It could be used internally by piggy backing on the existing internal
drive connector. The Smartport interface does not care about the drive
select that would be different on the internal connector.
What wouldn't work, would be hooking an external smartport drive up.
This is because the smartport init method relies on the each drive in
the chain opening up a latch that stops one of the phase lines being
through connected to the next drive. As each drive in the chain
responds to the init packet, it through connects the phase line to the
next drive.
I could implement this behaviour if it is used as an external drive,
it would just need and extra i/o line.
I had a quick look inside my //c. If you were to use a micro SD card,
i believe it would fit through one of the slots in the back. There may
be enough room in the back to fit the board and run a ribbon cable to
the internal drive connector. Perhaps it could be made to detect if a
card is inserted, and if not, disable itself. That way an external
drive could be used if needed.
Thanks for the link to the connectors Sean, although i would need the
male version. I'll contact them and see if they are also available.
And i'll email you about the possibility of getting a unidisk from you
to test.
Is there a preference for either CF or SD card?