Date   : Mon, 05 Jan 1998 12:01:56 +0000
From   : Richard harker <rich@...>
Subject: Virtual hard disk

Hi All,

With all the talk of hard disks lateley, I thought that this post, from one
of the Acorn newsgroups, may be of interet.

Cheers, Rich.



From: J.Kortink@... (J.Kortink)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.announce
Subject: Announcing 65Link 1.00
Date: 1 Jan 1998 23:20:26 +0100
Organization: University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands

If you still have your 6502 equipped Acorn machine from
'yesterdecade', read on. There may be happiness in your future.

65Link enables you to use the harddisc of your ARM equipped machine
to store files. 65Link was developed on a RISC PC and a BBC model B,
but is likely to work also on A5000, A4 and BBC Master computers.

The history behind 65Link is a cute one and has never been told (you
will find out why). When a flash of nostalgia hit me and I decided
that ditching my trusty old beeb, years and years ago, was a tragic
mistake, I reassembled one from parts kindly donated or nearly
donated to me by others. Alas, I then ended up with a bog-standard
model B, no frills in general. No disc interface in particular. But
I still had one of those clunky 5.25 inch floppy drives, you know,
from the times that floppies were truly floppy (in more than one
way). Somehow, for reasons unbeknownst to mankind (not that anyone
would really care), the thought entered my head that I needn't go
hunt for that elusive 8271 and matching DFS, but that I'd link my
beeb up to my (then) Archimedes (now RISC PC), and use its harddisc
for file storage. And so 65Link came to be, consisting (then) of a
simple podule with a 6522 VIA, a cable, a brand new filing system
for the beeb that I christened 'LFS' and a server app for the
Archimedes that I (then) called BBCLink (now 65Link). You're still
not bored senseless, I can tell. I then sold a few of these sets to
interested people. Then, after a few hefty updates, the project died
somewhat. Until getting my RISC PC, which made me realize that I
could ditch the podule (which was only needed to achive full 8-bit
bidirectional transfers) and use the bidirectional parallel port
instead, reducing hardware requirements to a cable and an EPROM,
and inspiring me to make it Freeware instead of commercial. The rest,
as they say ...

65Link is not for the fainthearted. It requires an EPROM to be blown
with LFS (for insertion into your 6502 equipped machine), and a cable
to be made. And all your 6502 software to be transferred to your ARM
equipped machine. The rewards however, are great. No more floppies.
Lots of free coasters. All your software at your fingertips. No more
'disc full' errors. Much faster file loading and saving. And all files
easy at hand for backup etc.. Constituting the happiness I indicated
above.

Need I say more. I needn't. And some wouldn't want me to.

65Link is available from my web page :

www.inter.nl.net/users/J.Kortink

As indicated, 65Link is Freeware.

I would appreciate feedback on other machine combinations that it
works with, beside my own (RISC PC & BBC model B).

Please don't ask me to make cables or blow EPROMs for you unless you
are truly desperate and/or live on a deserted island with nothing but
your computers and a some bloke called Friday. Please ask your nearest
electronics enthousiast and/or go to a friendly electronics shop. They
will gladly take your money.


John Kortink

Software engineer @ Arcobel Graphics, home of the Imagine graphics processor.
email : kortink@... (private and preferred), or jk@... (work)

-- 
    British Acorn Risc PC  -  200mhz StrongARM Inside  -  Intel Outside  
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