Reverse memory-stick VFAT

[Clifford Heath]

Quite a lot of devices will accept a memory stick or USB hard drive,
like for example an Android TV that has recording functionality.
Why oh why won't it record to a NAS over WiFi? Probably for
copyright reasons.

However, why not interface an ESP8266 as a USB client, and
*interpret* a remote file system as if it was a block device with
a VFAT formatted file system? That way, the TV could record onto
a "USB stick" when it's really saving onto your NAS over WiFi.
You'd need to implement a "reverse VFAT" file system, but that
doesn't sound impossible.

Just a project idea for some enthusiastic chap. Could be a nice
little money spinner too.

Clifford Heath.

[Zac Faragher]

I'd had a very similar idea a few years back - have a USB device that's basically just a Wi-Fi Dongle, but presents itself as a File System so you can stream content off a NAS or another computer.

Nothing came of it, and it was about the time that AndroidTV devices were first kicking off as well, so there wasn't really any point.

-Zac F

Clifford Heath.

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[russm]

On Fri, Jun 16, 2017 at 06:10:40PM +1000, Clifford Heath wrote:
>
> However, why not interface an ESP8266 as a USB client, and
> *interpret* a remote file system as if it was a block device with
> a VFAT formatted file system? That way, the TV could record onto
> a "USB stick" when it's really saving onto your NAS over WiFi.
> You'd need to implement a "reverse VFAT" file system, but that
> doesn't sound impossible.

There's at least one existing implementation of a directory-backed
virtual FAT block device to crib from, in QEMU.

https://qemu.weilnetz.de/doc/qemu-doc.html#disk_005fimages_005ffat_005fimages

Of course it comes with a whole bunch of caveats, and *really* doesn't
like having the backing store change after it's generated the FAT
structures for the virtual block device.

[Luke Weston]

The ESP8266 can boot into an SDIO mode (you need to put GPIO15 into
the right state, and connect the SPI/SDIO lines where you would
normally have the SPI flash, no flash chip is used. See datasheet.)
So in theory that could be used to give you a wireless interface to
your digital camera or whatever, like commercial WiFi SDIO card
products. (I haven't tried it.)

Maybe glueing that together with a USB SD card reader chipset would
get you started?

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