STM32 HxC fails to load USB drive contents on ESCOM A1200

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zgba
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STM32 HxC fails to load USB drive contents on ESCOM A1200

Post by zgba »

Hi Folks,

some time ago I have bought and uploaded HxC firmware to my Gotek drive. So far, so good - it works on my A600 like a treat (well, sort of - it seems to have a problem with write operations, but I didn't have a chance to take closer look at it), but it doesn't work on my other Amiga. I happen to have an ESCOM A1200 (the one which came with PC disk drive), which I modified to make it compatible with Amiga floppy drives. I can boot the AUTOBOOT.HFE file (as well as see the contents of that floppy under Workbench) but the executable freezes at the point where the welcome screen should disappear and the directory tree should be visible. Instead of that, the green LED on the drive lights continuously (and the fdd LED on the Amiga doesn't) and that's basically it.

Any ideas? Thanks a lot. Cheers.

Jeff
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Re: STM32 HxC fails to load USB drive contents on ESCOM A120

Post by Jeff »

Latest firmware and selector version ?

zgba
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Re: STM32 HxC fails to load USB drive contents on ESCOM A120

Post by zgba »

Hi there,

FW: 3.0.5.1a
Selector: 1.14a

zgba
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Re: STM32 HxC fails to load USB drive contents on ESCOM A120

Post by zgba »

Hi,

any news?

Cheers

Jeff
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Re: STM32 HxC fails to load USB drive contents on ESCOM A120

Post by Jeff »

I still don't have enough information from you to make an usefull answer.

Which modifications have you done on this A1200 exactly ? Is the escom modification completly and properly reverted to the original Commodore Scheme ?

Have you tried another floppy ribbon ?

Is there another drive connected to the Amiga?

Which jumper setting are you using ?

zgba
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Joined: Thu Jul 09, 2015 8:57 pm

Re: STM32 HxC fails to load USB drive contents on ESCOM A120

Post by zgba »

Hello,

I think that my A1200 has a problem - right now I have some problems reading floppies - it may be caused by some bad solder joints on U7 - I have replaced it long time ago and soldered a socket. A few days ago I noticed strange keyboard behavior - after wiggling a bit with the chip it disappeared. That's a clue. I will try to fix my A1200 first.

One question: at the current state I was able to see the HxC floppy image from workbench and launch the loader or just boot the HxC software. It worked to the point where the USB drive contents are being listed. Is there any specific signal line used to communicate between controller and HxC emulator I should take care about?

Thanks a lot.


EDIT:
OK, I managed to take a closer look at the mainboard and resolder the ic7 socket. It wasn't the case - the floppy drive I've been using was having some issues. I tested like 5 others known to work and they all worked like a charm (booted Arte demo). I still can't go beyond the load screen of HxC. The only jumper is closed on S0.

Jeff
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Re: STM32 HxC fails to load USB drive contents on ESCOM A120

Post by Jeff »

Have you some ram expansion or accelerator board on this A1200 ?

zgba
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Re: STM32 HxC fails to load USB drive contents on ESCOM A120

Post by zgba »

Yes, an ACA1232.

Jeff
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Re: STM32 HxC fails to load USB drive contents on ESCOM A120

Post by Jeff »

zgba wrote:Yes, an ACA1232.
can you try without it ?

zgba
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Re: STM32 HxC fails to load USB drive contents on ESCOM A120

Post by zgba »

I think I did it, but I'll test it as soon as I find some time and tell you for sure.

Jeff
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Re: STM32 HxC fails to load USB drive contents on ESCOM A120

Post by Jeff »

BTW have you tried to boot from a clean and "never used" AUTOBOOT.HFE ?
The one present on your stick may be infected by a virus...

zgba
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Re: STM32 HxC fails to load USB drive contents on ESCOM A120

Post by zgba »

OK, I prepared another usb stick (very small one, 64MB) with sdformatter and put only AUTOBOOT.HFE and HXCSDFE.CFG (both freshly downloaded from your website). My ACA was disconnected this time. Unfortunately it didn't work. I took another floppy cable from my A600, but it didn't work either. So I connected the whole setup to my A600 - this time I got an error message saying that the medium cannot be accessed (or something like that - sorry, forgot to write it down - what's interesting, on my A1200 the error message didn't even show up.), but after connecting my old USB drive again (bigger one with some more files) it worked just fine on A600. Weird stuff...

Jeff
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Re: STM32 HxC fails to load USB drive contents on ESCOM A120

Post by Jeff »

This sound like there is something wrong with the floppy interface, probably the index signal.

Try this : convert & rename the arte.adf to autoboot.hfe, and start the demo on the previous usb stick.

zgba
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Re: STM32 HxC fails to load USB drive contents on ESCOM A120

Post by zgba »

Hi,

I just watched the (almost) whole demo without any problems...

Jeff
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Re: STM32 HxC fails to load USB drive contents on ESCOM A120

Post by Jeff »

zgba wrote:Hi,

I just watched the (almost) whole demo without any problems...
ok.

I will provide you in some days a debug version of the file selector.

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