Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

HxC Floppy emulator support for all others Keyboards/Samplers...
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Robber
Posts: 20
Joined: Tue Feb 18, 2014 12:39 am

Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by Robber »

Hello Swissdoc,

for the answer to your first question let me redirect you to:
http://www.vintagesynth.com/forum/viewt ... 6&start=30

Page 3 Wed May 21, 2014 9:40 pm

The part about the FZ data transfer cable using the FZ's RS232 port you can skip unless you haven 2 FZ samplers. Then it will become very interesting.

The second question: Just put empty hfe files onto your sd card. Once it's in the floppy emulator and formatted from the FZ's menu you can store and load all sort of files concerning FZ data so you don't have to convert fzv files into fzf ones.
In fact saving and loading single voices or banks instead of only full dumps comes in very handy if you want to use Atari software to edit banks (forget about editing the voice parameters, it's far to slow working with midi dump as on the Atari ST, but for bank editing it is perfect).
Soon I'm going to explain the do's and don'ts in more detail and what else is possible.

Thanks a lot for al those tons of voices. I downloaded them all and am very anxious to upload them into the machine with the help of the HxC floppy emulator and listen to them. These are the '"Andreas Goransson" samples aren't they? I always was wondering how to get hold of these samples since the site where they were offered was down. I haven't been into my FZ for a long time because a dead floppy drive (did use mididump for a while though, but did have a lot of problems with corrupted files and of course it's phenomenal speed :wink: ) an some other problems but recently I picked up on it again after solving those and obtaining the HxC Floppy Emulator plus the FZ data transfer cable.

Robber
Posts: 20
Joined: Tue Feb 18, 2014 12:39 am

Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by Robber »

About the voice and bank images (second question)

I see the problem now since I've tried to convert the Swedish voice and bank files directly into HFE files.
Even if it was possible to convert them, just 1 voice (perhaps 14kb) would take up 3.281 kb of memory (standard hfe "raw"or casio fz image file) which is, even though 2/4/...32 GB on the SD/HC card is a lot of memory for the FZ, a waste of space and is the same as a full dump of 1 meg.
I don't think there's a solution for this. When I renamed a 'fzv' into a 'fzf' file the HxC showed "bad file" on the display and the SD disk was corrupted immediately for reading in the PC.
N.B. the HxC was still able to read the "floppy's" that where already on the SD.

So the only thing left is to use midi-dump and then save the voices on the FZ formatted SD card.
Still, if you have the Jeff McClintock PC > FZ transfer cable (which is not the Casio FZ <> FZ cable) you can transmit data much faster, but in the case of voice data like drum samples that contain only a few KB's it won't speed up things considerably is my guess.

Jeff
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Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by Jeff »

Is there any fz1 editing tool/software available somewhere ? If yes this the way to go.
If not : is there any technical information about the file system used by the FZ-1 somewhere ?
This is needed to make any disk image editor...

Audronic
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Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by Audronic »

If it ain't Broke then PLEASE DONT fix it.

Procrastinators Unite !

Jeff
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Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by Jeff »

Audronic wrote:Hi Jeff


Manual here.

http://www.warningwillrobinson.com.au/m ... Manual.pdf

Ray
Thanks but this doesn't tell me how to generate a FZ1 floppy image from a bunch of individual FZ sample files. That's the topic here.

Please note that the HxC floppy emulator is already in severals FZ1. The question is only about the way to import some specific files into the image.

wjmwpg
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Jul 31, 2014 9:01 pm

Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by wjmwpg »

A question more to those on this forum who have an HxC FDE installed in their FZ machine rather than to Jeff or others involved in the creation of the FDE and related software . . .

I've just purchased an FZ10m and am strongly considering installing an the REV F HxC. Now I think I have this mostly figured out, but there's one part I still have trouble with:

Step 1: load a Casio sample set 3.5" floppy disk into the FZ's internal RAM.

Step 2: export that disk's contents as a .fzf file from the FZ's RAM to computer via MIDI cable?

Step 3: On computer convert the .fzf file to a .hde file using the HxC software

Step 4: Load the .hde file(s) from computer onto SD card

Step 5: Put this SD card into HxC floppy emulator (installed in FZ's drive bay in place of original FZ floppy drive) and load those .hde "disks" for use in FZ RAM.

Now here's the part I can't wrap my head around:

Let's say I get my hands on some "new" FZ sample sets on 3.5" diskettes, now that I've removed the original floppy drive from my FZ, how do I get the files from these new diskettes onto the computer in either .fzf or .hde format? Because surely not every single FZ sample set diskette in existence has already been converted to .fzf and shared somewhere online for easy download . . .

Cheers (like to think I'm thinking things through, or at least trying),
James

Jeff
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Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by Jeff »

wjmwpg wrote:A question more to those on this forum who have an HxC FDE installed in their FZ machine rather than to Jeff or others involved in the creation of the FDE and related software . . .

I've just purchased an FZ10m and am strongly considering installing an the REV F HxC. Now I think I have this mostly figured out, but there's one part I still have trouble with:

Step 1: load a Casio sample set 3.5" floppy disk into the FZ's internal RAM.

Step 2: export that disk's contents as a .fzf file from the FZ's RAM to computer via MIDI cable?

Step 3: On computer convert the .fzf file to a .hde file using the HxC software

Step 4: Load the .hde file(s) from computer onto SD card

Step 5: Put this SD card into HxC floppy emulator (installed in FZ's drive bay in place of original FZ floppy drive) and load those .hde "disks" for use in FZ RAM.

Now here's the part I can't wrap my head around:

Let's say I get my hands on some "new" FZ sample sets on 3.5" diskettes, now that I've removed the original floppy drive from my FZ, how do I get the files from these new diskettes onto the computer in either .fzf or .hde format? Because surely not every single FZ sample set diskette in existence has already been converted to .fzf and shared somewhere online for easy download . . .

Cheers (like to think I'm thinking things through, or at least trying),
James
If you still have the FZ1 floppy drive, you can connect it to the PC to read your disks.
Other possibility : use our services to dump your disks.
another one : connect both drive on the fz1 to make some disk copy. you will have to add a switch to the floppy ribbon to select the active drive.

springreverb
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Feb 21, 2013 1:26 pm

Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by springreverb »

Jeff wrote:
wjmwpg wrote:A question more to those on this forum who have an HxC FDE installed in their FZ machine rather than to Jeff or others involved in the creation of the FDE and related software . . .

I've just purchased an FZ10m and am strongly considering installing an the REV F HxC. Now I think I have this mostly figured out, but there's one part I still have trouble with:

Step 1: load a Casio sample set 3.5" floppy disk into the FZ's internal RAM.

Step 2: export that disk's contents as a .fzf file from the FZ's RAM to computer via MIDI cable?

Step 3: On computer convert the .fzf file to a .hde file using the HxC software

Step 4: Load the .hde file(s) from computer onto SD card

Step 5: Put this SD card into HxC floppy emulator (installed in FZ's drive bay in place of original FZ floppy drive) and load those .hde "disks" for use in FZ RAM.

Now here's the part I can't wrap my head around:

Let's say I get my hands on some "new" FZ sample sets on 3.5" diskettes, now that I've removed the original floppy drive from my FZ, how do I get the files from these new diskettes onto the computer in either .fzf or .hde format? Because surely not every single FZ sample set diskette in existence has already been converted to .fzf and shared somewhere online for easy download . . .

Cheers (like to think I'm thinking things through, or at least trying),
James
If you still have the FZ1 floppy drive, you can connect it to the PC to read your disks.
Other possibility : use our services to dump your disks.
another one : connect both drive on the fz1 to make some disk copy. you will have to add a switch to the floppy ribbon to select the active drive.
you can also get 2 fz's and put hxc in one and floppy in the other , then use the serial bus on the back of the fz's to quickly transfer files across, needs a special cable though, which you have to make up.
, thats what i do, you can also then use the hxc to save anything new that you create on the non hxc floppy, its a good setup i like it

Robber
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Joined: Tue Feb 18, 2014 12:39 am

Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by Robber »

springreverb wrote: you can also get 2 fz's and put hxc in one and floppy in the other , then use the serial bus on the back of the fz's to quickly transfer files across, needs a special cable though, which you have to make up.
, thats what i do, you can also then use the hxc to save anything new that you create on the non hxc floppy, its a good setup i like it
Well done!

:)

undecyclenate
Posts: 12
Joined: Wed Aug 20, 2014 4:42 pm

Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by undecyclenate »

Is there any fz1 editing tool/software available somewhere ? If yes this the way to go.
If not : is there any technical information about the file system used by the FZ-1 somewhere ?
This is needed to make any disk image editor...
Jeff... technical information:

http://www.buchty.net/casio/
http://www.buchty.net/casio/files/casio ... ctures.pdf
http://www.buchty.net/casio/files/fztoolkit.tar.gz
files fzftrans.c and fzfcopy.c might be of use to put fzf/fzb/fzv files onto a floppy?

Have an editor done, and am adding more features (it doesn't create floppy images, but it does create .fzf files, and it does a better job than AWave).

See here, would like to hear from people via email:
http://undecyclenate.neocities.org/

Jeff
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Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by Jeff »

undecyclenate wrote:
Is there any fz1 editing tool/software available somewhere ? If yes this the way to go.
If not : is there any technical information about the file system used by the FZ-1 somewhere ?
This is needed to make any disk image editor...
Jeff... technical information:

http://www.buchty.net/casio/
http://www.buchty.net/casio/files/casio ... ctures.pdf
http://www.buchty.net/casio/files/fztoolkit.tar.gz
files fzftrans.c and fzfcopy.c might be of use to put fzf/fzb/fzv files onto a floppy?

Have an editor done, and am adding more features (it doesn't create floppy images, but it does create .fzf files, and it does a better job than AWave).

See here, would like to hear from people via email:
http://undecyclenate.neocities.org/
thanks! yes this may help ! :)
do you think to be able to edit floppy image file?

undecyclenate
Posts: 12
Joined: Wed Aug 20, 2014 4:42 pm

Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by undecyclenate »

i'll investigate and report back.

undecyclenate
Posts: 12
Joined: Wed Aug 20, 2014 4:42 pm

Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by undecyclenate »

So I took all the fzv files from swissdoc's swedish user club cd1 folder a1_87 and put them in to a fzf file using the editor.

Does that meet the requirements? Here's the file to test. I hope that it will work with HxC. Can someone give this file a shot?

http://www5.zippyshare.com/v/23039478/file.html

swissdoc
Posts: 27
Joined: Fri Jul 11, 2014 9:55 pm

Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by swissdoc »

Hi undecyclenate,

thanks for picking up on that topic. I tried to load your fzf file with HxCFloppyEmulator.exe v2.0.22.0 and unfortunately it just crashed the program.

undecyclenate
Posts: 12
Joined: Wed Aug 20, 2014 4:42 pm

Re: Casio FZ-1 and HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Post by undecyclenate »

Hi swissdoc,
That's OK. Thanks for getting back so quickly. I have an idea what might be the cause of the problem. I suspect it's at my end because my program is less mature. Can you upload a "known good" fzf file so I can compare the binary?

As I don't have access to a HxC myself, if someone could tell me where to get "HxCFloppyEmulator.exe v2.0.22.0" and I'll use that to test it, that would be a great help.

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