KryoFlux - Continue With Current Hardware

2009-09-12

The resolution of disk reading is about the same as a Trace machine, it’s 41ns per cell/precompensation vs. 50ns on trace with 25ns precompensation.

The problem is the combination of slow CPU, slow USB, and lack of RAM. Ideally we could read to RAM and then do a transfer, but we don’t have enough RAM... so we may have to communicate with the PC and compress data while it’s being read.

The device has only “low speed” USB (i.e. USB1 speed on a USB2 interface), probably not enough to transfer HD disk data as we read. So the only solution would then be to: read, compress, transfer at the same time. For this, the CPU is just too slow. It could run faster, but the speed is locked at multiplies of 48 MHz when you use the onboard USB. The board cannot run at 96 MHz, therefore 48 MHz is the only choice.

It’s not exactly a luxury board, and it’s meant to be dirt cheap, probably a dollar or two if you order a thousand. You get what you pay for.

There are a couple of reasons why we should still try to get DD disk dumping on this board:

  1. Cheap.
  2. No voltage pull-ups required, easy to assemble.
  3. Can be easily made into a custom PCB.
  4. Targeted by Cyclone20, which means there are already boards out there.

If USB works, this board can be used for anything except perhaps HD dumping and so will support the majority of disks and drives available.