I've got a product using an 18c452 with 128 kbytes of external static
RAM. I'd like to add low cost removable storage, and the 3.5 inch floppy
seems ideal. The drives are incredibly cheap, and so is the media. I've
included a National FDC chip on the board, but have not as yet looked at
writing any code for it.
        In this application, I'm looking at saving and loading an ascii text
file to/from the disk. To keep costs down and operation simple, we have
no display on the product, so the operator just hits a button to load a
file from the disk and another button to save it (with some precautions
to make sure current data in RAM or on disk is not accidentally wiped
out). I'm thinking of using PC format with a fixed filename, again
further simplifying it. There would be no way to format a disk, delete
the file, etc. Just load and store.
        Has anyone done anything like this? Another approach I'm considering is
making a very small embedded 80x6 system that is a FD to EIA232
interface. Then I could use something like DataLight's ROM-DOS and have
most of the code already written. I did something like this years and
years ago. There I did a 6802 system and wrote code to talk to a
Commodore 1541 disk drive. On the 6802 system you could save and load
applications programs, do a directory of the floppy, format floppies,
etc. Again, the goal there was to try to not have to write an operating
system, so I used Commodore's.
        So... Floppies, anyone?

Harold


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