Date   : Tue, 23 Nov 2010 09:35:39 +0000
From   : afra@... (Phill Harvey-Smith)
Subject: Harddisc fakery using a microcontroller

On 23/11/2010 08:44, James McGill wrote:
> I highly recommend the AVR series for embedded 8 bit work. They are
> much easier to work with than PICs. www.sparkfun.com sell a reasonably
> cheap programmer too.
>
> For a mock-HDD however I'd consider the ARM Cortex-M3 based STM32.
> This thing is a beast - a huge number of IO ports, hardware support
> for USB, and on some models SDIO for high(ish) speed access to an SD
> card, 96 MIPS (clocked at 72MHz). www.futurlec.com sell a development
> board and www.sparkfun.com sell a programmer. I use this on a few of
> my boards and love it.
>
> I'm not convinced that a AVR would be fast enough.

I believe that the Adaptec and Xebec SASI/SCSI to MFM/RLL used Z80s, so 
I see no problem using an 8 bit microcontroler if you want to emulate SCSI.

Cheers.

Phill.

-- 
Phill Harvey-Smith, Programmer, Hardware hacker, and general eccentric !

"You can twist perceptions, but reality won't budge" -- Rush.