HxC Floppy Drive Emulator

Received my HxC rev C today and connected it to my 1040 STE (TOS 2.06) as an internal replacement. Loaded up SD-cards with the pre-made package with autoboot, dark side of the spoon and empty images.

1) Selecting DSOP works just fine, demo loads, alls screens work etc.
2) Selecting an empty image works just fine, I can create folders on it etc.

but

3) AUTOBOOT.HFE does not work. Or rather, it's worked once (first time I ran the program from GEM manually) but haven't been able to repeat the success.

Error description:

The program loads, tracks advance etc, up until it's supposed to enter direct access mode. I can see it go to Track 255, then back to track 14 (most often, can be 13, 10 etc as well), up to 255 again. Sometimes "direct access" is displayed shortly on the LCD, but then it's back to track 255 again. During this time the HxC is making a lot of noise - but I guess that's what it should do when seeking. Edit: See video link at the bottom.

After a few seconds it gives up, and the program displays "ERROR: Floppy Access error: [0]". After that it's hung, the only way out is to reset.

Does this sound familiar? Just trying to get anything obvious out the way before I dismantle my 1040STFM to try with as well.

Relevant SW versions 1.5a & 1.6.0.0. I've only used the downloadable images, I'm on a Mac so I havent played around with the configuration/HFE-image software yet. I've also tried with two different sd cards (2GB and 8GB - the latter high speed).

Jumper set to ID0/A: - but since I've seen pictures of the HxC connected to an Atari where the jumper was at the same place as it was when I received the unit (ID3/A:) I did try that as well. Seemed to make no difference to anything.

Any insight appreciated


*) Video of what it looks and sounds like here. Sorry about the size (50Mb). http://dl.dropbox.com/u/669647/hxcerror.mp4

I think that this is a TOS compatibility problem : The TOS 2.06 don't want to read/write something at the track 255...

I need to change the floppy access code of the ST software, but i didn't find the time yet to do this...

Alright, understood. Just to be clear, I didn't imagine it working once though - so if there's such a limit then there must be some condition where it's not enforced. That one time when it worked it was when loaded from GEM, and I had tried to open images that weren't mounted and maybe also switching between disk A and B. However, I just sat down and tried to recreate it without succeeding.

I'll likely try the following (and maybe in that order as well):

1) Connect the HxC to my STFM
2) It seems my TOS ROMs are "1.62/2.06" 27C2001 chips. I'll hook up A17 to a switch and see if the stickers tell the truth.
3) Replace your TOS calls with DMA access asm. 20 years ago that would've been my first option, but ... I'm also somewhat limited by not having a cross compiler environment set up.

Btw, I compiled hxcfloppyemulator_convert on my Mac and converted a few images - thanks for the open source way of working. I also figured out that converting .HFE back to .ST was possible by using -RAW and renaming, maybe obvious but not something I saw mentioned anywhere.

regards,
Troed

So if i understand well the software worked one time ? interesting !



I like the third option . Don't hesistate to contribute to the project if you can.

About the HFE->ST conversion, yes you can use the -RAW option to do this.
In the next release there will be an explicit option to do this.

Hi,

I finally burn some pairs of EPROM with a 2.06 TOS to try this on my STE :

Result :

http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emu ... anager.zip


This was a track seek timeout problem...
It seems that the TOS function Floprate() doesn't work correctly on the 2.06...

To get around this problem, i move the head to the track 255 without using TOS function...

Please note that Monochrome/HighRes display are now also supported.

Thanks for solving this Jeff!

The seek rate being different in TOS 2.06 actually rang a bell with me, although it's now 20 years ago I must've ran into that. It might've been when I modified one of my machines (no longer in my possession) for an HD drive. I dug this up:

http://www.atari-forum.com/wiki/index.p ... _step-rate

And the one time I did manage to get the old version of the file selector to work I might've indeed ran a program or demo that poked around the default values.

Anyway, the new version is tested and found working perfectly on TOS 2.06 now

Great news. Just upgraded to TOS 2.06 and discovered issue on Saturday and next day solved, that's what you call support .

However 2.06 in mono does not work for me. It does not start at all.
No idea about other versions of TOS - would have to change ROMs to test, and not done yet.

What do you mean exactly by "It does not start at all" ?

Anyway retry with this version :
http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emu ... anager.zip

New beta version done by Gilles Bouthenot :
New FDC routines + Track Loader + Very fast loading (Loading time <2 seconds !! )
http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emu ... BetaST.zip

Here is an updated preview version. This one sends the seek command to the FDC even before the main program finishes depacking.
Add this to the demo-like track loading and real time depacking, and the manager starts in a snap.

Many thanks for the direct access work - the new quick boot made wonders for usability!

Jeff posted the official version, with the fast loader and direct access, so I remove the beta preview.

thank you ! It's true that I never used the file selector, because it took such a long time to boot (especially on simple 8Mhz ST). Now I am very happy that everytime I power up my, the selector is loaded.

I am working on another "usability" feature, so stay tuned.