You mean like these? [0][1][2][3][4] Personally, while I think real hardware is great, I've resolved to mostly using emulation. I mean, if I had access to USB, WiFi, Flash, SSD, NVMe, SATA 30 years ago, I would have used it. So, why shouldn't I use it now to run old software better than I could have imagined back then?
[0] https://github.com/tjmnmk/gadget_cdrom [1] https://magpi.raspberrypi.org/articles/pi-zero-w-smart-usb-flash-drive [2] https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=213309 [3] https://www.insentricity.com/a.cl/244/adding-a-hard-drive-to-an-original-ibm-pc-using-a-raspberry-pi [4] https://hackaday.io/project/20774-netpi-ide On Fri, Oct 2, 2020 at 10:57 PM Jon Brase <jon.br...@gmail.com> wrote: > > One thing I'd really like to see is a single board computer that plugs into a > USB and/or SATA cable on one end and a pair of PATA cables and a floppy cable > on the other. You put a multi-terabyte hard drive or SSD (or several of them) > at the USB/SATA end, and an old PC at the PATA end, then stuff the hard drive > full of disk images. You then have software on the SBC that can receive ATAPI > commands over the PATA cable to set which images get presented on the ATA and > floppy cables, and some management software whatever operating systems you > want to run on the PC that can issue those commands (or maybe a bootloader > that can switch images). That way, if you're multi-booting, you don't have to > worry about finding space to fit everything on an 8 GIB drive if one of your > OSes (or your BIOS) can't handle anything larger: you just give each such OS > its own 8 GiB image, which the SBC presents to the PC as a hard drive. > > I've seen similar floppy-only projects that allowed the user to select a > floppy image on a USB stick with a pair of next image / previous image > buttons, but never something on as grand a scale as described above, where > the goal is to serve all of an old PC's storage interfaces with images stored > on a single modern drive. > > > -------- Original message -------- > From: Michael Brutman <mbbrut...@brutman.com> > Date: 10/2/2020 21:38 (GMT-06:00) > To: "Discussion and general questions about FreeDOS." > <freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> > Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] Modern add-ons for ancient PC > > The retrocomputing crowd has a lot of these projects now, and they generally > work. Most are based on open source designs so the quality will vary from > vendor to vendor. > > The 8 bit IDE cards for example are based on a project called XT-IDE that I > was part of back in 2008/2009. (See the genesis of the project at > http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?12359-8-Bit-IDE-Controller . The > original version of the card had the traces optimized on my work laptop while > it was idling.) > > If I were buying an XT-IDE I would be getting it from > https://www.glitchwrks.com/xt-ide. I haven't purchased any of the recent > variants; all mine are gen 1 from the first production run. And I've not > tried out memory boards but they are generally known to work; they are not > particularly complicated. > > > Mike > > > On Thu, Oct 1, 2020 at 4:34 AM Eric Auer <e.a...@jpberlin.de> wrote: >> >> >> Hi! Mentioned in a video mentioned by Rugxulo on BTTR, >> I noticed that there is a shop where you can get some >> circuit boards to do-it-yourself 8-bit ISA extension >> cards for your ancient computers for features such as >> more RAM, IDE or Compact Flash interfaces or even USB >> interfaces which are bootable. Interesting technical >> detail: They use EEPROMS which you can program without >> using a programmer, just with magic write sequences. >> >> Has anybody tried any of those products? Are they okay >> for the task at hand? Note that the shop usually has >> only the PCB, not the pre-built devices, so you have >> to get the components elsewhere and solder yourself in >> most cases. They also have a few ready to use products. >> >> https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/product-category/retro-ibm-pc/ >> >> Cheers, Eric >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Freedos-user mailing list >> Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
