KryoFlux - USB Floppy Controller Beta Released

[fiath]

KryoFlux is an advanced software-programmable FDC (Floppy Disk Controller) system that runs on small and cheap ARM7-based devices and connects to a host PC over the ubiquitous USB connector. It reads (and in the future, will write) flux transitions from magnetic media (most commonly, floppy disks) at a very fine resolution. KryoFlux can read data with no regard for what disk format or copy protection a disk may contain, and it can also read disks originally written with different (and even varying) bit cell widths and drive speeds, with a normal fixed-speed drive.

KryoFlux is available for free for private non-commercial use. You will however need to build or buy a board based on our open hardware design.

KryoFlux supports dumping any floppy disk to “stream files”, which contain the raw flux transition information. It supports output of a range of common “sector dumps” to allow you to use your dumped images right away in your favourite emulator. E.g. we support output of sector dumps for: Apple DOS 3.2, Apple DOS 3.3+, DSK, DOS 3.3 interleave, Apple DOS 400K/800K sector image.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjfT-F0GUl4

Info: http://softpres.org/glossary:kryoflux

Beta 2 Release News Item: http://kryoflux.org/news:2010-02-18

 

[fiath]

MINI FAQ:

Q. Why is it free?

A. Because we are a non-profit preservation organisation, and our ultimate goal is not financial, but to save all these wonderful games before they are lost.

Q. Do I need a special drive?

A. No. Just a standard PC drive and floppy cable is required to dump any media for that drive.

Q. Does it work with 5 1/4" drives?

A. Yes. Check 1min 10secs into the YouTube trailer.

Q. Will it work on a laptop?

A. Yes. It uses standard USB. We have it running on an EeePC.

Q. Why can't I just use the floppy drive in my PC?

A. The floppy controller in the PC can only read the very strict format PC disks, and not very much of anything from other platforms. Not only that, but any copy protection on disks is hard to extract properly without a "low level" read - which you can't do through a PC's FDC. For various reasons, we would strongly argue that images of disks read through a PC floppy controller are unsuitable for preservation.

Q. Is it Windows only?

A. The software is currently in beta, and only runs on Windows (32 or 64-bit, Windows XP or greater). The source to the host software will be available after we go final, and we are then hoping to get it ported to as many platforms as possible. The code was written with portability in mind.

Q. Is it command-line only usage?

A. For the beta, yes. However, we are working on a graphical user interface which will likely be available when we go final.

 

[Bunsen]

Just thought I'd add this similar project:

http://www.parallax.com/PropFloppy/tabid/851/Default.aspx

 

[Osgeld]

what is the "best guess" on what the boards are going to cost, and since this is open are you going to release board files so we can make our own

 

[fiath]

Well, we were hoping to make it very cheap, but we underestimated all the costs getting this thing to market (e.g. RoHS+WEEE compliance, setup costs, multiple revisions of expensive manufacturing prototypes). Now, it basically comes down to how much interest we get. With a lot of interest, we can do a bigger production run, and so get a better deal with the hardware producer.

By the end of next week we are planning to put up the website (at http://www.kryoflux.com) where people can register their interest. We'll have a "probable price" there, if we have guessed the interest correctly. It may go up (hopefully not) or down. I think some people might be a little disappointed, depending on what they were expecting. The parts are cheap, but the assembly and everything else really adds up...

Yes, you can build it yourself. We have EAGLE files in the beta package available from our website (http://softpres.org/news:2010-03-16). *However* there has been some changes to that design since that was released, so if you want to build it yourself, please wait until we have finished testing the (hopefully) final revision, and we'll update them.

 

[Mac128]

Apple DOS 400K/800K sector image.

Hold on a sec ... this uses the same GCR method employed for the Macintosh. Why couldn't this be adapted to read Macintosh MFS & HFS 400K & 800K disks.

And let me get this straight ... in the future one could pop an 800K disk into a 1.44 MB 3.5" drive and write a 400K Macintosh disk image to it, so that it would work in the original drive? Wow!

 

[Unknown_K]

Be aware that there have been products in the past (catweasel for one) the promise to read/write many formats when somebody comes up with the software, and nobody does do the software.

The old ISA Central Point Deluxe Option Board will read/write 400K Mac files/disks but you need an old PC (286 era) to do it.

 

[ppuskari]

Hmm.. I have one of those cards in my collection. Maybe have to install that beast into an old machine to try it out again. I could NOT get it to work in an old Pentium 133 setup last time I tried. It would read and write normally in normal A: B: disk letter mode, but none of the software versions I found would work correctly.

Sounds like I need to go older then? Or maybe turn off ALL cpu and memory caches?

 

[fiath]

Hold on a sec ... this uses the same GCR method employed for the Macintosh. Why couldn't this be adapted to read Macintosh MFS & HFS 400K & 800K disks.

Well, we don't have any Mac disks to try, so let me just check: The MFS & HFS 400/800K are different only in the file system, and use the same physical recording right?

If it's only a filesystem difference, then it's already supported as the disk image we can currently export holds it. If there is information missing (like I think maybe Lisa used the sector header data?) then an appropriate sector format can be chosen with little difficulty.

If it is a different physical recording - then we just need samples dumps (using our raw stream format, which images basically anything), and a description if possible.

Perhaps it uses one of the already supported Mac physical recording formats... As you saw, we can export sector images for the physical recording from:

Apple DOS 3.2

Apple DOS 3.3+

Apple DOS 400K/800K

...plus any disk used as FM or MFM at any double or high density.

As far as we know, these should cover all the physical formats ever used by Apple for floppy disks - apart from some systems where more speed zones were used, but if we get samples it can be easily adjusted.

And let me get this straight ... in the future one could pop an 800K disk into a 1.44 MB 3.5" drive and write a 400K Macintosh disk image to it, so that it would work in the original drive? Wow!

Well, let me be clear - we do not yet support writing. That feature is planned for a future update, but of course you should not buy based on future features, we can't guarantee how long that will take for a start.

Having said that, once writing is supported, I can't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to do that.

 

[fiath]

Be aware that there have been products in the past (catweasel for one) the promise to read/write many formats when somebody comes up with the software, and nobody does do the software.

Then it's a good thing that the software side is our core strength

We actually read basically any format disk already (at least those for 3.5" and 5.25" drives that we support connecting right now). We also export to common sector file formats (listed above) for better compatibility with other tools that would not understand our "raw" stream format (we will be adding an open and dumping-hardware-independent stream format soon). We think we support pretty much every major platform out there already with the supported sector formats, but it is possible we missed one or two (maybe these Mac MFS/HFS disks? I guess we'll find out soon). Also, any varient of "generic MFM" FDC controllers should already work as an exported sector format already (we have developed some intelligent software that allows us to automatically support any wierd varient).

Lastly, we've been doing software development for preservation activity for 10 years now (and done many years of research before that), so I think it's safe to say we are not going away any time soon.

 

[fiath]

Feel free to register your interest....

http://www.kryoflux.com/

"Ready-made KryoFlux hardware is not available today, but we will start taking orders soon. You can register your interest in one of the following packages. By registering, you help us get an idea of numbers, and it also puts you at the front of the queue when KryoFlux hardware is available, as the first production run is likely to be limited. "

 

[JDW]

My interest has been registered here:

viewtopic.php?p=145926#p145926