PZ wrote:
IWM's are available in quantity from surplus chip vendors. Its amazing how long some of these dated chips hang around in inventory. This is how Henry got a track on SWIM chips.
Good to know. Maybe I can find a vendor that doesn't want me to take 1000 of them at the least.
As far as cloning the Universal Controller, this might be an easier way to go rather than trying to do the whole SuperDrive controller. Then if someone ever gets around to releasing a USB card, 1.44 firmware is all that would be needed for 1.44M floppy capability. I think the complexity of these projects arise when the designers try to mix GCR and MFM might be much easier to keep them seperate.
That's what I figured. The Superdrive card seemed to be a bit above my skills.
There is one additional piece of custom logic on the Universal Controller, I don't know if thats a chip thats sourcable or not. However its likely that its something that can be found in other hardware, for a one-off project. I'll try to get more info.
Thanks! If you (or anybody else) could come up with a schematic and/or a set of photographs that are good enough to figure things out, that would help too of course; it's a bit hard to clone a card you can't get a hold of...
(But of course this is only an idea at the moment, maybe it'll come to nothing. So don't hold your breath, and don't go out of your way for this just to be nice.)
-- Linards Ticmanis