Problem with 8" CP/M System

HxC Floppy emulator support for all others computers...
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mdahmke
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Mar 06, 2016 4:07 am

Problem with 8" CP/M System

Post by mdahmke »

Hello - I must be missing a step somewhere and could use some assistance.
I have an Advance Digital Super Six S-100 board that runs CP/M 3 from dual 8" SSDD floppies.
The board has both 50 and 34 pin floppy connectors so it's possible to use 8" and 5.25" drives simultaneously. Every combination I've tried so far still gives a "drive not ready" error on the HxC emulator. I've currently got it setup so that drive A(0) is the 8" floppy drive and B( ID1) is the HxC emulator. The HxC is connected to the 34 pin cable, which according to the circuit diagram should not be a problem. I've created a couple of test HFE files, one formatted as an FM 8" SSSD standard IBM3740-type floppy, and the other with the same settings but as MFM. No matter what I select as the active floppy, I still get a "drive not ready" error in CP/M when trying to run the Format utility. I'm no doubt missing something really simple here, but I just can't see what it is.

Thanks
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evad
Posts: 25
Joined: Thu Jan 28, 2016 6:43 pm

Re: Problem with 8" CP/M System

Post by evad »

mdahmke wrote:Hello - I must be missing a step somewhere and could use some assistance.
I have an Advance Digital Super Six S-100 board that runs CP/M 3 from dual 8" SSDD floppies.
The board has both 50 and 34 pin floppy connectors so it's possible to use 8" and 5.25" drives simultaneously. Every combination I've tried so far still gives a "drive not ready" error on the HxC emulator. I've currently got it setup so that drive A(0) is the 8" floppy drive and B( ID1) is the HxC emulator. The HxC is connected to the 34 pin cable, which according to the circuit diagram should not be a problem. I've created a couple of test HFE files, one formatted as an FM 8" SSSD standard IBM3740-type floppy, and the other with the same settings but as MFM. No matter what I select as the active floppy, I still get a "drive not ready" error in CP/M when trying to run the Format utility. I'm no doubt missing something really simple here, but I just can't see what it is.

Thanks
What kind of error do you get just trying to read the disk? I know it should fail since it is not formatted with the correct directory info. If the failure is other than "drive not ready" then it's a format only related error.

mdahmke
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Mar 06, 2016 4:07 am

Re: Problem with 8" CP/M System

Post by mdahmke »

A>FMT8
Enter Disk Drive To Be Formatted (0-3) : 0
Enter Density, Single or Double (S,D) : S
Format System Tracks only (Y,N) : N
Supress Format Verification (Y,N) : J
Supress Format Verification (Y,N) : N
Insert Diskett Into Drive 0 And Press The Return Key


FORMATTING & VERIFYING
TRACK
00
WRITE ERROR: DRIVE NOT READY
SIDE= 0, TRACK= 00, SECTOR= 01, STATUS= 80

OPTION (CR to Exit, S to Skip, R to Retry) ?

Jeff
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Re: Problem with 8" CP/M System

Post by Jeff »

have selected the image on the emulator ? (this is not the case on the picture)

can you share the hfe file ?

mdahmke
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Re: Problem with 8" CP/M System

Post by mdahmke »

Yes, it is selected when I have tested, showing 77 tracks in the second line status display.
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Jeff
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Re: Problem with 8" CP/M System

Post by Jeff »

mdahmke wrote:Yes, it is selected when I have tested, showing 77 tracks in the second line status display.
Thanks. The FM bitrate is supposed to be 250Kbits/s or 125Kbits/s ?

The disk should rotate at 300RPM or 360RPM ?

SSDD : Single sided Double density. Why are you using FM encoding ?

mdahmke
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Re: Problem with 8" CP/M System

Post by mdahmke »

Just trying various combinations to find something that works... specs I found for that format indicated 360 rpm. I'll try 300.

mdahmke
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Re: Problem with 8" CP/M System

Post by mdahmke »

I decided to try another approach. I connected my 8" floppy drives to an old PC that has a floppy controller and installed fdrawcmd. The driver installed correctly but in HxC when I try to do a floppy disk dump, I get an error trying to open fdrawcmd. A long time ago I'd connected the 8" drives to a PC using xenocopy and that worked fine using the same 34 to 50 pin adapter I am using now.

evad
Posts: 25
Joined: Thu Jan 28, 2016 6:43 pm

Re: Problem with 8" CP/M System

Post by evad »

mdahmke wrote:I decided to try another approach. I connected my 8" floppy drives to an old PC that has a floppy controller and installed fdrawcmd. The driver installed correctly but in HxC when I try to do a floppy disk dump, I get an error trying to open fdrawcmd. A long time ago I'd connected the 8" drives to a PC using xenocopy and that worked fine using the same 34 to 50 pin adapter I am using now.
Jeff is the Man, But let me see if I can help also.

Here is a working .fpf and .hfe for 8 Inch Single Density Single Sided. I have SA800 drives. This Single Density HFE allows me to copy data from the SA800's to the HXC.

I looked at some Format source code for CP/M 3 ' S100COMPUTERS Z80/WD2793 (ZFDC) Controller board '. The "Drive Not Ready' is not really relevant as the 'Write Error' is. Looks like "Drive Not Ready" is shown with many actual Read/Write errors. I think it's a bit mis leading.
I was looking for code that checks for valid RPM. I did not see anything that does, so I don't think its an issue for you.
The HXC uses a throttling technique of holding down the Index Pulse longer than normal to allow time for the SD Card to write the Data ( My Assumption). This causes a problem with Valid RPM checking code as it will indicate a 'Motor Slow' condition. I had to bypass such code for my systems in order to format HXC images.

This works for me..
For SA800 Single Density emulation:
RPMs must be set to 360.
Set IBM FM for Single Density.
Single Density Bitrate should be 250,000, However that will not work for me with the HXC. Must set to 500,000. :?
Pick the Sector Size , I use 256.
1 or 2 Sides.
As I learned you MUST Set the 'Sector per Track' = 0.

Forget about 8" double density until Jeff gets the Write pre Compensation working as the 8 inch drives require WPC above Track 43.

I am anxious for the Jeff to get the WPC Issue fixed so I can make 5.25 and 8 inch Double Density system disks for my LNW80's.

CP/M 3 looks cool.. :) Only have 2.2 :cry:


Good luck .. The HXC is the coolest thing since Sliced Bread :)
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Jeff
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Re: Problem with 8" CP/M System

Post by Jeff »

evad wrote: Single Density Bitrate should be 250,000, However that will not work for me with the HXC. Must set to 500,000. :?
This is normal : The bitrate into the hxc software is in fact a cellrate. To code one MFM bit you just need one cell. In FM you need 2 cells because you need to add the bit clock for each data bit. So to have 250000 kbits/s of usable data, you need 500000 kcells/s (clock + data).

mdahmke
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Re: Problem with 8" CP/M System

Post by mdahmke »

Thank you! I'll try this and let you know.

zedex.us
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Re: Problem with 8" CP/M System

Post by zedex.us »

"I still get a "drive not ready" error in CP/M"?

Connect pin 34 of HxC to pin 33 (ground) to have the HxC hardware look "ready".

Use HxC utility CREATE DISK to format an .hfe image.

When the HxC display says "Chose File" touch the middle button to actually choose the file displayed. When it is chosen, the bottomline will show the track/sector last accessed by the system.

The HxC2001 can do MFM double-density which is normal for IBM DOS, but cannot do M2FM double density which was normal for a lot of 8" CP/M and Intel MDS disks.

All the 8" CP/M and Intel MDS disks are 360RPM. The disk created as the .hfe image and selected will control the repetition rate of the INDEX pulses the HxC hardware issues that tell the target's FDC it's connected to an FDD spinning at 360RPM. If the FDC sees 300RPM, it will object (show not ready).

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