[rescue] IDE SSDs? I never knew...

[Maciej W. Rozycki]

On Fri, 28 Jun 2024, Mouse via rescue wrote:

> It's an interesting gedanken experiment to compare something like
> ZuluSCSI to something like the SCSI<->MFM(?) interface boards common
> back in the Sun-2 and early Sun-3 days.  I would not call those
> "emulators" - I called them "disk interface board"s, IIRC - and I find
> myself wondering what the relevant differences are.

 It's similar to the DEC RX23 SCSI 3.5" floppy disk drive interface from 
early 1990s.  Complete with an 8080 CPU and all its usual peripherals such 
as the 8253 DMA controller and the 8259 interrupt controller, and then a 
NEC 765 floppy-disk controller and an NCR 5380 SCSI interface chip to talk 
to the two interfaces each.  Essentially a computer on its own, made with 
generic components and with its own software.

 Would I call it an emulator?  I guess not.  It's just a discrete (or 
semi-integrated) implementation of what might have been later converted 
into an ASIC and become just a SCSI floppy interface chip, and maybe even 
integrated with the floppy disk drive itself, just as it was done with the 
hard disks.

  Maciej