techtravels.org

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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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...

man am I a slacker

Yeah, I’ve been slacking lately on the project. School has been keeping me busy, work too. My current problem is that something seems up with the data checksum routine, the code on the PC that is processing the...

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...

revisited memory routines

I was looking over my reading and writing routines. Minimums for the fram are Clock high min. 28ns Clock low min. 28ns Data setup min 5ns I write in two places: First, when bits are coming in from the drive, and the ISR...

java client preview

I’ve put up a preview of the java client in action. It’s a 2 minute video with narration. You’ll need a DivX codec installed in order to view it. I probably could have messed with compressing this...

new design on SX software

Welp, I’m having trouble tweaking my existing SX code. If I modify the timing of the current code, I’m getting all garbage output — even adjusting small amounts to one side or the other, produces much...

adding more commands

Now that I *think* I’ve got a handle on the reading portion, I’ve been adding a couple more commands. I added support so that the SX knows what cylinder number it is on.  The F and B commands increase and...

followup on speed of inpout32

Welp, did some testing last night, and no, it doesn’t look like inpout32 is really going to be any faster. Damn shame because it was relatively easy to setup and use. Quick reply from the authors(thank you) who...

SX software progress

Welp, since I fine tuned the PC to very reasonable numbers, I figure a small overhaul of the SX code is in order too. I had somewhat of an epiphany working the on the SX, which I haven’t *really* looked at in...

more SX to PC tests

Although I think I’ve long had this working good, I did some more tests just to verify. Latest numbers: Each cycle is about 15.8us, 2us per bit, 8 bits, this sounds fine. This does confirm, however, what I...