Is it possible to interface the microcontroller to the floppy drive to store data, what chips need to be used, any tutorials and information will be very helpful.
could be done but you must learn the IDE,ATA and all the plah plah around it... it will be a tedious job. Do a google search for that and you'll find the info.
If it was me, i would prefer the use of FlashCard or a simple interface PIC/PC by USB or COM port with an home made GUI. Of course bigger, but can be done within an hour.
@mramos1
Is it possible that we can't write at the same time
Your link seems great!
There was a LOT on the PICList years ago, as I recall no one managed to interface a floppy drive to a PIC? - a major problem is the buffer space required.
Compact Flash is repeat IS an IDE device and it is quite straight forward to build an IDE interface for most micros and the IDE command set make them easy to use.
That's way cool. Anyone have manufacturer and part numbers for a pcb mount MMC/SD card socket? I think I'd like to experiment with this and try to convert the example C code to assembly language.
I thought it was cool too. I guess I need 3.3V regulators and the MMC sockets. But MMC is cheap now. My company bought 3 TREO 650 phones and they came with free 256K MMC cards.
Not 1.44meg but small in size, power and interface parts.
I believe later PICs should be able to do IDE because they have a lot more RAM for buffers.
Flash cards (SD, MMC, I assume XD cards) just use a SPI port and not a lot of buffering required so the MSSP works ok.
Digikey/Mouser carry like a hundred SD/MMC card sockets. Under $1.
You don't really need 3.3V regulators. I've used a 5V supply and voltage dividers of 1k and 1.5k resistors on the necessary lines. Never had a problem.