About ESDI?

cro memcos

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Dec 31, 2023, 10:11:17 AM12/31/23

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David,

I have a small cheeky question about the ESDI Hard Disk interface that was a logical progression on from MFM.

Since it uses the same cables, and some fancier RLL? encoding I was wondering if adding ESDI support is on your current work-stack, or ever likely to be, or somehow impossible on current hardware.

(I scanned and found some old small discussion on ESDI in this forum too but it was not conclusive).

I do have some old Cromemco and IBM PS/2 hardware that used ESDI drives hence the question.

cro memcos

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Dec 31, 2023, 10:12:32 AM12/31/23

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I forgot a nice link The Evolution of ESDI (ardent-tool.com)

David Gesswein

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Dec 31, 2023, 11:01:59 AM12/31/23

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ESDI isn't possible to support with the current hardware. I looked at it
when I started this project. Data separator is on the drive so interface is
clock and data. Some of the other signals need to change with tight timing to
the data bit which I wasn't able to figure out how to do with the beaglebone.
I know someone who is working on an ESDI emulator. I'll post here if they
get something working.

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