I'm not 100% sure this is true, but my assessment of the Mirage is that the FMT disks load into RAM straight from the floppy (using the CPU of course). That seems like a stupid statement, but what I mean is that all it requires is working RAM, floppy controller, floppy drive, and CPU.agent29 wrote:Im bamboozled as to why or how the FMT-2 OS loads perfectly but OS 3.2 takes ages to be recognized?
The OS (to my vague understanding) loads piecemeal and runs as it loads. It also initializes other hardware (filters, etc.) as it loads, therefore if there's anything wrong or weird with other parts of the hardware beside RAM/CPU/FDC then stalls will occur at certain points in the OS loading routine.
I'm assuming your FDC/RAM/CPU are fine, but that the filters are having trouble calibrating or something similar. It could be something like the add-on filter cartridge (if you have one) too, it's hard to say with exactly the OS does without reversing it or monitoring the hardware on a logic level.
Oh, did the HFE you formatted via FMT-2 still boot (even if it took a while) properly? Usually formatting directly through the Gotek is a no-go.