[Coco] Q: Burke & Burke hard disk controller

[Chuck Youse]

On Tue, 2008-09-30 at 10:23 -0400, Steven Hirsch wrote:

> On Tue, 30 Sep 2008, Ciaran Anscomb wrote:

> 

> > Steven Hirsch wrote:

> >>

> >> Or, will a 16-bit IDE drive work while throwing away half its

> >> capacity (no access to the upper byte of data)?

> >

> > Yes, this definitely works.  I recently picked up an IDE/CompactFlash

> > interface off Ebay for the BBC Master, and it is an 8-bit interface.

> > 8 bits of each 16-bit transfer are simply discarded.

> >

> > Looking around a bit revealed that at least the most common ATA commands

> > are all contained within 8 bits.

> 

> Good, I thought I remembered hearing this from an Apple 2 owner.  There 

> are several IDE adapters for that platform, but almost no availability of 

> IDE hard drives with support for 8-bit data transfer.

> 

> It's "iffy" whether the B&B support software will recognize the 

> controller, but trying it won't hurt anything.


The HDISK, which will be available for sale within days (just need to
find the time to assemble them!) does precisely that- 8-bit IDE
transfers, truncating the upper 8 bits.  This means it'll work
half-capacity IDE disks and won't support ATAPI.

C.