tiny series is IO challenged, but that's by
design, an M16 would have plenty of room). I have plans to implement
IEEE in one of my interfaces here, it's just not been the highest
priority (IEC gets more air time). However, I'd rather see IEEE
implemented than fiddle with the tape port. One that is done (and I can
make the two interfaces co-exist on the design and the firmware), then
you'd have an interface that does not require any host code, implements
a disk drive interface, and supports all CBM 8-bit machines (including
the SX64 and the B, which lack tape ports, and the speeder crowd, who
normally lose tape routines when a speeder is banked in.
And, the HW interface would work with GPIB (HPIB), but maybe the
firmware would need some tweaks. Still, firmware revisions are cheap,
and the market for the hardware might go up.
Jim
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