Emulating an 8" DSDD FDD with the Gotek/HxC firmware

HxC Floppy emulator support for all others computers...
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davidestewart
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Joined: Fri Oct 27, 2017 10:56 pm

Emulating an 8" DSDD FDD with the Gotek/HxC firmware

Post by davidestewart »

Hello,
I am able to successfully emulate an 8" FDD with my gotek however the size of the FD it presents my system is 600k. I have tried to create a blank floppy with the HxC emulator software with the specifications for a DSDD 8" floppy disk and it will still only format to 600k on my system.

How do I create a blank floppy disk file that produces a true to size DSDD 8" 1.2mb floppy disk that will format as so?

I'm running CP/M on a CompuPro 8/16 with a disk1A

Jeff
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Re: Emulating an 8" DSDD FDD with the Gotek/HxC firmware

Post by Jeff »

Did you know how the machine make the difference between an DD or HD disk ? RPM detection or is there a density signal ?

davidestewart
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Joined: Fri Oct 27, 2017 10:56 pm

Re: Emulating an 8" DSDD FDD with the Gotek/HxC firmware

Post by davidestewart »

Jeff,
The CompuPro Disk 1A manual does not say how it selects density. The connector pinouts for the 50pin header for the 8" FDD are as follows:
2 - Low Current
4 - Motor off 1
6 - Motor off 2
8 - Motor off 3
10 - two sided
12 - not connected
14 - Side select
16 - not connected
18 - Head Load
20 - Index (8")
22 - Ready
24 - Motor off 4
26 - Drive Select 1
28 - Drive Select 2
30 - Drive Select 3
32 - Drive Select 4
34 - Direction Select
36 - Step
38 - Write data
40 - Write gate

Im using this https://github.com/NF6X/fd50to34 to adapt between the 50 pin and 34 pin ribbon cable. Perhaps I just need to short the #10 pin to signal "two sided"? Ill give it a try and report back.

Jeff
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Re: Emulating an 8" DSDD FDD with the Gotek/HxC firmware

Post by Jeff »

davidestewart wrote:
Wed Nov 29, 2017 8:17 pm
Im using this https://github.com/NF6X/fd50to34 to adapt between the 50 pin and 34 pin ribbon cable. Perhaps I just need to short the #10 pin to signal "two sided"? Ill give it a try and report back.
yes this is sound to be a good idea.

davidestewart
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Oct 27, 2017 10:56 pm

Re: Emulating an 8" DSDD FDD with the Gotek/HxC firmware

Post by davidestewart »

Jeff,
Shunting the "2-sided" jumper on the adapter board worked and I am able to format as a DSDD 8" 1.2mb floppy disk. There seems to be an issue writing the CP/M loader with sysgen out to tracks 0 - 1. Ive tried it with two different versions of CP/M using the sysgen command and associated loader file.

davidestewart
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Joined: Fri Oct 27, 2017 10:56 pm

Re: Emulating an 8" DSDD FDD with the Gotek/HxC firmware

Post by davidestewart »

Are there any known issue with having a sysgen type program writing a loader out to track 0 - 1 where track 0 is 128byte sectors/26 sectors per track and track 1 is 1024 byte sectors/8 sectors per track?

Jeff
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Re: Emulating an 8" DSDD FDD with the Gotek/HxC firmware

Post by Jeff »

Use the attached xml to make your hfe file and try to sysgen it.
test.xml.zip
(777 Bytes) Downloaded 352 times

davidestewart
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Joined: Fri Oct 27, 2017 10:56 pm

Re: Emulating an 8" DSDD FDD with the Gotek/HxC firmware

Post by davidestewart »

Jeff,
I tried your XML file to create a blank floppy. The track analyzer shows the right types of modulation on track 0 and 1. Unfortunately the loader track still wont write.

I also tried editing your XML file and increasing the RPM to 360, and also making track 0 1024/8 instead of 128/26 with no results.

It is very cool you can make floppies to your exact specifications using .xlm

Jeff
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Re: Emulating an 8" DSDD FDD with the Gotek/HxC firmware

Post by Jeff »

davidestewart wrote:
Tue Dec 05, 2017 1:28 am
Jeff,
I tried your XML file to create a blank floppy. The track analyzer shows the right types of modulation on track 0 and 1. Unfortunately the loader track still wont write.

I also tried editing your XML file and increasing the RPM to 360, and also making track 0 1024/8 instead of 128/26 with no results.

It is very cool you can make floppies to your exact specifications using .xlm
Can you try to format it ?

davidestewart
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Joined: Fri Oct 27, 2017 10:56 pm

Re: Emulating an 8" DSDD FDD with the Gotek/HxC firmware

Post by davidestewart »

Jeff,
Yes, the blank floppy image formats fine however the compupro format program does not format the first two tracks of the floppy disk by design. Also, when I use the copy program for disk duplication and select "data tracks only" the copy works perfectly. When I select "all tracks including system" the copy program errors out on tracks 0 and 1.

Jeff
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Re: Emulating an 8" DSDD FDD with the Gotek/HxC firmware

Post by Jeff »

davidestewart wrote:
Wed Dec 06, 2017 6:42 am
When I select "all tracks including system" the copy program errors out on tracks 0 and 1.
Could you share this HFE after getting this error ?

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