From: abuse@brushtail.apana.org.au   
      
    > The example i saw and wanted to try used less than $10 worth of   
    > parts.   
      
   Try $3 -- a minimal IDE interface can be made with a '14 bit parallel   
   cable' and a couple of pull-high resistors. The trick there is to only   
   have an '8 bit connection' to the IDE interface, and another 6 outputs   
   to handle the /CS0, /RW, /WR, and A[0-2] signals in software-- no logic   
   ICs needed, or exposing the soft gooey innards of the CPU bus to the   
   outside world...   
      
   Caveat: it helps to have 16 bits of I/O that you can bit-bang.   
   But--this would make your IDE project needing the expansion connector   
   into a 'general purpose 8255/6821/6522 expansion', with a bit of software.   
      
   I did this recently for a 1MHz 6502 SYM-1, and was pleasantly surprised   
   at the 14.5kB/sec transfer rate..   
      
   (Yes, yes, yes-- Born Again Retrocomputerists[tm] with full wallets   
   could drop their dosh on something from eBay that have AVRs faster than   
   the computer to do all the work, and read/write FAT16-formatted Flash   
   cards natively..)   
      
   --   
   Chris   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)