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USB connection for the old PC

On the other hand, there was that bit of code from one of the Japanese manufacturers to host pen drive (and I suspect, some other storage devices) access from DOS. I don't have any specifics other than I tried it on an old P1 board with integrated USB and did work--sort of.

Whether or not it would work on an XT with an 8088 CPU somehow cobbled up with a UHCI is another matter.
 

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On the other hand, there was that bit of code from one of the Japanese manufacturers to host pen drive (and I suspect, some other storage devices) access from DOS. I don't have any specifics other than I tried it on an old P1 board with integrated USB and did work--sort of.

Whether or not it would work on an XT with an 8088 CPU somehow cobbled up with a UHCI is another matter.
What about those USB/SDcard floppy drive emulators?
 
The OP is not really looking for USB as such, but rather the ability to transfer files from a modern PC...all that is needed to accomplish the task at hand is...

... an XT/IDE board with an easily accessible compact-flash card! :)
 
The earliest open-source USB stack implementation was in NetBSD year 1998, and that would be the code base to reference. Backporting that 1998 code to MS-DOS may be possible, although a major project, and probably only doable for 386 machines and up. In reality, you would want at least a 486 machine with a PCI slot or with built-in USB, unless you are an EE and can design your own ISA card solution to host USB.

All in all, putting USB support in a XT-class machine would be like dressing an elephant in a pink pyjamas, to my eyes. An abomination of retro-computing gone amok.
 
Have a look at the CH375.

CH375 is a USB bus universal interface chip, supports USB-HOST Mode and USB-DEVICE/SLAVE Mode. There are 8-bit data bus and read, write, chip select control wire and interrupt output in CH375. It is convenient to link CH375 to control system bus of MCU/DSP/MPU.CH375 also provides serial communication in USB-HOST mode. It connects with DSP/MCU/MPU through serial input, output and interrupt output.

It say's it's 8086 compatible, not tried it myself.
 
It's an interesting chip--probably just a commodity MCU with custom programming. The datasheet is a bit difficult to peruse (Chinese English) but it appears that there's a simple parallel interface and also a serial one. The FIFO appears to be only 64 bytes. If you had a bidirectional printer port, it would be very simple to interface to this thing. It appears to be limited to mass storage USB devices.
 
It's an interesting chip--probably just a commodity MCU with custom programming. The datasheet is a bit difficult to peruse (Chinese English) but it appears that there's a simple parallel interface and also a serial one. The FIFO appears to be only 64 bytes. If you had a bidirectional printer port, it would be very simple to interface to this thing. It appears to be limited to mass storage USB devices.

Take a look at this, it could likely be expanded to support more then printers: http://www-user.tu-chemnitz.de/~heha/bastelecke/Rund um den PC/USB2LPT/lpt2usb.en.htm
 
With an ATMega16 8-bit CPU? I'm surprised that it can muster enough computational power to drive a USB printer. A USB pen drive might be a stretch. And driving devices attached to a USB hub may well be beyond the pale. On the other hand, their proposed use of a PIC32MX family chip would make quite a bit possible (I think I mentioned this earlier in the thread). The Mega16 is an old (at least in electronics terms) chip. Many modern MCUs are more than capable. Heck, there's a PIC32MX version of Linux, as well many ARM incarnations.
 
I somewhat agree with Peppino about the pink pyjamas. Original poster just wants file transfer via portable storage device, USB stick preferred. But any standard USB stack is burdened with complex drivers for universal device discovery and device driver intitialisation.

One of the standard memory card solutions would be far simpler - IDE to SD Card or CF Card adapters cost peanuts, usually don't need any drivers, and give the same pluggable convenience of a USB stick. Only requires a cheap USB card reader to stick in any modern host machine that doesn't already have one, then move the loaded memory card to the adapter in the USB-less PC. The memory card should be of a capacity compatible with the vintage PC's BIOS.

But then, not many of us are on this forum for practical reasons, so the most complicated solution may be preferred... ;)

Rick
 
...correct Rick. Not always the easy solution that are the most fun :)

Again... I use USB alot for carrying along data, and do mis this oppertunity on the old PC.
But I do understand those , who will not use electronic in there 80's PC that are newer then ..90's ..
And , yes, a complete stack for covering all USB is way out to big a project.

Again thanks for your comments - many new/different approaches to the project ... ;)
/cimonvg
 
... an XT/IDE board with an easily accessible compact-flash card! :)
And that's how you transfer files between computers?

Cimonvg:
Again... I use USB alot for carrying along data, and do mis this oppertunity on the old PC.
But I do understand those , who will not use electronic in there 80's PC that are newer then ..90's ..
And , yes, a complete stack for covering all USB is way out to big a project.

/cimonvg

I guess it's a matter of taste, and you're certainly not wrong in doing that. Personally, I've found USB sticks to be a rather inelegant substitute for a network, and I haven't found them to be as useful as I thought they would be when they first came out. Of course, in a pinch, they are indeed a solution.
 
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