Winradio WR1000i retrofit

[VK3PK]

A project that I have had on the back burner for a while is to retrofit the WR1000i with a CIV interface/(and possibly USB) interface , so that it can be used with a PC with an ISA slot (remember those).
There must be quite a few of those receivers lying around collecting dust.
I have the CIV code working on a ATmega128 & will emulate the WR1000i as a Icom PCR1000. I have been stuck for a while in deciding between two approaches in interfacing to the WR1000i in terms of,
do I,
a) emulate the ISA lines & use the on-board Motorola MCU or
b) rat the receiver of the ISA board , turf the ISA board & just use interface to the receiver with out the need of all the bus decoding.
I am interested in comments from those who have a WR1000i & who are interested in doing a similar exercise. It will probably need a PCB for option b) to to make it a nice installation and that will help to affray costs.

My plan after that, is to have a remote interface as an alternative to a PC, which will be an Arduino with a color touch screen, lots of memories...all that sort of jazz! Others can help with the development of that!