Final batch of HxC USB devices planned

General discussion forum - for all that doesn't fit in any other category.
Info-Seeker
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Oct 06, 2009 1:01 am
Location: Florida, USA
Contact:

My Unit finally Arrived!

Post by Info-Seeker »

hey Guys,

What a great product. Mine finally showed up here via a small note in my mailbox last friday. I picked it up Saturday and by Sunday I was already playing with it. The Unit worked like a charm right out of the box...

I just wanted to say thanks to Peter for a truly inspired product, hell of a job you did man. I followed this device for a long time and discussed it many times in the #Amiga channel on Efnet. So many people are waiting for the stand alone version, they do not realize the value of what is right in front of them...

When I saw Shprivat offer up his spare board in this thread, I jumped on it! What a great guy and an asset to this community. It took nearly a month for the postal lamers to get the package to me, when they finally did I had to go get it instead of it showing up, but Shprivat was such a nice guy I never worried about it once. Not only would I buy or deal with him again, but I would be willing to pay extra just for the peace of mind. A very cool cat indeed.

I Run 64HDD Pro on a small Fujitsu P600 tablet on my Commodore Desk to emulate a 60 gig hard drive for my Commodore 128. It works perfect with the HCX USB board, and I just drag and drop images over with the stylus. The 2 units work so well together, I am questioning whether or not I still want to get the stand alone version when it is released...

I made another thread with pictures, but my server went offline yesterday. Hopefully it will be back up in the morning if anyone wants to check it out.

I mounted the HCX in a standard Amiga 3.5 external Floppy enclosure. Fit perfectly with a couple of Stand Offs to make sure nothing touched anywhere. I wanted it in an external unit so I could use it on more than 1 Amiga. The 4000 has a jumper I can run a switch to that route DF0 through the External Floppy connector. This is perfect, but missing on the other models. The unit works flawlessly and hasn't failed once on any image I threw at it. My only problem is most of the NDos games require the disk to load from DF0. So while i can force a boot from DF1 in the pre-startup menu by holding down the mouse buttons, once the game starts loading, it tries to go to DF0 and then fails.

So if anyone has schematics for routing DF0 to the external floppy connector on a 500, 1000, 2000, and 1200, I think they would be of great help to a lot of guys here. I do not know anyone who has just 1 Amiga. And once everyone gets a hold of an HCX, they are going to want to use it on all of them, making the external drive bay the way to go.

Hopefully someone has done this mod before. I know I have read about it a few times, and I heard there was a company selling a part that did it back in the 90s, but can't seem to find one now...

Anyways, Just wanted to say Thanks to both Peter and Sven for doing such a great job. I really appreciate all the effort and hard work that went in to this product. If there is anything I can do to help in the future, just ask!

Info-Seeker

Jeff
Site Admin
Posts: 8092
Joined: Fri Oct 20, 2006 12:12 am
Location: Paris
Contact:

Re: My Unit finally Arrived!

Post by Jeff »

Info-Seeker wrote:hey Guys,

What a great product. Mine finally showed up here via a small note in my mailbox last friday. I picked it up Saturday and by Sunday I was already playing with it. The Unit worked like a charm right out of the box...

I just wanted to say thanks to Peter for a truly inspired product, hell of a job you did man. I followed this device for a long time and discussed it many times in the #Amiga channel on Efnet. So many people are waiting for the stand alone version, they do not realize the value of what is right in front of them...

When I saw Shprivat offer up his spare board in this thread, I jumped on it! What a great guy and an asset to this community. It took nearly a month for the postal lamers to get the package to me, when they finally did I had to go get it instead of it showing up, but Shprivat was such a nice guy I never worried about it once. Not only would I buy or deal with him again, but I would be willing to pay extra just for the peace of mind. A very cool cat indeed.

I Run 64HDD Pro on a small Fujitsu P600 tablet on my Commodore Desk to emulate a 60 gig hard drive for my Commodore 128. It works perfect with the HCX USB board, and I just drag and drop images over with the stylus. The 2 units work so well together, I am questioning whether or not I still want to get the stand alone version when it is released...

I made another thread with pictures, but my server went offline yesterday. Hopefully it will be back up in the morning if anyone wants to check it out.

I mounted the HCX in a standard Amiga 3.5 external Floppy enclosure. Fit perfectly with a couple of Stand Offs to make sure nothing touched anywhere. I wanted it in an external unit so I could use it on more than 1 Amiga. The 4000 has a jumper I can run a switch to that route DF0 through the External Floppy connector. This is perfect, but missing on the other models. The unit works flawlessly and hasn't failed once on any image I threw at it. My only problem is most of the NDos games require the disk to load from DF0. So while i can force a boot from DF1 in the pre-startup menu by holding down the mouse buttons, once the game starts loading, it tries to go to DF0 and then fails.

So if anyone has schematics for routing DF0 to the external floppy connector on a 500, 1000, 2000, and 1200, I think they would be of great help to a lot of guys here. I do not know anyone who has just 1 Amiga. And once everyone gets a hold of an HCX, they are going to want to use it on all of them, making the external drive bay the way to go.

Hopefully someone has done this mod before. I know I have read about it a few times, and I heard there was a company selling a part that did it back in the 90s, but can't seem to find one now...

Anyways, Just wanted to say Thanks to both Peter and Sven for doing such a great job. I really appreciate all the effort and hard work that went in to this product. If there is anything I can do to help in the future, just ask!

Info-Seeker
first it's HxC and not HCX.
regarding the external DF0 floppy disk drive you must get the DS0/SEL0 line as drive select. do you have the A500 schematic to do this ?

Info-Seeker
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Oct 06, 2009 1:01 am
Location: Florida, USA
Contact:

Post by Info-Seeker »

Man, I can't believe I have been typing and saying that wrong.. Sorry about that guys. As you can see from my posts I have nothing but praise for your work, so I hope I didn't offend anyone.

I do believe I have schematics for each of the Amigas including the 500. I would be happy to provide them if anyone needs...

I have spoken with a few people about this and understand the basic concept behind what needs to be done. It sounds like I can just cross wire DS0/DS(x) to swap it from the internal to external port, making the internal drive whatever (x) is, 1-3.

It sounds good in principal, but I am not that comfortable modifying electronics yet, let alone my precious Amigas. So was hoping someone with more experience might have already done it, and know the best place to inject this modification. I would like to put it on a switch so I can swap it in and out as needed.

Maybe a nice glowing rocker or something that looks cool when mounted tastefully on the Amiga case...

Info

Jeff
Site Admin
Posts: 8092
Joined: Fri Oct 20, 2006 12:12 am
Location: Paris
Contact:

Post by Jeff »

Info-Seeker wrote:Man, I can't believe I have been typing and saying that wrong.. Sorry about that guys. As you can see from my posts I have nothing but praise for your work, so I hope I didn't offend anyone.

I do believe I have schematics for each of the Amigas including the 500. I would be happy to provide them if anyone needs...

I have spoken with a few people about this and understand the basic concept behind what needs to be done. It sounds like I can just cross wire DS0/DS(x) to swap it from the internal to external port, making the internal drive whatever (x) is, 1-3.

It sounds good in principal, but I am not that comfortable modifying electronics yet, let alone my precious Amigas. So was hoping someone with more experience might have already done it, and know the best place to inject this modification. I would like to put it on a switch so I can swap it in and out as needed.

Maybe a nice glowing rocker or something that looks cool when mounted tastefully on the Amiga case...

Info
i will try to document a little this mod,but actually i am very busy so please be patient :-)

Info-Seeker
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Oct 06, 2009 1:01 am
Location: Florida, USA
Contact:

Post by Info-Seeker »

Thanks Jeff. I really appreciate it man...

And hey man, I am still new here, and do not want to get in the middle of anything, so please do not take offense. That shprivat guy, really is a nice guy. not only did he charge me exactly what he paid for the HxC he got here, but he helped me with a guy from germany who I couldn't get in contact with through ebay doing translations and going back and forth. He really went far out of his way just to help me out and never once asked for anything in return or made me feel like I was bugging him. He was just happy to help...

While it might not have been the best idea to change the text in the source, I honestly believe he had no ill intentions. He helped me out a bunch and asked for nothing in return, he was truly happy to help.

There are people out there that will steal anything and put their name on it, I just do not believe he is 1 of them.

Thanks again for looking in to the switch idea. I believe i have schematics for the 1200 and 2000 also, and I think I have them for the 1000 and 3000. I can pull them and put em online or send em to you if you need copies. They are all digital. I think the mod will make the HxC the greatest device ever, and will come in handy for the stand alone version also... So if there is anything I can do to help, please just ask..

Info

radio_handbook
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Mar 15, 2009 2:42 pm

Post by radio_handbook »

I really hope there is one left for me.

rumpelfilter
Posts: 13
Joined: Sat Dec 12, 2009 5:56 pm

Post by rumpelfilter »

Hi!
I would be really interested in getting one for my Korg DSS-1! Is it still possible?

edit: one question only... this device gives me read-only access to the virtual floppy, is this correct? (I don't understand a lot of French, I'm sorry)

shprivat
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2009 12:05 pm

Post by shprivat »

rumpelfilter wrote:Hi!
I would be really interested in getting one for my Korg DSS-1! Is it still possible?

edit: one question only... this device gives me read-only access to the virtual floppy, is this correct? (I don't understand a lot of French, I'm sorry)
Yes, that's correct. Only the SD card version supports read and write.

Sven

deksar
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2009 2:18 am

Post by deksar »

Any chance of getting a SD Card version of HxC?

rumpelfilter
Posts: 13
Joined: Sat Dec 12, 2009 5:56 pm

Post by rumpelfilter »

shprivat wrote:
Yes, that's correct. Only the SD card version supports read and write.

Sven
in that case I would go for the SD card version!

petersieg
Posts: 51
Joined: Fri Jun 06, 2008 9:39 am

Post by petersieg »

Hi. Since buyer doesn't respond anymore to mails, *last* unit is available for purchase.. You can contact me at: peter (dot) sieg1 (at) gmx.de

Merry christmas,
Peter

radio_handbook
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Mar 15, 2009 2:42 pm

Post by radio_handbook »

petersieg wrote:Hi. Since buyer doesn't respond anymore to mails, *last* unit is available for purchase.. You can contact me at: peter (dot) sieg1 (at) gmx.de

Merry christmas,
Peter
As of last Thursday I got That Last Unit. I can't get my Roland S-50 to boot from the
device you prepared, and hope what I am reporting here can provide some clue
about it.

With the empty floppy drive unit mounted, the sampler would just say "PLEASE INSERT SYSTEM DISK",
and in case a valid floppy was present the unit would just start loading the data right away.
Having your unit connected to the floppy drive bus the S-50 lits up its panel switches
but says nothing on the display, as if to say it does literally hang.

Then I connected the unit to my Linux box. Its /var/log/messages reports the following:

[...]
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.007144] usb 5-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.195276] usb 5-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.254544] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.254563] USB Serial support registered for generic
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.254603] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.254606] usbserial: USB Serial Driver core
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.270374] USB Serial support registered for FTDI USB Serial Device
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.270466] ftdi_sio 5-1:1.0: FTDI USB Serial Device converter detected
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.270498] usb 5-1: Detected FT232RL
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.270501] usb 5-1: Number of endpoints 2
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.270504] usb 5-1: Endpoint 1 MaxPacketSize 64
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.270506] usb 5-1: Endpoint 2 MaxPacketSize 64
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.270508] usb 5-1: Setting MaxPacketSize 64
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.272540] usb 5-1: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.272565] usbcore: registered new interface driver ftdi_sio
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.272569] ftdi_sio: v1.5.0:USB FTDI Serial Converters Driver
[...]

# ls -l /dev/ttyUSB0
crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 188, 0 2010-01-26 21:27 /dev/ttyUSB0

So the device has been made available as /dev/ttyUSB0, character device,
major number 188, minor number 0.

Then I did:
# dd bs=512 if=RolandS50_RAW_DiskImage of=/dev/ttyUSB0
1440+0 records in
1440+0 records out
737280 bytes (737 kB) copied, 0.660895 s, 1.1 MB/s

Your device slurped in all the MF2DD floppy data , but upon switching the machine on
I get the "PLEASE INSERT S-50 DISK" repeatedly written on the sampler's display.

I won't miss to update this thread as I'll get any further clue...

Jeff
Site Admin
Posts: 8092
Joined: Fri Oct 20, 2006 12:12 am
Location: Paris
Contact:

Post by Jeff »

radio_handbook wrote:
petersieg wrote:Hi. Since buyer doesn't respond anymore to mails, *last* unit is available for purchase.. You can contact me at: peter (dot) sieg1 (at) gmx.de

Merry christmas,
Peter
As of last Thursday I got That Last Unit. I can't get my Roland S-50 to boot from the
device you prepared, and hope what I am reporting here can provide some clue
about it.

With the empty floppy drive unit mounted, the sampler would just say "PLEASE INSERT SYSTEM DISK",
and in case a valid floppy was present the unit would just start loading the data right away.
Having your unit connected to the floppy drive bus the S-50 lits up its panel switches
but says nothing on the display, as if to say it does literally hang.

Then I connected the unit to my Linux box. Its /var/log/messages reports the following:

[...]
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.007144] usb 5-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.195276] usb 5-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.254544] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.254563] USB Serial support registered for generic
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.254603] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.254606] usbserial: USB Serial Driver core
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.270374] USB Serial support registered for FTDI USB Serial Device
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.270466] ftdi_sio 5-1:1.0: FTDI USB Serial Device converter detected
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.270498] usb 5-1: Detected FT232RL
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.270501] usb 5-1: Number of endpoints 2
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.270504] usb 5-1: Endpoint 1 MaxPacketSize 64
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.270506] usb 5-1: Endpoint 2 MaxPacketSize 64
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.270508] usb 5-1: Setting MaxPacketSize 64
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.272540] usb 5-1: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.272565] usbcore: registered new interface driver ftdi_sio
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.272569] ftdi_sio: v1.5.0:USB FTDI Serial Converters Driver
[...]

# ls -l /dev/ttyUSB0
crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 188, 0 2010-01-26 21:27 /dev/ttyUSB0

So the device has been made available as /dev/ttyUSB0, character device,
major number 188, minor number 0.

Then I did:
# dd bs=512 if=RolandS50_RAW_DiskImage of=/dev/ttyUSB0
1440+0 records in
1440+0 records out
737280 bytes (737 kB) copied, 0.660895 s, 1.1 MB/s

Your device slurped in all the MF2DD floppy data , but upon switching the machine on
I get the "PLEASE INSERT S-50 DISK" repeatedly written on the sampler's display.

I won't miss to update this thread as I'll get any further clue...
To use the USB HxC Floppy emulator, you need this software :
https://hxc2001.com/floppy_drive_emulat ... ft_src.zip

Rebuild it with the make command in the linux folder. you can use libftdi or libftd2xx. don't forget to deregister all other driver that use the ftdi chip in your system (for example ftdi_sio ).

radio_handbook
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Mar 15, 2009 2:42 pm

Post by radio_handbook »

Jeff wrote:
radio_handbook wrote:
petersieg wrote:Hi. Since buyer doesn't respond anymore to mails, *last* unit is available for purchase.. You can contact me at: peter (dot) sieg1 (at) gmx.de

Merry christmas,
Peter
As of last Thursday I got That Last Unit. I can't get my Roland S-50 to boot from the
device you prepared, and hope what I am reporting here can provide some clue
about it.

With the empty floppy drive unit mounted, the sampler would just say "PLEASE INSERT SYSTEM DISK",
and in case a valid floppy was present the unit would just start loading the data right away.
Having your unit connected to the floppy drive bus the S-50 lits up its panel switches
but says nothing on the display, as if to say it does literally hang.

Then I connected the unit to my Linux box. Its /var/log/messages reports the following:

[...]
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.007144] usb 5-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.195276] usb 5-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.254544] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.254563] USB Serial support registered for generic
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.254603] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.254606] usbserial: USB Serial Driver core
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.270374] USB Serial support registered for FTDI USB Serial Device
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.270466] ftdi_sio 5-1:1.0: FTDI USB Serial Device converter detected
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.270498] usb 5-1: Detected FT232RL
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.270501] usb 5-1: Number of endpoints 2
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.270504] usb 5-1: Endpoint 1 MaxPacketSize 64
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.270506] usb 5-1: Endpoint 2 MaxPacketSize 64
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.270508] usb 5-1: Setting MaxPacketSize 64
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.272540] usb 5-1: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.272565] usbcore: registered new interface driver ftdi_sio
Jan 26 19:24:23 bettiepage kernel: [ 618.272569] ftdi_sio: v1.5.0:USB FTDI Serial Converters Driver
[...]

# ls -l /dev/ttyUSB0
crw-rw---- 1 root dialout 188, 0 2010-01-26 21:27 /dev/ttyUSB0

So the device has been made available as /dev/ttyUSB0, character device,
major number 188, minor number 0.

Then I did:
# dd bs=512 if=RolandS50_RAW_DiskImage of=/dev/ttyUSB0
1440+0 records in
1440+0 records out
737280 bytes (737 kB) copied, 0.660895 s, 1.1 MB/s

Your device slurped in all the MF2DD floppy data , but upon switching the machine on
I get the "PLEASE INSERT S-50 DISK" repeatedly written on the sampler's display.

I won't miss to update this thread as I'll get any further clue...
To use the USB HxC Floppy emulator, you need this software :
https://hxc2001.com/floppy_drive_emulat ... ft_src.zip

Rebuild it with the make command in the linux folder. you can use libftdi or libftd2xx. don't forget to deregister all other driver that use the ftdi chip in your system (for example ftdi_sio ).
I must admit I was a bit too much impatient. Afterhaving downloaded the sources
and run linux/libftdi*/configure I miss at least the usb.h file to run 'make'.

Jeff
Site Admin
Posts: 8092
Joined: Fri Oct 20, 2006 12:12 am
Location: Paris
Contact:

Post by Jeff »

radio_handbook wrote: I must admit I was a bit too much impatient. Afterhaving downloaded the sources
and run linux/libftdi*/configure I miss at least the usb.h file to run 'make'.
full command used and error message please.

Post Reply