Anilam 4200T on lathe

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Cnc500
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2023 7:39 pm

Anilam 4200T on lathe

Post by Cnc500 »

IHelp! I am currently trying to put a floppy drive emulator on an Anilam 4200T control fitted to a lathe. I don’t know if the Anilam 600 is the same, but the 4200T runs on DOS 6.22 which uses FAT 16. I have one of the latest GOTEK‘s for a usb memory stick, with small LCD screen and encoder fitted for selection of units on the memory stick.
I have an old PC running on native dos 6.22, (meaning the computer actually runs on dos, as opposed to a dos program within windows). This one is to emulate the 4200T, which is on another site, and only accessible with a long drive.
Also have a laptop running on windows 7, which I have been using to run Hxc and/or Ipcas software for attempting to format the usb stick.
I cannot get the HxC software to format the memory stick at all, It asks for an FTDI driver which I have downloaded, but windows 7 just tells me there is already an up to date driver installed, and won’t accept it. I suspect that even if it did work, it would format the stick as FAT 32.
I managed to use the ipcas software 1.40i version, which ran well on windows 7, and formatted 100 disc images on the usb stick without a problem. The dos computer couldn’t see it at all on the emulator, and after attempting it, the ipcas software couldn’t read the stick any more an wouldn’t reformat it, so it was scrap. I suspect, again, that the software formatted the stick as FAT 32, although it didn’t give an option for FAT 16.
So I am reckoning that the main problem is the FAT 32.
The floppy on the Anilam controller is a Sony, with the twisted cable at the floppy end, and I have been using exactly the same floppy make and model on the dos computer, and it works fine, so I am pretty sure that if I can crack this, and get the emulator to work on the dos computer, then it will work on the Anilam system.
Does anyone know how to get the usb stick formatted in FAT 16, or even if there is some dos software that will work on the dos computer.
I am not even sure if the firmware installed on the gotek which I think is flashfloppy, will even work with FAT 16.
If anyone else has found the way out of this, I would be grateful for some pointers.

Cnc500
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Jan 23, 2023 7:39 pm

Re: Anilam 4200T on lathe

Post by Cnc500 »

Ok. An update on using the gotek with a computer running on native dos 6.22. It won’t see the ipcas floppy images, (100 on a usb stick), but I did get it to see the 20 pre-made images from the HxC emulator software used on windows 10.Both reading and writing from/to the USB stick. Sadly, when I tried replacing the floppy on a cnc lathe, using exactly the same floppy drive as the one on my computer, it wouldn’t see it. Even though I can read the same floppy disk on both drives, the cnc will not see the emulator when I substitute it for the floppy. If anyone else has played about with this sort of thing I would be glad to hear from you.

Jeff
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Re: Anilam 4200T on lathe

Post by Jeff »

Hello,

Which emulator are you using ?

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