Hi all,
I'm curious if anyone has ever considered writing control software for CD mechs.
Since so much of this stuff is under license it's hard to get hold of the parts to play with CD mechs however I think it's pretty reasonable to reverse engineer it. In the UK at least, this is legal.
Bit of microcontroller work, FPGA stuff perhaps for signal decoding.
Am I missing something massively difficult here (not that I'm saying it's trivial!).
I know a lot of people on here are just interested in modding (that's how I found you all!) but it looks like there are some bona fide engineers here too.
Somehow shoving DSA commands to a CDPro2LF doesn't really stimulate me that much.
Thanks
I'm curious if anyone has ever considered writing control software for CD mechs.
Since so much of this stuff is under license it's hard to get hold of the parts to play with CD mechs however I think it's pretty reasonable to reverse engineer it. In the UK at least, this is legal.
Bit of microcontroller work, FPGA stuff perhaps for signal decoding.
Am I missing something massively difficult here (not that I'm saying it's trivial!).
I know a lot of people on here are just interested in modding (that's how I found you all!) but it looks like there are some bona fide engineers here too.
Somehow shoving DSA commands to a CDPro2LF doesn't really stimulate me that much.
Thanks
I'm guessing this is a little beyond the scope of this forum then? It's had a lot of views but no one has said anything!!!
OK. I'll take a run at this.
Depends on what CD mechs you mean - there are many.
I wrote control firmware for PATA CD drives - these are the DVD / CD drives that were used in PC's. They've been supplanted by SATA - which is a different interface.
The firmware is PIC based. It’s a non trivial task. Not only is the PC ATA interface poorly defined, but every DVD/CD manufacturer implements a slightly different protocol. I can only assume that the PC drivers are full of special case code.
I’d be willing to share the code, but keep in mind that you would still have significant work to do
Depends on what CD mechs you mean - there are many.
I wrote control firmware for PATA CD drives - these are the DVD / CD drives that were used in PC's. They've been supplanted by SATA - which is a different interface.
The firmware is PIC based. It’s a non trivial task. Not only is the PC ATA interface poorly defined, but every DVD/CD manufacturer implements a slightly different protocol. I can only assume that the PC drivers are full of special case code.
I’d be willing to share the code, but keep in mind that you would still have significant work to do
No, I actually mean an interface to get data off an actual mech. like a VAMxxxx.
I want to avoid being dependant on non available servo drivers and laser driver chips, having control over certain feedbacks and what have you.
I have written ATA interfaces in the past but that's historic technology now. Bit perfect data from a SATA controller could be nice and rejigging raw data into some usable format isn't that much of a challenge in theory, I spent the better part of my career writing protocols. But that's not really what I'm after. I'm after creating an actual controller that will interface with these flexfoil ribbons!
I want to avoid being dependant on non available servo drivers and laser driver chips, having control over certain feedbacks and what have you.
I have written ATA interfaces in the past but that's historic technology now. Bit perfect data from a SATA controller could be nice and rejigging raw data into some usable format isn't that much of a challenge in theory, I spent the better part of my career writing protocols. But that's not really what I'm after. I'm after creating an actual controller that will interface with these flexfoil ribbons!
You're off to a bad start already binspaul! Stage one is the electronics to control the focus/tracking etc! Software at all is somewhere down the line!
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