Prolific ATAPI-USB Bridge

Doug Alcorn (doug@lathi.net)
27 Dec 1999 23:46:24 -0500

I would very much like to get an external USB hard driver working. I
have purchased a BUSlink drive. After talking with BUSlink, they said
that they were willing to help get any specifications that I needed.
They purchase the bridge chip-set from Prolific (PL-2307). Their web
site (http://www.prolific.com.tw) says that the PL-2307 is fully
compliant with the ATAPI-4 standard and the USB 1.0 standard. There
is a pretty block diagram of how the chip-set works, but no real
interface specifications. I have written them asking for better
specs.

I am a complete novice to kernel programming. I have wanted to learn
to write device drivers for a long time. Right now I am about half
way through Rubini's _Linux Device Drivers_. I understand most of
what he is saying, but when I try to compile his examples I have found
them to be pretty incompatible with the 2.3.x tree. My goal over the
next two weeks or so is to port/upgrade his examples to work with the
2.3.x tree.

What I am asking now is more about the design of the driver rather
than the HOWTO. Since the chip-set is a generic ATAPI-USB bridge,
should the driver be designed more like paride than usb_scsi? To be
honest, I haven't spent more than a couple of hours studying either of
these drivers and don't really understand their differences. Can
someone help me get started on the right foot?

BTW, my goal is to be able to use this driver in a month or two. Is
this unrealistic with a couple of programming hours a day (say roughly
40 to 80 hours total)?

-- 
 (__)  Doug Alcorn           
 oo /  doug@lathi.net 
 |_/   "If you don't have the source, it's not software"


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