Unoffical empeg BBS

Quick Links: Empeg FAQ | RioCar.Org | Hijack | BigDisk Builder | jEmplode | emphatic
Repairs: Repairs

Topic Options
#25699 - 29/01/2001 13:37 serial hard drive
n2toh
journeyman

Registered: 29/01/2001
Posts: 89
Loc: New Jersey, United States
would anyone be interested in a controller board to attach a standard 3.5 inch IDE/ata drive via the empeg serial port.
for use as AUX storage and or backing up thier player?

_________________________
The only difference between science fiction and reality is about 60 years.
100GB MK2 Green 080000171 + OEM tuner
v3.00a11 hijack v450 jEmpload v70

Top
#25700 - 29/01/2001 14:19 Re: serial hard drive [Re: n2toh]
Smoker_Man
member

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 165
Loc: Calgary, CANADA
that would be pretty handy, but how long will it take to push through 36Gb ??
and how will the data be arranged? will it be a mirror image of the empeg loadout? (files as fid names? or will there be accompanying software to rename the fids to some sort of recognizable filename?)

Smoker_Man
#080000449 MkII - 36Gb Blue
_________________________
2x160Gb MkII Lighted Buttons 080000449

Top
#25701 - 29/01/2001 15:42 Re: serial hard drive [Re: n2toh]
rob
carpal tunnel

Registered: 21/05/1999
Posts: 5335
Loc: Cambridge UK
The serial port? That would be SLOW! Mind numbingly so. A quick calculation suggests it would take about 20 days to back up a 40Gb player.

Rob



Top
#25702 - 30/01/2001 04:25 Re: serial hard drive [Re: n2toh]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4172
Loc: Cambridge, England
for use as AUX storage

At 115Kbits/sec, you wouldn't be able to play MP3s off it, even if you wrote a Linux block driver for it and somehow arranged for the player to mount it.

and or backing up their player?

Why not just use a PC, assuming you're not dead set on in-car backup? Not only are they quite capable serial-to-IDE adaptors, but they also function as (much faster) USB-to-IDE adaptors and Ethernet-to-IDE adaptors.

Or are you talking about completely subverting the serial port, and not running RS232 serial over it at all? In which case, you'd better wait until we come up with a way of upgrading player software which doesn't involve the serial port.

Peter



Top
#25703 - 30/01/2001 04:39 Re: serial hard drive [Re: peter]
schofiel
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/06/1999
Posts: 2993
Loc: Wareham, Dorset, UK
Peter, does this mean that you have some implicit coupling to the serial port?

I was under the impression you were opening it as a system device. Am I wrong here? I am also looking to take over the serial to couple on an external acquisition board - what's the story?

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015
_________________________
One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015

Top
#25704 - 30/01/2001 05:40 Re: serial hard drive [Re: schofiel]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4172
Loc: Cambridge, England
Peter, does this mean that you have some implicit coupling to the serial port?

no

I was under the impression you were opening it as a system device.

We are -- I was just concerned that matey was thinking of putting extra hardware inside the empeg to convert the serial port into some other sort of port (faster and more suitable for connecting a winchester to). That would be a Bad Idea [tm] as upgrading requires a real serial port.

Peter



Top
#25705 - 30/01/2001 08:14 Re: serial hard drive [Re: peter]
altman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 19/05/1999
Posts: 3457
Loc: Palo Alto, CA
...and also not really possible as the serial port hardware is on the same chip as the CPU...

Hugo



Top
#25706 - 31/01/2001 08:37 Re: serial hard drive [Re: altman]
n2toh
journeyman

Registered: 29/01/2001
Posts: 89
Loc: New Jersey, United States
what about using the serial port at 230400 Kbit?
even with overhead it should be able to keep up with a 128K mp3.

_________________________
The only difference between science fiction and reality is about 60 years.
100GB MK2 Green 080000171 + OEM tuner
v3.00a11 hijack v450 jEmpload v70

Top
#25707 - 31/01/2001 10:52 Re: serial hard drive [Re: n2toh]
altman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 19/05/1999
Posts: 3457
Loc: Palo Alto, CA
Yes, this would work if you were suitably perverse to try it :)

It will reduce the effectiveness of caching though, as it will spend almost as much time caching as playing!

Hugo



Top
#25708 - 01/02/2001 03:26 Re: serial hard drive [Re: altman]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4172
Loc: Cambridge, England
Yes, this would work if you were suitably perverse to try it :)

Didn't Commodore 64s speak to winchesters over serial? (And it wasn't 230kbit, either.) Or am I mixing it up with floppies?

Peter



Top
#25709 - 01/02/2001 04:04 Re: serial hard drive [Re: peter]
altman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 19/05/1999
Posts: 3457
Loc: Palo Alto, CA
Definitely floppies. I never knew anyone with a C64 & hard disk, but the PET ones were IEEE488 (floppies, winchesters, printers, teamakers, small aubergines).

Hugo



Top
#25710 - 01/02/2001 09:40 Re: serial hard drive [Re: peter]
Dearing
addict

Registered: 22/07/1999
Posts: 453
Loc: Florida
Nah, C64 used a DB25 SCSI-esque link for the Hard disk. I think there was an adapter into the cartridge slot. One of my co-workers ran his BBS off of one.

_~= Dearing =~_
"WAY too happy about having #99."
_________________________
_~= Dearing =~_
Gettin' back into it thanks to slimrio!

Top
#25711 - 01/02/2001 09:59 Re: serial hard drive [Re: peter]
schofiel
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/06/1999
Posts: 2993
Loc: Wareham, Dorset, UK
No, they used IEEE488 based floppy drive subsystems.

But thinking about that, it is in fact a form of serial bus with parallel access control....

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015
_________________________
One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015

Top
#25712 - 01/02/2001 10:01 Re: serial hard drive [Re: altman]
schofiel
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/06/1999
Posts: 2993
Loc: Wareham, Dorset, UK
... you forgot the cuddly toy! Cuddly Toy!

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015
_________________________
One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015

Top
#25713 - 03/02/2001 00:57 Re: serial hard drive [Re: altman]
bonzi
pooh-bah

Registered: 13/09/1999
Posts: 2401
Loc: Croatia
Definitely floppies. I never knew anyone with a C64 & hard disk, but the PET ones were IEEE488 (floppies, winchesters, printers, teamakers, small aubergines).

Early Commodores (e.g. 32k PET 2001 on which I wrote a number of X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy programs) had more or less normal IEEE488 'GPIB' bus (I even had an external shoebox-size IEEE488 to RS232 interface used for connecting multichannel analysers without GPIB), while C64 had some kind of serialized version. But disk drives were definitively floppies, with considerable local inteligence and abysmal reliability.

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green
_________________________
Dragi "Bonzi" Raos Q#5196 MkII #080000376, 18GB green MkIIa #040103247, 60GB blue

Top
#25714 - 10/03/2006 12:05 Re: serial hard drive [Re: peter]
HOT2N
new poster

Registered: 06/03/2006
Posts: 28
Loc: New Jersey, United States
Beating the dead horse here.

The original intention of the serial to ATA adapter was to allow the use of 3.5" drives ( that are cheaper, more common, and of larger capacity then 2.5" laptop drives) with the Empeg. This was at a time when the largest laptop drive was about 30 or 40GB, and 80GB 3.5" drives could be had.

With the impending failure of my second drive I'm revisiting this concept, The idea being to pipe the parallel ATA commands over the serial port at 230400bps, maybe even strip out the start and stop bits and just use the port as a shift register like Commodore intended with it's "IEC" interface. with the correct patches applied to the kernel the drive should appear just like another disk, and use the standard Empeg partitions and file system.

Another option I'm considering is to modify my MK2 and sled to have docked Ethernet, this should facilitate connection to a networked hard drive. My only question being would said device support the Empeg file system?
_________________________
I was N2TOH, but forgot my password and need help resetting it. I get no reply from emails sent to the admin. 20GB MK2 Green 080000171

Top
#25715 - 11/03/2006 03:28 Re: serial hard drive [Re: HOT2N]
matthew_k
pooh-bah

Registered: 12/02/2002
Posts: 2298
Loc: Berkeley, California
Why not just buy it a new hard drive or two? Shock tolerant, and they'll fit in the empeg's case. If it's storage you want, you could pick up a pair of seagate's new 160's and have a 320GB empeg (though I shutter to think of fscking it... and I don't know if the player software could deal with that filled with 4mb tracks)

Matthew

Top
#25716 - 11/03/2006 04:21 Re: serial hard drive [Re: matthew_k]
HOT2N
new poster

Registered: 06/03/2006
Posts: 28
Loc: New Jersey, United States
what is the going rate for two 160GB 2.5" drives?

EDIT never mind Epay $350 to $425... no thanks. I'll keep looking.


Edited by HOT2N (11/03/2006 04:34)
_________________________
I was N2TOH, but forgot my password and need help resetting it. I get no reply from emails sent to the admin. 20GB MK2 Green 080000171

Top
#25717 - 11/03/2006 04:29 Re: serial hard drive [Re: HOT2N]
matthew_k
pooh-bah

Registered: 12/02/2002
Posts: 2298
Loc: Berkeley, California
It'd probably run you about $700. But you're paying the top-o-the-line premium. Stick with 120's and you can do it for $330.

Matthew

Top
#25718 - 11/03/2006 04:52 Re: serial hard drive [Re: matthew_k]
HOT2N
new poster

Registered: 06/03/2006
Posts: 28
Loc: New Jersey, United States
Thanks for looking

it still looks like it will cost about $400 tho for a pair of 120s.
_________________________
I was N2TOH, but forgot my password and need help resetting it. I get no reply from emails sent to the admin. 20GB MK2 Green 080000171

Top
#25719 - 11/03/2006 05:21 Re: serial hard drive [Re: HOT2N]
matthew_k
pooh-bah

Registered: 12/02/2002
Posts: 2298
Loc: Berkeley, California
$349.36, shipped to my door with CA sales tax at newegg. And they're Western Digital, so any jpgs you store on then will have brighter colors.

Matthew

Top
#25720 - 11/03/2006 14:47 Re: serial hard drive [Re: HOT2N]
tman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
Doing it over the serial port would be painfully slow. You'll be limited to playing something significantly less than 220kbps as well. Just go and buy a new laptop drive if you really want more storage.

Top
#25721 - 11/03/2006 16:10 Re: serial hard drive [Re: HOT2N]
mlord
carpal tunnel

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14472
Loc: Canada
The empeg already has the hardware to talk to any size ATA drive available -- using the existing ATA/IDE disk interface, with an adapter cable (connectors differ between notebook and larger drives). All that is needed extra is a power supply for the desktop drive.

I've done this, and it works. Pointless, but it works.

-ml

Top
#25722 - 11/03/2006 16:40 Re: serial hard drive [Re: mlord]
pgrzelak
carpal tunnel

Registered: 15/08/2000
Posts: 4859
Loc: New Jersey, USA
Well, at the time it was not pointless. You were proving out the higher capacity drives with the new hijack kernels.

Edit: Found it. It was around version 274 where you added lba48 support directly into the hijack kernel for supporting drives larger than 128GB. Given that the largest laptop drives were about 80GB at the time, it was the only way you could test. Now, with the 160GB drives out there (waiting for the price to come down before even contemplating any upgrades...), it becomes a much more immediate feature!


Edited by pgrzelak (11/03/2006 16:49)
_________________________
Paul Grzelak
200GB with 48MB RAM, Illuminated Buttons and Digital Outputs

Top
#25723 - 11/03/2006 18:06 Re: serial hard drive [Re: mlord]
HOT2N
new poster

Registered: 06/03/2006
Posts: 28
Loc: New Jersey, United States
ml

after reading the last post, is there a specific way someone can setup their drive so that some of the tunes are still playable if they need to downgrade from Hijack for testing?
_________________________
I was N2TOH, but forgot my password and need help resetting it. I get no reply from emails sent to the admin. 20GB MK2 Green 080000171

Top
#25724 - 11/03/2006 19:17 Re: serial hard drive [Re: HOT2N]
mlord
carpal tunnel

Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14472
Loc: Canada
If one really wants a drive that is fully accessible with a "stock kernel" (who uses that these days???), then just don't get a drive larger than 132GB.

Cheers

Top
#25725 - 11/03/2006 19:37 Re: serial hard drive [Re: mlord]
HOT2N
new poster

Registered: 06/03/2006
Posts: 28
Loc: New Jersey, United States
Then I shoun't have any problems for now, as I'm not willing to spend the $ for a 160GB drive at the current prices.
_________________________
I was N2TOH, but forgot my password and need help resetting it. I get no reply from emails sent to the admin. 20GB MK2 Green 080000171

Top
#25726 - 15/03/2006 19:07 Re: serial hard drive [Re: HOT2N]
RobotCaleb
pooh-bah

Registered: 15/01/2002
Posts: 1866
Loc: Austin
I noticed your sig and attempted to fix that for you. It would appear that I don't have the right power in the right places. I suggest sending a pm to drakino.

Top
#25727 - 15/03/2006 19:10 Re: serial hard drive [Re: RobotCaleb]
n2toh
journeyman

Registered: 29/01/2001
Posts: 89
Loc: New Jersey, United States
I did thank you for trying .
_________________________
The only difference between science fiction and reality is about 60 years.
100GB MK2 Green 080000171 + OEM tuner
v3.00a11 hijack v450 jEmpload v70

Top
#25728 - 23/02/2007 17:38 Re: serial hard drive [Re: HOT2N]
siberia37
old hand

Registered: 09/01/2002
Posts: 702
Loc: Tacoma,WA
Quote:
Beating the dead horse here.

The original intention of the serial to ATA adapter was to allow the use of 3.5" drives ( that are cheaper, more common, and of larger capacity then 2.5" laptop drives) with the Empeg. This was at a time when the largest laptop drive was about 30 or 40GB, and 80GB 3.5" drives could be had.

With the impending failure of my second drive I'm revisiting this concept, The idea being to pipe the parallel ATA commands over the serial port at 230400bps, maybe even strip out the start and stop bits and just use the port as a shift register like Commodore intended with it's "IEC" interface. with the correct patches applied to the kernel the drive should appear just like another disk, and use the standard Empeg partitions and file system.

Another option I'm considering is to modify my MK2 and sled to have docked Ethernet, this should facilitate connection to a networked hard drive. My only question being would said device support the Empeg file system?


Hmm networked hard drive- maybe iSCSI would be an option for that. That would give the empeg direct access to the networked iSCSI volume, so it could format it and everything no problem. Not sure how you would compile iSCSI support into the kernel though..

Top