Floppy Emu Disk Emulator Updates

[ajacocks]

I finally finished building my board (yay!), and it seems to work. I managed to load the CPLD firmware, successfully, and the board recognizes valid (it took me a while to figure out which disk images are supported) images just fine.

However, when plugged in to my test machine (a Mac IIci), every time I try to mount an image, I get the "This disk is unreadable by this Macintosh." dialog box. The images that I have tried, so far, come from Apple's legacy software archive, and are System 6.0.8 on 1.44mb floppies, and System 7.0.1, on the same. These appear to be Disk Copy 4.2 images, from what I can tell. The firmware on the board does indicate that they are Disk Copy images, and locks them, as the docs state.

I've also tried using Mini vMac's convertDC42 program to convert those images to raw images, but the resulting files aren't readable, to the board, and don't show up in the menu. Does anyone have any advice on creating the raw .dsk format images? I also tried downloading the Mini vMac "blanks" archive, and putting the 1.4MB image, on the card. That was indeed recognized as a raw disk image, but the lock symbol appeared, and I was again presented with the unreadable disk dialog.

Any ideas would be welcome. And thanks, again, to BMOW for such an incredible device!

- Alex

 

[bigmessowires]

You're almost there! Your disk images are fine, but it sounds like there's a problem in the connections between the Mac floppy connectors and the CPLD, have you re-checked those? In particular, check PH0 through PH3, /WREQ, SEL, /ENABLE.EXT, and RD for opens or shorts between neighboring traces, for both connectors and the CPLD.

The Mini vMac "blank" images may have been read-only files, which is why you see the lock icon. Put the SD card in your PC, and clear the read-only flag for all the files.

 

[onlyonemac]

Here's my suggestion:

Automate long disk-swapping sessions by allowing the user to select two disks and then automatically switch between them when one is ejected.

A little while back I was working on a LEGO contraption to do it with real floppies, but that failed because LEGO and floppies don't fit well together :-/ .

 

[ajacocks]

You're almost there! Your disk images are fine, but it sounds like there's a problem in the connections between the Mac floppy connectors and the CPLD, have you re-checked those? In particular, check PH0 through PH3, /WREQ, SEL, /ENABLE.EXT, and RD for opens or shorts between neighboring traces, for both connectors and the CPLD.
The Mini vMac "blank" images may have been read-only files, which is why you see the lock icon. Put the SD card in your PC, and clear the read-only flag for all the files.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm still checking everything, but I found that PH2 and PH3 are shorted to GND. Is that right? It appears that the pins on the board are connected, for those, on the pads near the edge of the board, in Eagle.

Thanks!

- Alex

 

[ajacocks]

And now I can't replicate the PH2/3 GND short. Odd.

All of the other signals check out OK, though.

- Alex

 

[ajacocks]

And to reply to myself, again (I can't edit posts more than a couple minutes old, for some reason), I resoldered the CPLD, and now the board works perfectly!

Thanks again! I'm really looking forward to the code release that supports folders.

- Alex

 

[techknight]

Thats why you dont want to simply drag solder and use a vacuum desolderer to remove the excess. Because it mashes the solder down and creates shorts.

Best way: Use an SMD291/SMD294 flux from chipquik. You can lay down a tiny bead around the IC, and wet your tip with solder. slide the tip on the chip as you were doing, The flux will allow the solder to reflow properly and evenly. Remove any bridges/excess with solder braid! Then the removed areas, re-touch with the tip to straighten the flow. They will look machine assembled/soldered this way.

this is the best way to do it outside of using a stencil, and reflow/hotplate.

 

[bigmessowires]

New software: app version 1.0H firmware 9. http://www.bigmessowires.com/floppy-emu-1.0H-F9.zip

The big update here is 1.44 MB floppy write support. WOOHOO! It was like peeling the layers of an onion, with one weird timing/logic bug hidden by another, layer after layer all the way down. At one point I'd just about given up on it ever working, but I'm glad I didn't.

This version also includes the support for subdirectories and long filenames on the SD card, that I posted photos of earlier.

I think the firmware has reached the max possible complexity limit for debugging without a real debugger. Troubleshooting weird timing and logic problems with print statements and blinking LEDs nearly drove me insane. Luckily there's not too much more to add at this point. Whew!

 

[Bunsen]

debugging without a real debugger. Troubleshooting weird timing and logic problems with print statements and blinking LEDs

8-o

"Well done!" is all I can say to this. Wow.

 

[bigmessowires]

New software: app version 1.0I firmware 10. http://www.bigmessowires.com/floppy-emu-1.0I-F10.zip

This version extends compatibility to the Power Macintosh and Quadra series. Their ROMs do some track stepping recalibration stuff that was breaking earlier version of the Floppy Emu software.

Still waiting on parts delivery from China so I can build some more of these. xx(

 

[ajacocks]

All I can say is, what a fantastic product!

On a side note, how does everyone make DiskCopy 4.2 images? I assume that you use a real Mac with a real superdrive? I've been trying, with little success, to find an alternative. This would be especially handy since Apple has many Disk Copy 6.x images on their HTTP archive.

- Alex

 

[bbraun]

Yeah, I create dc4.2 images on real drives. Although for the most part, I use minivmac to create writeable .dsk images. With the import utility, you can just drag files in and save them on the images.

 

[ajacocks]

Yep, that's definitely useful, so long as you aren't trying to convert disk images from another format, to Disk Copy 4.2.

 

[bigmessowires]

The classic Mac program DiskDup+ by Roger D. Bates will convert DiskCopy 4.2 images to raw .dsk images and vice-versa, if that's what you're after.

 

[ajacocks]

Very close. Now, I just need to figure out how to get from Disk Copy 6.x to .raw.

Thanks for the pointer!

 

[bigmessowires]

Could you use Shrinkwrap under Mini vMac to mount the 6.x image, and then use DiskDup+ or DiskCopy to create a 4.2 or raw image?

If you can find documentation for the DiskCopy 6.x format, maybe I can support it directly in the firmware.

 

[ajacocks]

I will look in to finding the Disk Copy 6.x format documentation.

As to directly running Disk Copy, that's a no go, as Mini vMac doesn't really emulate a floppy drive. Actually, that seems to be a shortcoming of all of the Macintosh emulators. For most purposes, it doesn't really matter, but for image creation and writing, it is somewhat critical. I have tried Basilisk II, MESS, Mini vMac, and Sheepshaver.

Thanks!

 

[bigmessowires]

A few minutes of searching suggests that DiskCopy 6.x format is NDIF, which I think is just a raw disk image in the data fork with all the metadata in the resource fork. If you copy the file to a Windows volume, it'll split the forks and put each fork into a separate file. If the data fork file is exactly 1,474,560 bytes (512 bytes times 2880 sectors), then it's a raw HD disk image and should work fine with Floppy Emu. Latest firmware no longer cares if the file extension is .dsk as long as the image is the right size or has the right signature.

 

[ajacocks]

Indeed, my searching seems to indicate the same.

I also found this program, which seems to work well, though I have only tested it a bit:

http://sunsky3s.s41.xrea.com/dmgconverter/index.html

It seems to create valid raw images, given a variety of formats, fairly easily. I also ran across an old hint that additional formats can be enabled for Disk Utility, using the following:

$ defaults write com.apple.DiskUtility advanced-image-options -bool true

In my (limited) testing, on 10.8.5, it does enable the formats, but trying to create a Disk Copy 4.2 image from an existing UDIF image caused an error. I'll post more, as I do more testing.

 

[ajacocks]

Just to note, I've tested the latest firmware, and it's absolutely perfect.

Thanks so much!

- Alex