PCMCIA ATA Controller Emulation

[Richard Smith]

Hi guys,

I'm posting this here in the vague hope that someone can give me a 
hint/help with a little project I'm researching.

Ok, some background first. I work for a company that supplies network 
solutions and stuff for the marine environment. I've been asked if it is 
possible to interface our black box of tricks which is an embedded PC, 
to a piece of hardware via it's compact flash interface.

The premise is that the hardware we're connecting to thinks that our 
embedded PC is actually a compact flash card and uses us as it's storage 
for it's logs and other stuff that we need.

The advantage for us is that we can remotely support the device in 
question and also finally deploy our superdupermegawotchamacallit 
proprietary thing, which up until now we've not been able to do since 
someone can come along swipe the flash card, and bob's your uncle, 
fanny's your aunt our hundreds of hours of toil and labour go down the 
drain.

So, my question is thus:

is it possible to emulate the functions of a PCMCIA ATA Controller like 
those found when interfacing to compact flash? Obviously there needs to 
be some sort of card reader/writer functionality in the middle, but what 
else would be required?

Is this even possible?

If it is, but would require some development, would someone be 
interested in implementing this if the go-ahead is given? We would of 
course supply all components necessary for testing of this environment 
and additionally pay for development time.

Barking, or just mad?

-- 
Richard Smith
OmniRed B.V.
Plaza de la Mediterranea 4
07015 Palma de Mallorca
Baleares, SPAIN
Phone +31-205151101
Fax +31-205151102
Web http://www.omniaccess.com