IDE interface
2002-09-26 by rfowler
Greetings Due to system constraints we have need to use the IDE interface hardware as general purpose parallel i/o. The objective is to use the IDE's 16bit data, 3 address lines and its read and write and to control these signals to form a i/o type function - as-opposed-to data / address bus memory-mapped decoding. I am aware that this forum may only be partially related to this subject, nevertheless I am hopeful that someone would be able to shed further light on this issue. Thus far we are able to control the write process except for: 1) i/o data writen as "0000h" does not produce a write control signal 2) writes to address "00h" do not produce a write signal 3) i/o read to the upper 4 (of 8) addresses generate properly timed "write" signals. The IDE interface chip is a CS5530A. The ATA / IDE specification algorithm shows that drive status and interrupts is to be read by the host before data transfer can begin. The CS5530 datasheets are not clear whether this requirement can be forced. Any comments or experiences with IDE would be greatly appreciated. Regards Russell Fowler