> ... a group of people who built an IDE interface for the Omnibus ...

There are really two kinds of IDE interface. The simple kind, which
they probably did, and the kind that the rest of you are talking about,
with DMA and all.

The simple kind is a breeze, just address decode and buffers, it just
gates PIO transfers on to the cable and the drive does everything. It's
without a doubt the easiest and simplest of all possible boards you could
build that actually does something useful.

On the other hand you all are talking about a DMA board, which,
although not exactly Hard, does have a certain complexity to it.

You know, I was just visiting briefly on this list.  But you seem to be
having so much _fun_ here...maybe I should reconsider pulling the plug
on our last operating vax.

In any case, Avalon has 1,038 (smt) ds8838soic's in stock, and if you
guys start building Q-bus boards, you will need a _lot_ of them...about
10-12/board, IIRC.  We are never going to use those chips and might be
able to donate some...  as they were designed to be Unibus/Q-bus
transceivers, they aren't good for much else!

Ross Harvey
ross@teraflop.com