Could I get some more details on this as I am investigating a similar
project. What was too slow, general data throughput, occasional data
throughput?

I can think of a couple of possibilities to make it feasible.
1) Use a PLD top take some of the timing critical work away from the PIC.
You could either have the PLD grab data from the IDE and FIFO it for the PIC
or, have it grab it from the IDE and send it straight to the MP3 Decoder (or
whatever) depending on the logical complexity. If you could keep all your
MP3's contiguous a lot of the address logic could be done by the PLD. i.e.
give it a start and end address it sends that block to the decoder.

2) Not sure if this'd work but Circuit Cellar did an article on a $25 web
server. Rather than bothering to hook a PIC up to ethernet IC's (or use
serial) they made a PIC->ISA interface (I have an article on such an
interface but I think it's very minimal) and used a cheap ISA net card.
Perhaps you could get your hands on an old ISA IDE HDD card (I know I can
get one for free) and hook that up to a PIC.


Also, using a Scenix might give you the extra grunt to do it. You could
design for a PIC and if neccesary slap it onto an SX at the end.

Also I saw rumours that MChip were going to release USB enabled PICs.
Depending on how much of USB they support in hardware this could be
possible. Pretty versatile as well, hook up any sought of USB
storage/transfer device (e.g. Parallel, ethernet, hard disk, CD, flash) and
your set.

Anybody have any thoughts on the possibility of either of these?

Tom.
----- Original Message -----
From: Maverick <maverick@DRGW.NET>
Subject: Re: ATAPI CD-ROM control.
> I've successfully had a hard drive hooked up to a '73 and reading and
> writing data
> from the drive, but I'm forced to agree with the conclusion on Wesley's
> page - it is, in
> a word, SLOW.  I can't get anywhere near the continuous transfer rates
> needed for most
> MP3 playback, let alone handling all the overhead and the occassional seek
> problems on a CDROM.
> However, if you find a way to do it, please let me know - I eventually
gave
> up on the PIC and
> switched to an AMD186 for this project...
>
> ND Holmes
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  Nathan D. Holmes   maverick@drgw.net, ndholmes@iastate.edu
>    122 Shepard #3  Box 328  Gilbert, IA 50105  Iowa State University - EE
>    http://www.drgw.net/~maverick   PH: 515-663-9368
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------