[TI-H] TiDrive (Was PIXpander & Stuff)
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[TI-H] TiDrive (Was PIXpander & Stuff)
To be fair to Sami in some ways, and to avoid confusion, I believe it
would be prudent for me not to call my version of the interface the same
thing as Sami's interface. Our designs are incompatible, and although I
owe quite a bit to him for trying to get a design working, my design is
only based off his schematic, and I only reference the code to try to
track down bugs in mine.
It would be nice to remain compatible to his design, BUT his code design
would have required a couple changes to get certain future features
working, rendering it incompatible with previous card formats anyways.
Also, I am tweaking my PSX comm code to try to use 1 function to
transfer a byte to/from the card at the same time, which cuts down 64+
words of code down to around 15-20 words. Unfortunately, to do this, I
would have to drop the clock speed of the communication down to 125KHz
from the normal 250KHz, back to the frequency Sami was using. For future
expansion purposes, I will probably have to see how functional a 125Khz
communications clock is.
I am also looking at support for 'Get(<Variable>)' when relating to
cards that support silent-link (All 8x or 9x calcs except the 82 and 85,
and possibly the original 92). The main bonus to this method is to have
a File Manager store itself onto a card which is full of packed
variables, and still be able to retrieve data from a backup after a calc
gets wiped, without having to access a computer. Unfortunately this
won't support the TI-82s and 85s, but I am also looking for a way to
solve that problem too. (I am also looking at using a 9th virtual
'section' of the card which holds file-managed variables, while using
the 1st section to store the 'bootstrap' apps)
Another thing that I wish to do is completely document the special
packets my version supports, and encourage programmers/designers of file
management programs, and archival devices like the TiDrive, and any
future archival devices to use the same protocol. This way, when a file
management software package is written, it will work with multiple
devices. Also when a new device is made, it will have support already
available on the calc side.
Input on this route is greatly appreciated.
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