[rescue] Various machines for sale

[Dave McGuire]

On 1/9/25 11:02, Maciej W. Rozycki wrote:
>>>>      Neither.  Using IDE to control a floppy would be a challenge, as the
>>>> whole "design" (using the word loosely!) of IDE is centered around the
>>>> specific register layouts of an early Western Digital hard disk
>>>> controller chipset.
>>>
>>>    Which was done with ATAPI though, which in turn is just SCSI-over-IDE.
>>
>>     ATAPI is not using IDE to control a floppy.  Using ATAPI (as you
>> stated) moves the SCSI protocol over the stunted IDE interface.
> 
>   Well, yes and no.  Still IDE data transfer commands are used to issue
> encapsulated commands and retrieve responses, and the DMA protocols (where
> used) are the same at the signal level.  But indeed a very limited subset
> of original IDE commands is used in this case.  Quoting from memory, so I
> may have missed something.  I have the original SFF specs somewhere for
> reference.

   Yes.  We are arguing the same thing. :)

>   Anyway as I say it is obvious from the SFF specs that you can control a
> removable magnetic disk over plain IDE, it's just that it was exceedingly
> rare in the field.  It's a plain C/H/S medium after all.  Other media such
> as CDs or tapes are a different matter and those indeed couldn't have been
> handled with the plain IDE command set.

   Sure, but by that definition it's possible to control such a disk 
over any interface that's capable of transferring data.  But that's not 
really what we were talking about.

              -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA