Any chance for ATX (Atari 8-bit) support?

HxC Floppy Emulator on Atari ST support
Post Reply
Pheonix
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Apr 30, 2018 4:46 pm

Any chance for ATX (Atari 8-bit) support?

Post by Pheonix »

Just wondering if it was in the to do list, and if there was a time frame around it?

Thank you :)

tzok
Posts: 79
Joined: Sat Jan 27, 2018 2:52 pm

Re: Any chance for ATX (Atari 8-bit) support?

Post by tzok »

As far as I know Atari XL/XE did not have support for Shugart-like floppy. It could use floppy only through the SIO interface, but the floppy drive had to have in-build microcomputer to manage it.

Pheonix
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Apr 30, 2018 4:46 pm

Re: Any chance for ATX (Atari 8-bit) support?

Post by Pheonix »

I was thinking more of mech replacement in drives such as the XF551. It takes a standard floppy drive. Can even be modified to use a standard 720k 3.5" drive as well. That, and the software for image conversion. Right now, it can only read ATR files & XFD files (as a manually configured RAW load.)

Jeff
Site Admin
Posts: 8091
Joined: Fri Oct 20, 2006 12:12 am
Location: Paris
Contact:

Re: Any chance for ATX (Atari 8-bit) support?

Post by Jeff »

Pheonix wrote:
Fri Jul 13, 2018 5:16 pm
I was thinking more of mech replacement in drives such as the XF551. It takes a standard floppy drive. Can even be modified to use a standard 720k 3.5" drive as well. That, and the software for image conversion. Right now, it can only read ATR files & XFD files (as a manually configured RAW load.)
Any specification/documentation somewhere about this ?

Pheonix
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Apr 30, 2018 4:46 pm

Re: Any chance for ATX (Atari 8-bit) support?

Post by Pheonix »

My knowledge came from watching Youtube videos about repair & upgrade of the drive, as well as forum discussions on it. A google search did turn up a page on AtariMax that included some drive specs as well as schematics of the drive with the connector pin-outs. Was also able to find the Owner's Manual and upgrade instructions.

I can continue the search if you need anything else.

tzok
Posts: 79
Joined: Sat Jan 27, 2018 2:52 pm

Re: Any chance for ATX (Atari 8-bit) support?

Post by tzok »

I recon two popular disk drives for XL/XE - LDW Super 2000 and CA-2001 (both clones of a Indus GD). They were both a standalone... microcomputers (Z80 based) running their own operating program, and communicating with the main unit over a serial line (SIO). Much more convenient method of emulating a floppy device is SIO device level emulation, there are devices like SIO2SD will work just fine loading ATR disk images.

You may find some info there:
http://www.retrobits.net/atari/indus.shtml

Pheonix
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Apr 30, 2018 4:46 pm

Re: Any chance for ATX (Atari 8-bit) support?

Post by Pheonix »

It uses standard FM encoding, so I don't have any problem with ATR disks. Its the ATX (with copy protection intact,) that I can't access. Right now, I can convert an ATR disk to several formats that work for me. It's just the ATX that I can't get working. Just getting the software to read them accurately would be enough. I could then convert them to a workable format. I did search for other software, but the closest I could get was a8rawconv which tries to convert to SCP, but its failed with everything I've tried so far :(

tzok
Posts: 79
Joined: Sat Jan 27, 2018 2:52 pm

Re: Any chance for ATX (Atari 8-bit) support?

Post by tzok »

Ok, now I'm getting what you mean - you just want to implement ATX floppy image support in HxC. This shouldn't be a problem. The format is called VAPI, and here's the documentation for it:
http://whizzosoftware.com/sio2arduino/vapi.html
http://vapi.fxatari.com/

Pheonix
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Apr 30, 2018 4:46 pm

Re: Any chance for ATX (Atari 8-bit) support?

Post by Pheonix »

Sorry... That's "mainly" what I'm interested in. Though, I do have a non-working 551 around somewhere that I've been toying with trying to get working one way or another. Though, I'd also want to find a fix for the flippy issue as well at the same time. That would be a moot point if I just went with HxC, though :) Also, predicated on actually finding the drive again.... Too much placed in storage and eventually lost after multiple moves :(

Post Reply