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inital results on error correction

While I have yet to actually implement the full-scale error correction as I want to, I did some manual tests today. I basically took a track that I was erroring out on, and swapped in 1-bit away values for the bad bytes.  In some cases, it appeared...

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Creating more test disks

From both Tim’s suggestions and from a reinforcement from Agans’ Debugging book, Chapter 6, “Divide and Conquer”, they suggest to “Inject Easy-to-Spot Patterns”. And of course, I knew...

On speed optimization

The theoretical limit, assuming 300rpm drives, is 200ms per track. Or 400ms per cylinder, or 32 seconds per disk. Most attempts read slightly more than one track. I read 16,384 bytes, or 262ms worth. Right now, if I...

Commands A and B implemented and working

Ok.  I got two commands A and B implemented and working. Command B from the PC instructs the SX to enable interrupts, and get ready to receive a track into fram.  This command will eventually be expanded to actually...

Schmitt Trigger

Welp, after talking with some smart guys on forums.parallax.com, it looks like the Schmitt Trigger feature on the SX is going to allow me to get rid of my 74HC132 that I’ve spent at least a couple hours messing...

new isr thoughts

While this new ISR is indeed easier to understand and much more simple, I can’t help but remember what else my ISR used to do for me. The four things I really lose are: 1> Any type of double 1’s protection...

first day back

You know, I always hate the “first day back” working on a project.  Things always seem to get screwed up between the time I last worked on a project, and that day.  Even if nothing has changed. Or so I say...

sync on data

The more and more I play with this I find that I’m limited with visibility. Its tough to debug when you constantly have to deal with this overhanging problem : The data arrives at my hardware, and to the PC...

memory chip mounted

Welp, I got impatient, and went to Radio Shack to buy their soldering station. I still have mine coming in the mail, but its ground from Arizona, which may as well be ground from Alaska. I soldered the header pins onto...

Parallax USR2SER

So I got my Parallax USR2SER in yesterday. Man is this thing tiny!! About the same width of my finger, and about 1/3 the length! And its mostly surface mount stuff….. It works like a charm. Easy installation, I...

still giving me trouble

I spent some time on the project last night.  Still no-go. The SX and the software is behaving as expected by responding to commands, transferring the buffer, so and so forth.  I’m getting garbage data from the...