I own a Hammond XH-200/SP Century Limited Edition organ (see first attachment). It is 10-12 years old, and functioning perfectly, but the disk drive is either starting to get flaky, or the disks I'm using are turning bad. I think it's the drive, because there are problems with new disks, just after a short amount of time. (And I mean new, as in taken from a just opened box).
After trying a cheap emulator from eBay (from "Le Trung", who is often recommended with regard to emulators for Yamaha keyboards) and failling to get it to work, I've decided to go for the HxC. Two days ago I've ordered one from Lotharek's page on eBay.
Most emulators assume an IBM interface with no configuration options (The Le Trung emulator is one of them, because it DOES work in my computer), but the organ seems to have a Shugart interface. I'm not fully sure. I actually never heard about Shugart before I started to look into this. I would appreciate it if someone could take a look at this.
First: The organ creates normal MS-DOS diskettes. When formatting a HD disk, I get a normal 1.44 MB floppy that can be read in a normal or USB disk drive, and I can see the files on it. A floppy formatted in the computer can be used in the Hammond. The organ also takes normal DD 720 kB disks, but I have never used them.
Second: It seems the organ constantly accesses the drive, or keeps the motor running as long as a disk is in there. The light is not on, but I can hear a "swirling" noise coming from the drive.
Please see the attachment "xh200-pin.png". This is the pinout as it appears in the technical manual. Sorry for the not-so-good quality. It's a PDF. If needed, I can post the schematic of the entire FDD controller. After I learned about Shugart, it seems the organ has the pinout in reverse. I assume it can be fixed by just taking the notch off the cable and putting it in upside down into the controller. (The original drive that came with the Hammond actually has the connector and cable mounted upside down as compared to a normal IBM drive. Maybe that's normal for Shugart drives, I don't know.)
For your convenience, I've already reversed the pinout of the controller. In brackets, I've noted what I think the pin stands for. Please see attachment "xh200-pin.png". It looks quite Shugart-y to me, except:
1. It seems Pin2 can be either jumpered to DISK CHANGE as in Shugart, or DENSITY as in IBM, but the drawing says that the organ does not use this pin.
2. It seems Pin34 can be jumpered to either expect DISK READY as in Shugart, or DISK CHANGE as in IBM, using a jumper called JP5 (of JP8?).
3. Pin14 often has a DRIVE SELECT3 in Shugart pinout schematics, but it's not used in the organ. The instrument only has one drive.
I do not know if my assumptions about the possibility of changing the behaviour pin2 and 34 are correct. I never took a look at the XH-200 floppy controller and never tried it. If the organ does something weird, like DISK READY *and* DISK CHANGE on pin34, can the emulator handle this? Even while not using pin2, it can detect disk changes, as it immediately displays the "LOAD DISK" screen when I insert a floppy, and it disappears when I take it out.
The emulator seems to have "Atari Shugart", and "SP1200 Shugart"; if necessary, can the emulator also get a "Hammond XH/XT Shugart" option? I'll first try with Generic Shugart, of course, and I'm willing to test a new option of necessary.
Thanks for your answer
=== Other XH / XT Hammond organs ====
PS: If my XH-200/SP Century works with this emulator, then there is a whole bunch of organs that will probably work with it, as they are all the same inside. They all have the same capabilities, and the same technical manual. The differences are in the style of the cabinet, number of keys, pedals and size of the speaker system. Here's the list.
American versions:
XH-272 and 273 New Elegante (2x 61 keys, 25 pedals, large speakers and subwoofer)
XT-272 amd 273 Aurora Grande (2x 61 keys, 13 pedals, small speakers, no subwoofer)
XT-172 and 173 Aurora Classic (2x 49 keys, 13 pedals, small speakers, no subwoofer)
European versions:
XH-200 (2x 61 keys, 25 pedals, large speakers and subwoofer)
XH-200/SP Century Limited Edition (2x 61 keys, 13 pedals, large speakers and subwoofer)
XT-100 Aurora (Specs Like XT-172, but with XH-200 cabinet)
One organ in the series is a downscaled version of the XT-172, called XL-172 Aurora Century. This organ actually has less capabilities than all the above ones, so it may use different parts. The even smaller XJ-100 Aurora Petite doesn't even have a disk drive. (It doesn't even have drawbars... how's that for a Hammond? *CRINGE*)
If the emulator works in my instrument, it would probably add a total of 9, maybe 10 instruments to your compatibility list
