KryoFlux - High Definition Flux Sampler for USB

[mr.vince]

Hi there,

this is not directly a piece if hardware for the Amiga, but might be very helpful anyway I guess...

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====== KryoFlux Beta 2 Released - Apple 400K/800K Sector Dump Support ======

//2010-02-18//

We have just released KryoFlux beta 2. You can get the complete package and manual from here or just the updated "host" software from beta 1 here. KryoFlux is free for private, non-commercial use. Beta 2 adds support for sector dumps of Apple 400K/800K disks. This means we now support the vast majority of popular sector formats.

If you are new to KryoFlux, you can read more about it here, and see the info-trailer here.

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, Apple 400K/800K support being the most recent addition.

Like the sound of it? Great. You might have already known this much, but did you also know that KryoFlux:

  * Checks the data for sector formats to ensure data integrity.
  * Allows you to indicate the target platform even when dumping to stream files in order to still do appropriate integrity checks.
  * Allows you to dump disks to stream files and to a more emulator-friendly image formats **at the same time**. So for a dual format Amiga/Atari ST disk, KryoFlux can produce stream files, a .ADF and a .ST all on-the-fly while dumping the disk.
  * Allows you to use stream files dumped previously as a "virtual floppy" in order to produce sector dumps later.

A rather insane amount of work has been put into this system to resolve the ongoing issues we see in the retro-computing and preservation world. All this for the cost of building/buying the hardware detailed by our public domain / open hardware designs (Hardware manufacturers: Did you just hear us say public domain hardware design? Yes you did! You can build this hardware right now and sell it with no further input from us. If you would like to sell it under our "KryoFlux" or "KryoFlux Compatible" trademarks (and you probably do, given this will get your product officially endorsed and promoted by us), no problem! You just need to obtain a license and certification - please contact us for more information.).

In summary, here are the image types supported in beta 2:

  - KryoFlux stream files
  - CT Raw image, 84 tracks, DS, DD, 300, MFM
  - FM sector image, 40/80+ tracks, SS/DS, DD/HD, 300, FM
  - FM XFD, Atari 8-bit
  - MFM sector image, 40/80+ tracks, SS/DS, DD/HD, 300, MFM
  - MFM XFD, Atari 8-bit
  - AmigaDOS sector image, 80+ tracks, DS, DD/HD, 300, MFM
  - CBM DOS sector image, 35+ tracks, SS, DD, 300, GCR
  - Apple DOS 3.2 sector image, 35+ tracks, SS, DD, 300, GCR
  - Apple DOS 3.3+ sector image, 35+ tracks, SS, DD, 300, GCR
  - DSK, DOS 3.3 interleave
  - Apple DOS 400K/800K sector image, 80+ tracks, SS/DS, DD, CLV, GCR
 
Given that "FM sector image" and "MFM sector image" doesn't sound very glamorous, let us just point out that due to intelligent handling, this supports basically any normal disk used for systems that contain a generic FM or MFM FDC - for example, all those weird synthesiser sample disk formats should work right out of the box!

Also, as far as we are aware, KryoFlux is the only system free for private, non-commercial use that can produce sector dumps for both Apple DOS 3.2 and 3.3 disks without interfacing to original drives and/or machines.

All this means we support pretty much any platform already: Acorn Electron, Apple, Amstrad CPC, Archimedes, Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, BBC, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, MSX, IBM PC, PC-8801, Sam Coupe, Spectrum, and many, many others.

Join the beta...

[mr.vince]

You guys pretty much posted parallel threads so I thought it prudent to merge them

Excellent. I bet I just overlooked this... Thanks!

I have been instructed to inform you that this project endangers one of the Amiga community's few remaining hardware manufacturers. Please for the sake of the community as a whole discontinue this project.

Give me a second to gather my thoughts... Ok, here's the reply (please feel instructed to report back): No.

@Dr_Righteous

I own four Catweasels, three of which are boxed because Jens hasn't produced a 64-bit Windows driver. Legitimate competition is a good thing.

I think it is. KryoFlux works fine in 64bit Windows (have not seen it personally, but beta testers report it does) and has USB support, which is nice, I guess.

[mr.vince]

So, does the external floppy drive have to be an Amiga drive, or just any PC drive in an external case?

All you need is an ordinary PC HD 3.5" drive (if you want to image Amiga disks that is) which you can get for a few bucks on eBay. Got mine for EUR 2,-... eBay... brand new.

Generally speaking there are some specific models out there, some with SD card reader built in, which don't work. Therefore I recommend getting different brands/models and use the one that works best.

I found out that older models from around 2000 or slightly older work better than the cheap crap they sell today. The problem is that newer models more often use thin metal cases which can get out of alignment if you screw them into a case to firmly. When buying 5.25" drives try to get some that are made of a solid block of aluminum instead of metal sheets.

[mr.vince]

When are you projecting the custom boards to be ready and what retail sale price level are you aiming at?

hmmm... hard to tell. you might have read elsewhere that we're very picky about things. we want to make sure everything works as expected, so we'll definitely do a first run with very limited quantities only. if these do work, we'll team up with more hardware manufacturers to do local runs, e.g. separate batches for e.g. germany, uk and the us.

it is very hard to tell prices because these vary depending on units made in one batch.

if you look at prices for parts, the most expensive thing, the cpu, costs about eur 8,- here (if you buy only one that is), i think i have seen prices of us$10,- somewhere. pcbs are very expensive when you do only 10 (about us$20 per board), but much cheaper when bought in larger lots (guess we could reach us$10 or less).

seeing that atmel dev boards with similar and more parts sell for about us$70-80 (i assume they do larger batches of them at one time), kryoflux should not be more expensive. could happen though, but i wish (!) we can make it happen for less.

please note that this is an estimate only, and i must admit i have no idea how much margin hardware sellers usually have / must have.

[mr.vince]

I'm not a hardware person. Where can I buy an assembled one?

Please stick to this thread... we'll make an announcement. Will take some weeks, though...

[mr.vince]

Hey, I'm just the messenger. I did my part and now I'm out of it.

i understand. i just wasn't aware of people being available for taking instructions and spreading other people's opinions.

your request reminded me of a fictious email from bill gates to steve jobs which i find quite amusing:

Redmond, December 16th, 2002

Dear Steve,

I hope, you are well. I think it is correct to say that we've never been very close friends, but we always respected each other. To be honest, I sometimes got a bit off the track and made up small puns at your cost, but what can you do when you're the richest man on earth?! As you might know, Windows is still selling very well. I mean, I am not surprised about this, they don't have a choice right now, do they?

You might be pleased to hear that Melinda and the kids are fine, especially Phebe Adele is doing very well. She really comes after her mother. I had some trouble last week when our gardener Jose had a little accident and scratched the driver's door of my 1989 Porsche. Luckily, he did not hit the green Maserati, which was standing nearby.

It came to my attention that your new OS X is making rapid progress and gaining market share, dragging away customers from the Windows platform. In regard to Melinda's and my foundation, our continuing expenses (e.g. school fees etc.), and the fact that we'd like to stay market leader, would you mind considering discontinuing your product line? Your efforts endanger one of the PC community's few remaining software manufacturers. I mean, we nearly drove all of them out of business, so who can help should we decide that selling Windows isn't profitable anymore?

Steve, I really appreciate your understanding and if you like, maybe we should have a brief conversation on the phone to discuss details.

All the best, yours truly,
Bill

hilarious, don't you think? :lol:

That said, any reason one couldn't use a SAM7-H256 and solder the floppy cable connections directly to the board in place of the headers? ...instead of using one of the larger development boards with extraneous parts. Sure would make stuffing everything into a small case easier.

yes, i know someone doing that. works fine as it seems. i think it does not have leds, which was important for development. let me know if it works for you.

best,
chris

[mr.vince]

Or from a linux pc (typically a laptop) with affs support in kernel, for example. Or OS4/MorphOS/AROS etc.

Speaking of possible or not: yes, it is. It somehow would need more hard work for a feature which is depreceated by us. You could easily damage or destroy a disk, just because most media is old. While we agree that it might be nice to be able to write back a whole disk (e.g. to restore a dead original disk), it does not really make sense to work "online" a real disk when you can have an image as well.

But again, this is possible. Please don't expect us to do this, because there are more important things to be done.

[mr.vince]

====== KryoFlux Hardware ======

//2010-02-24//

We hear you! We have had an amazing response so far, and we have understood that many would love to buy a complete solution rather building it. Therefore we are pleased to announce that we have our first hardware partner to enable us to deliver quality KryoFlux products in the not-too-distant future. Their engineers have already started enhancing our reference design to include changes that were previously planned for a later release, like increasing stability when using older 5.25" drives and to enable the use of 8" drives.

There will be more details available on this in due course. Please note that we are NOT YET ready to take pre-orders, but please spread the word that we're making progress!

We would like to take this opportunity to point out that the preservation work we do is expensive. We are are a non-profit preservation organisation and we receive no income other than donations. We specialise in the development of preservation technology, most recently KryoFlux, and the preservation of digital objects, but we also have to maintain our infrastructure. In return, we hope to dramatically improve the quality and quantity of the preservation tools available, for the benefit of everyone. Our ultimate goal is to save all those wonderful old games before they are lost, so if you appreciate what we do, you can support our efforts by making a donation, here.

Every Euro, Pound or Dollar helps covering development costs and at the same time shows that we're not on our own. Many thanks to those who already donated, your help and encouragement is very much appreciated!

[mr.vince]

Join us on Facebook...

...if you want to, that is!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Software-Preservation-Society/322949344929


We're also on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/softpres

[mr.vince]

KryoFlux 1.0 Beta 4 is out...

http://www.softpres.org/news:2010-03-16

[mr.vince]

Hi, there has been so much progress you have not seen since it was moved to a dedicated site & forums:

http://www.kryoflux.com

http://forum.kryoflux.com


It's working fine so far with many 3", 3.5" and 5.25" drives. More drives are under investigation.

We currently do have support for FM, MFM (this includes IBM PC, Atari ST and many others, including many musical instruments), AmigaDOS, C64, many Apple formats and Emulator I+II from E-MU Systems. More formats will be added.

One key feature is the option to do forensic dumps regardless of the format, so even alien formats can be read and archived and then processed later.

Writing does work, we have tested the hardware and can confirm it can write data to disk. We just have not finished this part of the software, because other features (ports, GUI) seemed more important and we all do work full time besides doing this.

The software, including a GUI, is available for Windows (and yes, we *do* support 64bit :p) and Linux, with a Mac port in production. The software is completely free for private, non-commercial use = the community gets it for free. Pro-users need to get a commercial licence for it. These will help to fund further development.

Here's a quick overview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjEPo2pRGjY

Basic (older) schematics are included with the software, and we plan to release the current schematics (which do use bus drivers) with the next release.

We also have pre-built boards available, so you don't have to etch your own boards and start soldering. Many people that originally intended to built their own decided to go for a ready-made product when they saw the pitch used here (the components are *really* small).

Anyway, if you want a board, you can get them here: http://webstore.kryoflux.com/catalog

Cheers,
Chris