Yamaha VL1-m not recognizing disk change

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cwichura
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Dec 14, 2022 4:21 am

Yamaha VL1-m not recognizing disk change

Post by cwichura »

Greetings,

I am trying to get a Yamaha VL1-m working with the SDCard version of the HxC Ref F (with 1.8.8.1a firmware). To adapt to the 26pin cable used in the VL1-m, I found this adapter on the web: https://floppyemulator.com/products/34-26p125adaptor/

After a lot of trials, and use of the VL1-m's service mode tests, I've gotten this combination working for formatting, reading and writing. However, it does not recognize disk changes. This is, of course, bad, as if you don't remember to power cycle the VL1-m, you could end up corrupting the contents of HFE images if you switch virtual disks after it has loaded the directory.

To get to where I am at, I had to set the HxC mode to custom, with pin 2 set to nDensity and pin 34 set to nReady. The diagnostic has the following ordered steps:

1) Insert a write protected DSDD disk (completed by setting the SD card write protect switch and loading a DSDD HFE)
2) Eject the DSDD WP disk -- physically ejecting the SD card completes this step (immediately, at that)
3) Insert a non write protected DSHD disk (completed by setting the SD card back to write enabled and loading a DSHD HFE) (note that to complete this step successfully, I had to set the config file to not auto-load the previous HFE image, as that would reload the DSDD image and then fail the density detect check.)

It detects if the incorrect density is loaded correctly, and it also detects when the SD card is physically ejected, which suggests the READY signal is being read.

I tried all of the DiskChange<X> and nDiskChange<X> options, and none of them work correctly, either. DiskChange1 doesn't work at all, DiskChange2 and DiskChange3 work, but differ from nReady in that the synth takes a few seconds to recognize the state change in the service menu. But they don't solve disk changes in the normal Utility->Disk menu. None of the nDiskChangeX options work at all. (Is there any documentation that enumerates exactly what these multiple variants options do?)

However, if you go into the normal "Utility->Disk" menu and select any option, it will read the directory the first time after the synth is booted. Thereafter, it will never re-read the directory. It doesn't matter if I just switch images, or if I eject the SD card entirely (which works for step 2 of the diagnostic test, as stated above). I even tried leaving the SD card ejected for >60 seconds and no difference. I also tested ejecting the SD card, trying to perform some action like "delete" and "rename", it errors out with a "disk not ready", but then insert the SDCard again and it still doesn't think it needs to reload the directory from the disk.

In the service manual for the VL1-m, it shows the pinout of the 26 pin cable (it's a low-res scan of a technical drawing -- see attached). There is a disk change pin. Unfortunately, I don't know the exact pinout mappings of the adapter I purchased (it clearly does pin mapping as you can see some of the traces on the PCB, but it's also clearly a multi-layer board as some of the traces go in and come out elsewhere).

Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks
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VL1-m Floppy Cable Pinout.png
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Jeff
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Re: Yamaha VL1-m not recognizing disk change

Post by Jeff »

What have you wired to the Yamaha pin 6 (DCHG, INP) signal ?

cwichura
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Dec 14, 2022 4:21 am

Re: Yamaha VL1-m not recognizing disk change

Post by cwichura »

I purchased a multi meter so I could map out all the pins on the adapter from floppyemulator.com. It looks like pin 6 is mapped to pin 4 on the 34-pin connector. I have put all the mappings in a Google Sheet, available to view here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Cheers

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