HXC and TRS 80 - Please help!!!

HxC Floppy emulator support for all others computers...
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KirkJT
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Feb 04, 2016 1:54 pm

HXC and TRS 80 - Please help!!!

Post by KirkJT »

Hi there,

I'm Marco from Italy. A month ago I got my first TRS-80, a superb Model 4 non-gate array.
I had my fun repairing it and getting it back into working conditions (basically I had to swap in brand new capacitors) and test it with an LS-DOS 6.2 disk.
I then bought a HxC SD card and connected to the external port but had no luck in making the two work together.

I know that the disk format must match the operating system yet the machine doesn't recognize the external drives. I even tried with LS-DOS disk images of LS-DOS 6.2 itself in JV1 format, converted as is into HFE format and it's the same: I get an illegal drive number error. I even tried tried to create a brand new LSDOS disk image with TRSutils but got no luck.

If I keep the jumper settings as they come with the HxC nothing happens (from the right side looking from above: rightmost upper jumper to set ID0 for drive A, second lower jumper from the right to set ID1 for drive B). Issueing a DEVICES command only shows disk :0 and disk:1 but there's no trace of drive :2 and :3

If I put the jumpers on the other side of the pins (set as above but on the left side of the pins as seen from above), when I issue a CAT or DIR or DEVICES command and the machine hits drive :1 the HxC moves its heads as if the TRS was accessing it but then I always get the illegal drive number error. So I believe that the signs of life of the HxC are due to some MOTOR signaling being shared on the PCB connector.

So, whatever the configuration any CAT :2 or CAT :3 gives the same illegal drive number error which seems associated with the wrong filesystem according to this other post http://torlus.com/floppy/forum/viewtopi ... =19&t=1567

Anyway I would expect at least the DEVICES command to show the list of attached devices whether they have a disk inserted or not.

Any hint at what I may have done wrong?

Thanks in advance,

Marco

KirkJT
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Feb 04, 2016 1:54 pm

Re: HXC and TRS 80 - Please help!!!

Post by KirkJT »

I made a few other experiments by forcing the HxC to get the configuration from the shugart but got no luck (and it was more a random attempt than anything thought of).

Here below my original config settings, a photo of the jumper configuration and the output on the TRS80' screen:

Image
Image
Image

Thanks in advance,

Marco

gonk23
Posts: 38
Joined: Sat Jun 15, 2013 4:21 pm
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Re: HXC and TRS 80 - Please help!!!

Post by gonk23 »

Your jumper settings look correct. Have you connected the plug the correct way on the TRS-80? Have you tested your cable to ensure all signals are getting through? It should be a straight cable without twists or missing pins. See: https://gonk23.wordpress.com/trs-80/hxc ... -emulator/

Don't use JV1, because it only supports single density, which Model III/4 cannot read without a conversion program. Try LDOS/LS-DOS images in JV3 format. Does the image I've attached (after unzipping) work?

I've only got a Model III so I cannot duplicate your setup exactly, but if I use LDOS it might be similar. The "Illegal drive number" error is a bit misleading because I get that if the drive is empty or contains a single density disk. However the "devices" command does show me all my drives even if they are empty or have an unreadable disk, so it suggests that you have a hardware connection issue.
Attachments
testjv3.hfe.zip
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Gazza
Posts: 5
Joined: Sat May 16, 2015 6:23 am
Location: Sydney, OZ

Re: HXC and TRS 80 - Please help!!!

Post by Gazza »

Marco, try
SYSTEM(DRIVE=2,ENABLE)
That should do it, if it doesn't then try

SYSTEM(DRIVE=2,DRIVER="FLOPPY")
Answer with '2'

When you have it working save your configuration with SYSGEN
cheers
Gazza

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