Deksor wrote on 2023-10-02, 11:52:
You should checkout windows 98 quickinstall as well Windows 98 SE QuickInstall
It allows for win98 installation from USB among other things.
I've briefly looked at that, but it's my understanding that this works by taking a working, pre-installed Win98 system and "packing it up" for quick reinstalment. Which isn't exactly what I'm after.
Deksor wrote on 2023-10-02, 11:52:
In the meantime I thought of something, maybe you thought of it and already know if it's feasible or not : I know that ide is pretty much dumbed down ISA for HDDs. My idea is : could it be possible to get an ISA based ide port to work ? Now, it won't be fast at all, but the goal here isn't speed, it's just to connect an cd-rom drive.
The main issue is that I don't know if ide absolutely requires DMA or not to operate (if that's the case, then it's game over I guess ...)
I believe this could be possible in theory, yes. IDE doesn't require DMA, I think the "only" thing needed would be to add an address decoder and maybe some buffers and then the IDE connector.
However, with my current setup of the Vortex86EX, I'm only using 8 bits of the ISA data bus (for the sound card) - and there aren't any available pins for routing the next 8 bits to... 😒
Deksor wrote on 2023-10-02, 11:52:
Something else you could try is a m.2 sata SSD slot instead of a regular sata port ? That would allow for even thinner cases 😁
I guess... But since SATA uses high-speed, diff-paired signals, one would have to sacrifice the normal SATA port - I don't think it would be wise to keep both the SATA port and an M.2 connector wired together. My guess would be that a SATA port is more useful for most people than an M.2 slot?
However, taking a step back - I don't see that many benefits of using an SSD instead of a good quality SD card (which is already slim as hell) in this retro system, do you? I mean the SD card already has ~0ms latency and transfer speeds way faster than old spinning hard drives.
Right now, after months of development (and thousands of dollars spent), I'm kinda anxious to get this thing wrapped up in its current state! 😉
How did it go with your CD emulator hardware project, btw? Did you get any closer?