[ColorForth] USB and other serial bit boffing

[Jack Johnson <fragment@xxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 6 Dec 2001, Kurt B. Kaiser wrote:
> The trick for us is to get something inexpensive which will store
> a few megs.
> 
> A 16MB CompactFlash Card is $22, and a ZIO! USB reader/writer is $30.

CompactFlash really would be the way to go.  CompactFlash supports IDE
interfaces.  You can actually buy little adapters to plug them right into
the IDE connector on your motherboard.  The ThinkNIC I mentioned in a
previous post does this very thing with a 4MB card to store bookmarks and
preferences.

Turn this around, and if you had something that needed less that 4MB to
boot, there you go.  Or, like you said, for $22 you can quadruple your
storage.

> I don't know if the latest BIOSs will boot from USB or Firewire. I suspect
> things are headed in that direction; I wonder what the PC98 spec says about
> that?

It's doubtful that PCs (except maybe Sonys) will ever boot from Firewire.
There was a big push to do it a couple of years ago, but Intel is the big
USB backer, and most of the changes to USB 2.0 were in direct response to
Firewire.

It's unfortunate, too.  All the new Macs will boot from Firewire no
problem (Forth to the rescue!).

It's possible that we'll see USB 2.0 motherboards that will boot from USB.

> The nice thing is all this USB code, if written in colorForth, can be quickly
> transferred to the real hardware, when it arrives =) 

This is most definitely true.

-Jack

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