USB vintage floppy emulator

[whiteb]

PeterSieg wrote:
Hi all.

Just for your information. I have ordered two more cpld's to complete the last 2 remaining HxC USB floppy emulators..

So in a few days, this 2 ones are available, since the boards
are already assembled and tested, just missing the flashed cpld's..

I am not planning to make another batch, after these units
are gone..

Thanks, Peter

Peter, if this is the LAST batch of USB, then can I assume that you will be proceeding over to the SDCARD Standalone version ?

I cannot wait for this version..

[PeterSieg]

Hi.

>Peter, if this is the LAST batch of USB, ...
Yes. At least for me  ;-)

>then can I assume that you will be proceeding over to the >SDCARD Standalone version?
No. According to Jeff the developer, the SD Card version is NOT ready for production. It is still in development and no release date is known..

Peter

[kolla]

Speelgoedmannetje wrote:

Though, to think of it, the Amiga floppy drive controller is pretty flexible. Still, it's surely no USB port equivalent.

I have two AmigaLink floppy port network devices that I used to connect my A500 to internet via MimiDx on the A3000 - it worked quite well, not particularly fast, but quite reliable, even had a webserver running on  the A500 :-D

I really wish the floppy port of old amigas could be abused more like this, since it's a port they all have. Too bad I never got my hands on more than the two devices I have ... :roll:

[Jeff_HxC]

zektor wrote:
[...]
For those concerned about speed, there is no speed increase with the emulator. It loads in pretty much the exact same time it would take to load a real disk. I do not consider this a drawback however, because I think that if it did not mimic a real floppy drive in this respect I could be looking at some incompatibilities.
[...]

In fact it's impossible to increase significantly the data throughput of a floppy interface without modify the floppy disk controller (the paula chip here). It was designed to work at 250kbits/s +-15% no more no less.

Thanks for your review ;-)





 

[trip6]

it would seem that if this great little device had an onboard SD card reader\writer, could power itself from the floppy power connector, same form factor as a amiga fdd drive (could be mounted internal) and had write capability engineered in the hardware  this would easily be like a 1541 Ultimate device is like for commodore 64's. I would glady pay up to 140 Euros for a device like this if it had those features. Heck maybe you could even call it a 1010 Ultimate or something... Great device none the less... The PC dependency is the deal breaker for me though... Would love to see the above features to make it more standalone...

[Darrin]

trip6 wrote:
it would seem that if this great little device had an onboard SD card reader\writer, could power itself from the floppy power connector, same form factor as a amiga fdd drive (could be mounted internal) and had write capability engineered in the hardware  this would easily be like a 1541 Ultimate device is like for commodore 64's. I would glady pay up to 140 Euros for a device like this if it had those features. Heck maybe you could even call it a 1010 Ultimate or something... Great device none the less... The PC dependency is the deal breaker for me though... Would love to see the above features to make it more standalone...

It would give a "real" classic Amiga one of the major benefits of the Minimig which would be very nice indeed.

[Jeff_HxC]

trip6 wrote:
it would seem that if this great little device had an onboard SD card reader\writer, could power itself from the floppy power connector, same form factor as a amiga fdd drive (could be mounted internal) and had write capability engineered in the hardware  this would easily be like a 1541 Ultimate device is like for commodore 64's. I would glady pay up to 140 Euros for a device like this if it had those features. Heck maybe you could even call it a 1010 Ultimate or something... Great device none the less... The PC dependency is the deal breaker for me though... Would love to see the above features to make it more standalone...

you means this one ? ;-)  :



(demo here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtazXt_Kc4s )

[Gavilan]

by PeterSieg on 2009/3/26 7:21:41  Hi all.  Just for your information. I have ordered two more cpld's to complete the last 2 remaining HxC USB floppy emulators..  So in a few days, this 2 ones are available, since the boards are already assembled and tested, just missing the flashed cpld's..  I am not planning to make another batch, after these units are gone..  Thanks, Peter

Hi Peter!! You mean that after this 2 units no more of this will be available?

Do you still have for sale??
I want one pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeee
 :-D

Tell me how to do it/Where can i order one!!!!

Sebastian

[trip6]

Pretty much with a couple exceptions... Looiks like it is using some sort of external PSU, great for external use... not so great for internal mounting, a small molex pin header for the fdd power cable would be ideal. The form factor of the board looks like it is form factor to a fdd's dimensions, however there doesn't look to be pre-drilled holes for the standoff mounts in an A500\2000 or matched pre-drilled holes for a bracket in a a600\a1200 critical for internal mounting. LED panel\selection switches are awesome with one execption, for internal mounting it is probably better to detach the led and switches and have a separate small pcb with that connected via a ribbon cable to facilitate internal mounting of the device and placement\mounting of the LED\switch panel on the case with pre-drilled threaded mounting holes drilled in the LED\switch PCB daughter board for easy mounting to the case externals. But still a great accomplishment, the external unit still looks amazing, but an internal unit I think would definately peak interest. Keep up the good work and thanks for your efforts.

[Jeff_HxC]

Yes but the above pcb is a prototype. The final pcb will have all this features (fdd holes, external control port,...)

[trip6]

Excellent Jeff... I look forward to seeing it if it has those features that I mentioned then I'll probably buy a couple...

Jeff_HxC wrote:
Yes but the above pcb is a prototype. The final pcb will have all this features (fdd holes, external control port,...)

[terminator4]

Might as well design a pcb that allows connection of PC drives? (kind of like real high density fix)  What will this USB joy cost?

[PeterSieg]

@Gavilan: Just send me an e-mail..

peter (dot) sieg1 (at) gmx (dot) de

Peter

[Hessu]

Finally got some time to test this, so far all adf games that have hd install option went fine, and few games that played from this floppy emulation, worked fine. Tried to create one HD floppy image for testing, but no joy. So it's just for normal 880k floppy images(?). All in all, it's an excellent piece of hardware. No matter if i have to use my PC as a host for adf files, while my A4000 shares the PC monitor anyways
Now all i need to do is, fit this inside to the amiga...  

[PeterSieg]

Hi. According to the french site, this should be supported for Amiga's:

Amiga
(500/600/1000/1200...)

*.ADF    
*.ADZ    basé sur la zlib.
*.DMS    basé sur xdms.
*.IPF/Caps    26/03/2008 > New core CPLD and software-> Support of emulation of all protections.
Floppy disk "on demand" ->   

A virtual AmigaDOS diskette. Based on ADFLib. To be loaded, the (root) directory off this virtual floppy must
end in .amigados with dimensions PC (example: mydisk.amigados)

So you name a directory "somename.amigados", put some amiga programs and files in there.. also some dir structure etc. should be fine.. and than you simple drag that directory
"somename.amigados" on to the pc server program windows (as with all the other image files..) and than you have your virtual amiga floppy.. ;-)

BTW: I did never tested that myself yet..

Peter

[Foster]

I am very excited about this project and will be looking forward to seeing the SD version come to fruition.  Good luck Jeff!!

Cheers!
.. Steve