XTIDE controller now available

[Chuck Guzis]

On 4 Oct 2009 at 20:47, Steven Hirsch wrote:

> What am I not understanding about the need for this product?  I have
> about a half-dozen 8-bit ISA IDE controllers, mostly Seagate branded. 
> Didn't think they were particularly rare.

The overwhelming majority of those old 8-bit IDE controllers worked 
with XTIDE drives, which supported 8-bit data transfers.  
Unfortunately, even though the ATA standard kept the 8-bit transfer 
as an option for quite some time, no vendor supported it.  Any IDE 
drive over about 100MB is likely to support only 16-bit transfers.

As I understand the subject controller project, it latches the upper 
8 bits of a 16-bit data transfer and makes it available in a 
subsequent cycle.

However, one can use a CF memory card in an 8-bit IDE application, as 
I understand that all CF cards support the 8-bit mode of ATA.

--Chuck