I've had thoughts about this for a decade or so, and here's my favorite
idea:
- Build a "black box" which emulates the 8" floppy drive,
following the
timing and status signals and data transfer rates.
-
The black box is inserted between the Fairlight controller card and
the
internal floppy drives, via flat ribbon cables.
- The black box buffers
the data from/to the floppies.
- The black box also has a USB or FireWire
socket, to be connected to PC
or Mac, etc.
- Software on the PC/Mac
swaps disk images in/out of the black box.
The black box would direct CMI
access to either floppy drive and/or to
the disk image buffer. The disk
image buffer could be saved on PC/Mac,
and even split apart to get the
individual files, or disk images could
be built. It's even possible that the
disk image buffer could reside on
the PC/Mac and be "live", with drag-drop
of files into and out of the
image (and ensure that the image does not
exceed standard CMI floppy
disk sizes). The black box would take care of the
"disk drive open"
signal, to simulate swapping floppies (the CMI would take
this as a
signal to re-load the floppy).
This would work on every
CMI, from Series I to MFX. It would be portable
from CMI to CMI, and would
require no software or hardware mods to the CMI.
Peter K. wrote:
>
Is it possible to add a new page in the OS?
> Can anyone help with this or
give advice?
>
> My goal is to add new hardware to the CMI
(IIx).....
> Thinking of 2 GB Flashcard, that functions as a HD storage
and another
> one for the OS drive (Also to be seen as a HD).
>; It
should be able to copy data from and to the floppydrives and it
> should
be able to run the CMI without the use of the floppydrives.
> The
flashcards could also be read and written on any standard PC, thus
>
creating a modern backup system and a way to share sounds......
>
>
If anyone has better ideas, please let me know.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Peter Kersten.
--
Greg Holmes
GH Services, Ontario,
Canada
http://www.ghservices.com/
http://www.gregholmes.com/
Message
Re: [Fairlight-CMI] Adding a new page in the OS in order to upgrade the CMI IIx with HD facilities.........
2008-09-05 by Peter K.
The more I think about it, the more I like this
idea......... Thanks for your input Greg.
Yet, I still would love to have a HD-type storage
for the IIx. Is has been done already. What happened with these
machines?
What happened with the adapted OS?
Is there anyone that is willing to help out with
this?
If anyone else wants this upgrade, please drop an
email to the list and let your voice be heard.
Just saw that it's getting harder to get
floppies... (Alexander is out...), so that makes the upgrade pretty
important.
The IIx is a fabulous instrument, well worth
keeping alive. (I sure hope I'm not the only one left that thinks this
way....)
Peter Kersten.
From: Greg Holmes
Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2008 12:40 AM
Subject: Re: [Fairlight-CMI] Adding a new page in the OS in order to
upgrade the CMI IIx with HD facilities.........