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08 DEC 2020

2020-12-08 20:27 PST

now listening: Pilot - M.A.D.E.S - Arrival

Okay, so I think I was looking at the Kaypro FDC the wrong way. I also have been working on figuring out both the hardware user interface and how to load images onto the SD cards. I think a pair of tactile buttons for up/down, an enable slide switch, a 16x2 LCD, and an SD card should be fine, but that leads to questions about how to label or name the images. Anything that requires up/down is going to make entering disk names hard, and maybe the answer is a better interface. Maybe a joystick-style interface with the 5-point star, something like up, down, back, enter, not entirely sure. Theoretically I could take up both (full-height) drive panels, but I'd rather do it with one and keep one floppy on hand.

As for the FDC, I was thinking I had to implement the processor interface, but it seems more like I'm going to have to implement the floppy drive interface; that should be interesting and does change the equation a little bit. I started writing code last night (making it as far as a few enums and some simple functions) before deciding to plan things out more.

Some of the questions I have to answer still:

Can I drive the LCD and SD card simultaneously? I'm pretty sure the answer is yes, but it's going to depend on some hardware specific stuff.
Does the Kaypro support more than 2 active drives? I think the CP/M on the RC2014 supports an in-memory A: drive, which will make imaging floppies easier, but I don't know if that's standard or how the Kaypro does its thing.
How do I address (name, label) drive images.
How does floppy control work? I have no idea what the floppy drive interface looks like.
What is the mechanism for seeking on a floppy drive? Can I use mmap to simulate that?
I need to verify which half of the FDC I need to implement (e.g., is the 1793 on the mainboard or the drive?)

Lots of work to do, so litte time to do it.