HxC SD with X68000 ACE

HxC Floppy emulator support for all others computers...
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6502man
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Nov 18, 2014 6:05 pm

HxC SD with X68000 ACE

Post by 6502man »

hello

How to operate the HxC SD with ACE X68000?

I followed the recommendation Namida88:

- Cut the wires of the floppy cable 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19
- XDE converted them into HFE (77,2,360,500000,1024 ...)
- Configured HxC in Shugart mode

But X68000 only reads the first 4 track for certain disk images, for others does not recognize :(

For exemple the game Cotton boot with music but also stops on the track 4 ???

Configuration ID:

Code: Select all

ID3.....ID2....ID1.....ID0
.o.......o......X.......o
.o.......o......X.......X
.o.......o......o.......X
Where is the mistake?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Otherwise it is possible to connect in floppy 3, if so how to configure the HxC?

Thank you.

Jeff
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Re: HxC SD with X68000 ACE

Post by Jeff »

You need to "emulate" some very specific x68000 signals.
More details on this thread :
http://torlus.com/floppy/forum/viewtopi ... 8000#p9765

6502man
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Nov 18, 2014 6:05 pm

Re: HxC SD with X68000 ACE

Post by 6502man »

You mean the HxC is not compatible with the X68000 :(

On the page of supported systems indicated !!!


I need special circuit for emulate specific signals, or direct connect by floppy cable in real floppy drive ?

Thanks.

Jeff
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Re: HxC SD with X68000 ACE

Post by Jeff »

6502man wrote:You mean the HxC is not compatible with the X68000 :(

On the page of supported systems indicated !!!
Here is what is indicated :

https://hxc2001.com/download/floppy_driv ... upport.htm

Computer Sharp X68000 Shugart Working !
For full support (auto eject…), need an additionnal function board (work in progress)

6502man wrote: I need special circuit for emulate specific signals, or direct connect by floppy cable in real floppy drive ?
it appears than some switches are enough to pass some check.
BTW which image are you trying to load ?

6502man
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Nov 18, 2014 6:05 pm

Re: HxC SD with X68000 ACE

Post by 6502man »

This disk image :
www.6502man.com/tempo/X68000/COTTON_A_XDF.zip

Other disk image have the same problem: stop on track 4 !!!
And other disk image don't load !!!


Thanks.

6502man
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Nov 18, 2014 6:05 pm

Re: HxC SD with X68000 ACE

Post by 6502man »

I retried and 1 game launch correctly and fully working : Salamander HDM->HFE
ALL OTHER not working !

It is possible problem to convert .XDF and .HDM format to .HFE ???

Jeff
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Re: HxC SD with X68000 ACE

Post by Jeff »

6502man wrote:I retried and 1 game launch correctly and fully working : Salamander HDM->HFE
ALL OTHER not working !

It is possible problem to convert .XDF and .HDM format to .HFE ???
Maybe, but i have to check.

Anyway Alex Mena send me a bunch of tested images years ago:

https://hxc2001.com/floppy_drive_emulat ... X68000.zip

i think that he have done some kind modifications on them , but i'am not sure what exactly.
All files and archive are in outook expess eml files. Let me know if you can't open them.

6502man
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Nov 18, 2014 6:05 pm

Re: HxC SD with X68000 ACE

Post by 6502man »

Thanks :D

I tried with this disk image.

And come back in few days ...

caius
Posts: 75
Joined: Sun Jan 30, 2011 12:22 am

Re: HxC SD with X68000 ACE

Post by caius »

Hi, most of X68000 games will not properly work with HxC floppy emulator due the lack of some X68000 proprietary FDD signals.I get same behaviour of you, reading will stop at track 4.Sometimes you have to wait some minutes and then track reading will go on but this is not valid for all games.
To workaround this problem I used a simply circuit made by kitahei88 (credits to him) with emulates two of the X68000 signals (DISK IN and FDD INT), see picture attached.It works pretty well on all games, the only game which gave me trouble is Valis II (neither kitahei88 understood why).If you look at the circuit there are two switches and two led for each FDD drives.When you press the switch you communicate to machine host that a disk has been inserted generating a DISK IN output signal (after this you can mount images on HxC) so the led will stay ON until an interrupt is generated by the host (the auto-eject X68000 feature).It's not immediate but it works, I implemented this on my CompactXVI along with HxC SD floppy emulator and I'm happy of it (though a custom FDD cable was required)
Attachments
X68kFDDemul.gif
X68kFDDemul.gif (21.53 KiB) Viewed 10928 times

aotta
Posts: 36
Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2017 10:39 am

Re: HxC SD with X68000 ACE

Post by aotta »

caius wrote:
Fri Nov 21, 2014 4:34 pm
Hi, most of X68000 games will not properly work with HxC floppy emulator due the lack of some X68000 proprietary FDD signals.I get same behaviour of you, reading will stop at track 4.Sometimes you have to wait some minutes and then track reading will go on but this is not valid for all games.
To workaround this problem I used a simply circuit made by kitahei88 (credits to him) with emulates two of the X68000 signals (DISK IN and FDD INT), see picture attached.It works pretty well on all games, the only game which gave me trouble is Valis II (neither kitahei88 understood why).If you look at the circuit there are two switches and two led for each FDD drives.When you press the switch you communicate to machine host that a disk has been inserted generating a DISK IN output signal (after this you can mount images on HxC) so the led will stay ON until an interrupt is generated by the host (the auto-eject X68000 feature).It's not immediate but it works, I implemented this on my CompactXVI along with HxC SD floppy emulator and I'm happy of it (though a custom FDD cable was required)
Ciao Caius,
sorry to revive this old thread, but i made a pcb with the kitahei88's schematics, but it work only with few games to me, and for single floppy is event worst than without insert and fd_int handling. Can you share some picture or gerbers from your one?

aotta
Posts: 36
Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2017 10:39 am

Re: HxC SD with X68000 ACE

Post by aotta »

karager wrote:
Fri Jun 02, 2023 1:13 pm
Jeff from HxC was working on a solution but IMHO he will never realize it in a commercial product, probably it's not worth for him
As for me, I'm gonna to send my device to someone who can do testing.
Thank you @karager, i'm working myself for a solution, and i got some multidisk games working, and working to solve some issue i still have with some titles.
It's an open source project, based on an arduino nano to handle the special floppy signals from/to the X68000.

Here the project:

https://github.com/aotta/X68KFDUINO

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