Disk swap and DF1 problems with HxD Slim Rev A on Amiga 500

HxC Floppy Emulator on Amiga support
Post Reply
cujo
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2018 7:47 pm

Disk swap and DF1 problems with HxD Slim Rev A on Amiga 500

Post by cujo »

I bought an SDHxCFESlim RevA 211212 from Lotharek a couple of months ago (https://lotharek.pl/productdetail.php?id=41). Only lately had I time to test it thoroughly.

It came prepped with FW V2.1.2.40, and I installed it in an Amiga 500 Rev 6A with Kickstart 1.3 and 1Mb Chip RAM.

I have two problems. I will describe them first, an then what I've tried to fix them.

1) Disk swapping. In a couple of games I tried (Xenon II and Cannon Fodder) I could swap disks successfully. But booting into Workbench 1.3, I have not been able to swap to another AmigaDOS-disk like the Extras 1.3 disk. When I try that, workbench does not seem to register that a disk has been swapped, and seems to believe that the Workbench-disk is still in the drive. When I try to list files with dir in AmigaShell after swapping disks, I get some valid text and some garbage text in the listing, and typically some error requester. The system seems to become confused.

2) Activating DF1. I have not been able to emulate DF1 in any way.

What I know and what I've tried that's relevant to one or both of these problems:

- The original internal DF0 disk-drive worked before I installed the emulator.

- If I turn off DIP switch 7, and disable DF1 in the emulator settings, and install a physical external disk drive, that works fine as DF1 on my Amiga.

- I tried two different disk-drive cables, so I'm pretty sure it's not a fault in the cable.

- To get the emulator to work with DF0 I had to activate DIP switch 4, so I assume that I have to also activate DIP switch 7 to get DF1, but this does not work. I even tried DIP 4+5, 4+6 and 4+8, but it didn't help.

- I run HxC Floppy Emulator file selector v1.81a.

- I upgraded the firmware to the latest beta, V2.1.6.14a. (I had some problems with upgrading though; Warm-boot was not sufficient. I had to cold start holding in the disk-swap button).

- I'm using a SanDisk Extreme PRO category 10 SD HC 32Gb memory card. This card is the same brand as what Lotharek recommends. It is formatted with FAT32, and the config file and the file selector is copied first as recommended.

- I'm not completely sure how to use the file selector, I have not been able to find a user manual for it. But I tried for example to configure Workbench 1.3 as Drive A slot 001, Extras 1.3 as Drive B slot 001. Is this correct usage? Another question is, if everything works as intended, how are you supposed to swap disks in the B-drive with the Slim?

- I made sure DF1 drive is set to on in the F3-menu in the file selector.

- The SDCard HxC Floppy Emulator settings (v2.1.9.2) has some options for Interface; I tried different permutations of HFE file Interfacemode (Generic Shugart, turning off Auto and chosing Amiga) and SD HxC Floppy Emulator Interface setting (Drive A and Drive B Mode: From HFE and Amiga). But many of these settings are also a bit confusing; I have not been able to find good documentation for everything here.


I hope that there is just something trivially simple that I should have done but didn't do. I've really tried to look hard with google and on different forums. Also, I must say I really appreciate the effort by the team behind this hardware and software. However, information about the project presented on the web pages hxc2001.com and hxc2001.free.fr is challenging to navigate.

Help on my problems is very much appreciated!

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

Re: Disk swap and DF1 problems with HxD Slim Rev A on Amiga 500

Post by Jeff »

For both issues, please check these points :

- The switches are set to ID0-A (1) & ID1-B (6)
- Try to change the floppy ribbon. the current one is maybe damaged. (disk-change signal not working - this is a common issue)
- Please use the default settings for the interfaces modes ! All is done automatically unless you have modified something !
cujo wrote:
Sat Jul 07, 2018 8:49 pm
- To get the emulator to work with DF0 I had to activate DIP switch 4, so I assume that I have to also activate DIP switch 7 to get DF1, but this does not work. I even tried DIP 4+5, 4+6 and 4+8, but it didn't help.
Have a look to the documentation:
The dip switch numbers settings you are mentioning are wrong :
https://hxc2001.com/download/floppy_dri ... al_ENG.pdf (page 7)
You have to set the emulator to ID0-A (1) & ID1-B (6)
cujo wrote:
Sat Jul 07, 2018 8:49 pm
I hope that there is just something trivially simple that I should have done but didn't do. I've really tried to look hard with google and on different forums. Also, I must say I really appreciate the effort by the team behind this hardware and software. However, information about the project presented on the web pages hxc2001.com and hxc2001.free.fr is challenging to navigate.
There is only one small page needed.
All documentation & download for the slim are there : https://hxc2001.com/download/floppy_drive_emulator/
cujo wrote:
Sat Jul 07, 2018 8:49 pm
- I upgraded the firmware to the latest beta, V2.1.6.14a. (I had some problems with upgrading though; Warm-boot was not sufficient. I had to cold start holding in the disk-swap button).
Sure, a power up is needed ! A warm boot of what ? The Amiga ? The floppy emulator can't be "aware" that the Amiga is rebooting !

cujo
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2018 7:47 pm

Re: Disk swap and DF1 problems with HxD Slim Rev A on Amiga 500

Post by cujo »

Jeff wrote:
Sun Jul 08, 2018 7:08 am
For both issues, please check these points :
- The switches are set to ID0-A (1) & ID1-B (6)
I did this now, and that seems to improve things a lot. I'm not sure why I didn't do it this way before. I think I believed I had a twisted cable because DF0 worked when using DIP 4+7.
Jeff wrote:
Sun Jul 08, 2018 7:08 am
- Try to change the floppy ribbon. the current one is maybe damaged. (disk-change signal not working - this is a common issue)
I checked with a multimeter, and my floppy ribbon was indeed faulty. I replaced it with an original A600 cable, and that worked much better.
Jeff wrote:
Sun Jul 08, 2018 7:08 am
- Please use the default settings for the interfaces modes ! All is done automatically unless you have modified something !
Ok.
Jeff wrote:
Sun Jul 08, 2018 7:08 am
cujo wrote:
Sat Jul 07, 2018 8:49 pm
information about the project presented on the web pages hxc2001.com and hxc2001.free.fr is challenging to navigate.
There is only one small page needed.
All documentation & download for the slim are there : https://hxc2001.com/download/floppy_drive_emulator/
Sure, and no offense, but the layout of that page and the contents in those PDF's could use some improvement. Naming conventions are confusing/inconsistent, and documentation is missing and/or unclear. But bringing up those issues in this thread is not directly relevant to my problems. So if you want I could give you some feedback on such issues in PM.
Jeff wrote:
Sun Jul 08, 2018 7:08 am
cujo wrote:
Sat Jul 07, 2018 8:49 pm
- I upgraded the firmware to the latest beta, V2.1.6.14a. (I had some problems with upgrading though; Warm-boot was not sufficient. I had to cold start holding in the disk-swap button).
Sure, a power up is needed ! A warm boot of what ? The Amiga ? The floppy emulator can't be "aware" that the Amiga is rebooting !
That makes sense.

As mentioned above, the cable I used was faulty. Replacing it with an original A600 floppy cable and setting DIP 1+6 improved things a lot. There are still some snags though.

1) Disk swapping. Now, if I put Workbench in A slot 001 and Extras in A slot 002, it boots nicely into Workbench. Then, something like the following can happen. After boot, I can press the disk swap button, and the Extras disk appears. The Workbench icon is still visible on screen though; I thought that was supposed to disappear, but I'm not sure. I can browse the Extras disk an run stuff from it. I hit disk swap again which gives me one beep. If I wait now, I get the bootfile showing up in the workbench, and the Extras disk disappears. I hit disk swap again and it gives two beeps, and the Workbench disk becomes accessible again. But often if I swap disks around like this, I suddenly get

Code: Select all

Disk corrupt - task held
 Finish ALL disk activity
Select CANCEL to reset/debug
Retry                      Cancel
and the system is stuck. Retry does not work and Cancel leads to Guru meditation. I have not been able to find a consistently reproducible way to provoke this kind of crash.

2) DF1. This now also works much better. I tried Pinball Dreams with disk 1 in Slot A 001 and disk 2 in Slot B 001, and it worked like a charm. But there is a weird problem: Setting up Workbench in A slot 001, Extras in A slot 002 and some utility disk in B slot 001, the following happens. After boot, the Workbench disk is present in DF0 and the utility disk is available in DF1 as expected. However, when I hit the disk swap button, the utility disk in DF1 disappears and is replaced by the Extras disk. I would have expected DF0 to swap from Workbench to Extras. Also I don't know what is supposed to happen if I fill multiple slots in both A and B and pressing the disk swap button on the HxC Slim.

Post Reply