Converting Homag wood size&banding machine

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Matthias
Posts: 7
Joined: Tue Jun 15, 2021 7:02 am

Converting Homag wood size&banding machine

Post by Matthias »

Hi all!

I work at a factory that make doors and I have been given the task of converting and modernising
two of our Homag size & banding machines. In each of the machines there is a computer built
around a 6809 CPU. This computer controls three other sub CPU systems. So basically it's a home brew
á la Homag PLC of the day (ca 1984).
Each of the computers have a CPU card and an interface card and two 5,25" floppy drives (Teac FD-55GFR).
The interface card handles all the peripheral communication, e g floppy drives. The floppy controller IC
is the FD9793 type by SMC.

I have managed to make .hfe-files of the three diskettes that are used in the computers but have no way yet
to test in the machines as production is in full swing. We have also bought two 3,5" SD floppy emulators from
Lotharec. I have tested the images in the hardware emulators and so far so good. In the meantime I have dug a
little deeper around the computer itself. This is a variant of a FLEX-compatible computer with FLEX 09 operating
system. When I found this out I decided to test out the floppy images in several of the FLEX-compatible software
emulators that exists.

Here is where I ran inte trouble. I can't seem to write out .DSK images that a 6809 FLEX based
emulator will accept. Maybe I do something wrong or missing something and so my question is, how can I write
these images with the HxC software?

I will probably have more questions when I finally try to replace the actual floppy drives in the machines.
This will be sometime in the upcoming weeks during our summer break.

I tried to attach some files but I got the error that the file(s) were too big. I tried only the .hfe-files
in a zip archive (596kB) but that gave me the same error.
Last edited by Matthias on Wed Jun 16, 2021 6:45 am, edited 6 times in total.

Jeff
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Re: Converting Homag wood size&banding machine

Post by Jeff »

Send me the images by email to hxc2001 at hxc2001 dot com

Matthias
Posts: 7
Joined: Tue Jun 15, 2021 7:02 am

Re: Converting Homag wood size&banding machine

Post by Matthias »

Hi Jeff! Thanks for the fast reply. I'll send them from work first thing in the morning.

Matthias
Posts: 7
Joined: Tue Jun 15, 2021 7:02 am

Re: Converting Homag wood size&banding machine

Post by Matthias »

So, I finally have a working computer, the real hardware from production on my test bench so I can try and
replace the 5,25" floppy drives. Unfortunately so far I can't seem to get the emulator working.
On the SD-card I have the following files:
HXCSDFE.CFG
The FLEX09 OS .hfe file

There should be two drives in this system but the most important is to see if it loads the OS from Drive 0.
The system tries to read from the disk but reports "DISK DAMAGED - CHANGE DISK!" after 15s. I can see the activity led blinking.
If I eject the SD card the FLEX computer starts to write "Inser disk" over and over as it should when there
is no bootable media available.
So the system behaves just as it would if I had a real defective bootable disk (corrupt) in the system which is somewhat promising I guess. =)
At this point I don't know if the problem lies with the .hfe file, settings or both.

I have tried a few different settings for the HXCSDFE.CFG file but so far no progress.
Jeff, if you have the time to help the OS disk is in the zip I mailed to you on June 16. The OS is the one called 'JW-Betreib.hfe'.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Matthias
Posts: 7
Joined: Tue Jun 15, 2021 7:02 am

Re: Converting Homag wood size&banding machine

Post by Matthias »

Ok, a lot of progress after fiddling with the settings.
I got the computer to boot FLEX09 from the OS image by changing from 'Auto' to 'Generic Shugart'
in emulator settings software and forcing bitrate to 250kbps in the menu on the hardware emulator.
:D :D :D :D :D :D

So now what I want to do is change the bitrate of my images from 300kbps to 250kbps so all
settings on the emulator is 'from .hfe file'. Editing the .hfe files is unknow territory for me.

Is it possible to make a blank disk in above FLEX format so I can copy programs and files for
future production changes here at the factory?

Matthias
Posts: 7
Joined: Tue Jun 15, 2021 7:02 am

Re: Converting Homag wood size&banding machine

Post by Matthias »

Anyone? :(

Jeff
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Re: Converting Homag wood size&banding machine

Post by Jeff »

Matthias wrote:
Wed Jul 14, 2021 2:53 pm
Anyone? :(
Blank disk : format the HFE with the machine and keep this file as a blank disk
Bitrate change : You can use the edit tools in the "Track Analyzer".

Matthias
Posts: 7
Joined: Tue Jun 15, 2021 7:02 am

Re: Converting Homag wood size&banding machine

Post by Matthias »

Thanks Jeff!

I tried that but where it said 300000bps when I loaded the image it now says 'variable'.
I entered 250000bps in the disk bitrate field and pushed the button. Is this right?

Matthias
Posts: 7
Joined: Tue Jun 15, 2021 7:02 am

Re: Converting Homag wood size&banding machine

Post by Matthias »

So here's an image for posterity with the disk drives replaced.
Attachments
HOMAG FLEX-computer for size&banding
HOMAG FLEX-computer for size&banding
FLEX-system.jpg (153.75 KiB) Viewed 2161 times

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