S-100 Versafloppy II not working

HxC Floppy emulator support for all others computers...
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zoggins
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Joined: Wed May 20, 2020 7:47 am

S-100 Versafloppy II not working

Post by zoggins »

I have a HxC Rev F connected to a Versafloppy II S-100 card. The emulator is connected via straight cable and ID0 switch is on.

i do the following:
1. Select DiskImage.hfe on the emulator. The SD access light comes on and stays on (no idea if this is normal) and the display shows "T:000/084 S0"
2. I turn on my S-100 machine and the display changes to "T:000/084WES0" (I have no idea what the WE means).
3. Boot up C/PM and my diagnostic program. Select drive A and then the floppy access light comes on and stays on and the display changes to "RA T:000/84WES0" and stays that way. With nothing happening.

Any ideas? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Chris

Jeff
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Re: S-100 Versafloppy II not working

Post by Jeff »

Are the index and ready signal working properly ? Are you using the shugart interface mode ?

zoggins
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Re: S-100 Versafloppy II not working

Post by zoggins »

Yes I am using generic shugart in the config.

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Re: S-100 Versafloppy II not working

Post by Jeff »

zoggins wrote:
Wed Feb 09, 2022 7:19 pm
Yes I am using generic shugart in the config.
Can you share the files you are using ? (hfe + cfg file)

zoggins
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Re: S-100 Versafloppy II not working

Post by zoggins »

Well I solved that problem, it turned out I had a bad floppy controller IC. However, now I have another problem. I have attached all my files. Basically I create a disk image with the software as shown in the screenshot (Capture.PNG). The image as created (unformatted.hfe) works great in my test program. All seek, read and write tests pass. I then proceed to format the disk for CPM(formatted.hfe). The format succeeded, but then all seek, read and write tests got bonkers. Some pass, some fail. I am not sure what the format is doing to screw this up. This all works great emulating a SSSD 8" drive, but I am now trying to get it to emulate a 5.25" DSDD drive is giving me this problem. Any ideas? Thanks!
Attachments
s1005inch.zip
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Capture.PNG
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Jeff
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Re: S-100 Versafloppy II not working

Post by Jeff »

This still the Rev F SD HxC ? Is the power supply voltage good ? (<5.4v and >4.5v)

zoggins
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Re: S-100 Versafloppy II not working

Post by zoggins »

Still Rev F and the power supply at the drive connector is 5.1v. I should also post this is the file format as defined in my test program:
;
; 5", 512 byte, DDDS, 8 sector IBM PC CPM-86 format
MINCPM: DB 8 ;sectors per track
DB 40 ;tracks per side
DB 01110000B ;Disk HW_BYTE (DDDS)
DB 80 ;index header gap
DB 12 ;GAP 1
DB 22 ;GAP 2
DB 80 ;GAP 3
DB 207 ;GAP 4 (4E's) (1038)
DB 5 ;GAPR (Flag for multiple repeats of GAP4)
DB 2 ;512 Bytes/sec
DB 04EH ;GAP Format fill character
DB 0E5H ;Data area fill character (for CPM86)
DW 19C0H ;Size in bytes of 1 formatted track
DB CPM86_FLAG ;Special post formating modifications of disk req
DW SKEW_CPM86 ;Location of this disks sector skew table
DB 9H ;Each format will have a unique number. For disk to disk copy
DB 2 ;Tracks set aside for operating system (eg CPM 2)
DB '5", DDDS, 512 byte, 8 sector IBM PC CPM-86 format',0
SKEW_CPM86:
DB 1H,2H,3H,4H,5H,6H,7H,8H

Jeff
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Re: S-100 Versafloppy II not working

Post by Jeff »

Can you check again that normal write operations are working properly ?

zoggins
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Re: S-100 Versafloppy II not working

Post by zoggins »

well wouldn't you know it. Writes are not really working on the unformatted file either (I swear they were, but I have been doing a lot of juggling hardware to troubleshoot this so I must have been wrong). Writes work on the 8" SSSD "disks" fine, but the writes on the unformatted 5" disk file aren't working right either. Seeks and reads still work correctly on the unformatted file.

zoggins
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Re: S-100 Versafloppy II not working

Post by zoggins »

So I stand corrected. On the 8" disk. I can definitely read/write/seek on the unformatted disk, but after a format some sectors become messed up. Its a lot less errors than the 5" disk, but format still seems to mess it up just less drastically. Attached are the files for the 8" drive. Below is the format I am dealing with. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

; 8" SINGLE DENSITY DRIVE VARIABLES (IBM 3740 Format)
STDSDT: DB 26 ;SECTORS PER TRACK
DB 77 ;TRACKS PER SIDE
DB 00000000B ;Disk HW_BYTE (SDSS)
DB 40 ;HEADER GAP (SD-Systems has 100-27, IBM is 40!)
DB 6 ;GAP 1 (0's)
DB 11 ;GAP 2 (FF's)
DB 27 ;GAP 3 (FF's)
DB 247 ;GAP 4 (FF's)
DB 1 ;GAPR (Flag for multiple repeats of GAP4)
DB 0 ;128 Bytes/sec
DB 0FFH ;GAP Format fill character
DB 0E5H ;Data area fill character
DW 1423H ;Size in bytes of 1 formatted track
DB 0H ;No special post format
DW SKEW_IBM ;Location of this disks sector skew table
DB 1H ;Each format will have a unique number. For disk to disk copy
DB 2 ;Tracks set aside for operating system (eg CPM 2)
DB '8" SINGLE DENSITY (IBM 3740 Format)',0
SKEW_IBM:
DB 1H,2H,3H,4H,5H,6H,7H,8H,9H,0AH,0BH,0CH,0DH,0EH,0FH
db 10H,11H,12H,13H,14H,15H,16H,17H,18H,19H,1AH
Attachments
Capture.PNG
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S100-8inch.zip
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zoggins
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Re: S-100 Versafloppy II not working

Post by zoggins »

It appears only some reads on some sectors fail after formatting the 8" some of the time. Sometimes after a format writes and seeks qill still work, but a handful of sectors on the disk can't be read. And its different sectors every format. Sometimes there are no problems reading after a format. That could very well be a bug in the diagnostic software, so maybe not a disk image problem.

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Re: S-100 Versafloppy II not working

Post by Jeff »

This "seems" to be a write compensation or maybe a clock tuning issue.
Which FDC chip is used on this board ?

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Re: S-100 Versafloppy II not working

Post by Jeff »

Jeff wrote:
Fri Feb 18, 2022 9:04 am
This "seems" to be a write compensation or maybe a clock tuning issue.
Which FDC chip is used on this board ?
According this page there are several board revisions. Which one have you ?

https://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_s ... _vfii.html

zoggins
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Re: S-100 Versafloppy II not working

Post by zoggins »

I have the Rev P version with a 1795 chip.

zoggins
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Joined: Wed May 20, 2020 7:47 am

Re: S-100 Versafloppy II not working

Post by zoggins »

I am getting the oscilloscope out to adjust the oscillator that used for data separation. I'll see if that helps at all.

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