To: mdj mdj wrote:
A (perhaps) cheaper approach would be to use FTDI's Vinculum chip which provides USB host, FAT filesystem support and a simplistic command interface to control those from the embedded system over SPI, UART or parallel FIFO interfaces, all on a $30 DIP module that's a doddle to interface to the Apple II bus. Simply add a bus transceiver, quad NAND or two for IOSEL decoding and a ROM and you're operational pretty quickly. It's no longer something that's complicated or expensive to do.
Hey Matt,I have had my eye on this chip ever since it came out ... sector level access which is what I was originally interested in has never graduated past debug status.
I'd be interested in hearing how you'd implement a ProDOS block device driver on top of their FAT file system support. I always thought their command protocol would be kind of ugly to implement for that purpose but I never actually made the attempt.
I think RedSkull said he would take a whack at it but I don't think he ever posted his results/findings.
Glenn