Date   : Wed, 17 Feb 1993 20:14:39 +0100
From   : stjohn@... (Chris StJohn)
Subject: Zany idea

Okay. You're all going to say I'm mad but I don't care! 8-)

How about using the floppy disk controller for networking?

It has all the framing & CRC checks onboard as well as being able to wait
for a certain sector (for sector read net address) to come 'round on the
spinning disk. When it does it'll interrupt you and read the input through
a buffer into the CPU. Most of the hard work (packets, CRC, framing, polling,
address recognition, ana-digi conversion) is done for you. I think you can
get about 10Kbytes/s out of a disk controller with a 10^13 bits per error
correction ratio.

  ,--,             Chris StJohn, LIX, Ecole Polytechnique, 91128
 /    /_  __' _    Palaiseau, Cedex, FRANCE. (+33) 1.69.33.45.93
(____/ (_/ (_/_).
                    said 'Cousot' and everything became top"