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Author Topic: New Smaller HxC SD Card Floppy Emulator Preorder  (Read 11315 times)

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Offline Dr_RighteousTopic starter

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New Smaller HxC SD Card Floppy Emulator Preorder
« on: March 10, 2010, 06:53:09 PM »
The newly redesigned and smaller HxC SD Card Floppy Drive Emulator is up for pre-order. Lotharek is producing the boards and has the pre-order up on eBay for £60.

Pre-Order:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180479359777&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

More Info:
http://www.torlus.com/floppy/forum/index.php
http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/
- Doc

A4000D, A3640 OC-36.3MHz, custom tower, Mediator A4000D. Diamond Banshee 16M, Indivision AGA 4000, GVP HC+8.

Mac Mini 1.5GHz, that might run MorphOS someday, when the fools who own it come to the realization that 30 minutes just isn\'t enough time to play with it enough to decide whether or not you like it enough to cough up $200.

 - Someone please design SOME kind of DIY accelerator for the A4000. :D -
 

Offline kolla

Re: New Smaller HxC SD Card Floppy Emulator Preorder
« Reply #1 on: March 10, 2010, 11:37:21 PM »
Yay, been waiting for this - ordered two :)
B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC
---
A3000/060CSPPC+CVPPC/128MB + 256MB BigRAM/Deneb USB
A4000/CS060/Mediator4000Di/Voodoo5/128MB
A1200/Blz1260/IndyAGA/192MB
A1200/Blz1260/64MB
A1200/Blz1230III/32MB
A1200/ACA1221
A600/V600v2/Subway USB
A600/Apollo630/32MB
A600/A6095
CD32/SX32/32MB/Plipbox
CD32/TF328
A500/V500v2
A500/MTec520
CDTV
MiSTer, MiST, FleaFPGAs and original Minimig
Peg1, SAM440 and Mac minis with MorphOS
 

Offline spihunter

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Re: New Smaller HxC SD Card Floppy Emulator Preorder
« Reply #2 on: March 11, 2010, 12:54:37 AM »
Looks pretty cool you guys!!
 

Offline Gulliver

Re: New Smaller HxC SD Card Floppy Emulator Preorder
« Reply #3 on: March 11, 2010, 01:27:37 AM »
Please dont missunderstand me, every new hardware gadget i see released for the Amiga is a really great thing. But i simply dont see the point of paying 60 UKP for this new sd interface, when you can get an ide to sd interface for less than 10 UKP. I know it is not the same because it connects as a floppy drive, but then ide interfaces on any amiga, are cheaper and more versatile.
Perhaps i am not getting it. Could someone please explain the great benefit for the Amiga, other than a cool gadget? :)
Please be kind, as i am genuinely intrigued.
 

Offline Darrin

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Re: New Smaller HxC SD Card Floppy Emulator Preorder
« Reply #4 on: March 11, 2010, 03:19:05 AM »
Quote from: Gulliver;547106
Please dont missunderstand me, every new hardware gadget i see released for the Amiga is a really great thing. But i simply dont see the point of paying 60 UKP for this new sd interface, when you can get an ide to sd interface for less than 10 UKP. I know it is not the same because it connects as a floppy drive, but then ide interfaces on any amiga, are cheaper and more versatile.
Perhaps i am not getting it. Could someone please explain the great benefit for the Amiga, other than a cool gadget? :)
Please be kind, as i am genuinely intrigued.


Because as you mention, this isn't designed to use a SD card as a hard drive, but to do away with the need for old 3.5" floppy disks and use ADF images as if they were floppy disks instead.

This is why I'm such a big fan of the Minimig, because I can use ADF copies of my old, degrading floppy disks or look online for an ADF for a floppy that has already failed.

Anyone who owns a real Amiga and has faced repeated read errors from floppy disks will appreciate this little gadget.

I'm very tempted to order a couple for my "real" Amigas.

Those $10 SD card IDE devices can't do what this does and never will.
A2000, A3000, 2 x A1200T, A1200, A4000Tower & Mediator, CD32, VIC-20, C64, C128, C128D, PET 8032, Minimig & ARM, C-One, FPGA Arcade... and AmigaOne X1000.
 

Offline Gulliver

Re: New Smaller HxC SD Card Floppy Emulator Preorder
« Reply #5 on: March 11, 2010, 06:07:11 AM »
Okay thanks, i get it. But i only think it is good for real floppy tinkerers then, not casual users.
Let me tell you, i literally converted all my floppy disks to adf and i simply use VirtualFloppy program to mount them, and in the case of demos and games i use whdload. So floppies are only left for once in a while, installing workbench, but then nothing else. And even in that special case, i prefer doing it with WinUAE.
So at the end i still think it is only good for floppy tinkerers.
 

Offline kolla

Re: New Smaller HxC SD Card Floppy Emulator Preorder
« Reply #6 on: March 11, 2010, 10:03:39 AM »
Quote from: Gulliver;547135
So at the end i still think it is only good for floppy tinkerers.
Well, with this there is no need to tinker with floppies anymore, that's the point. ;)

Notice that this device is not just for amiga, it can be used with plenty of machines, machines that may or may not have used weird floppy drives that are hopeless to find in working condition today. It is a great thing to have around when you need to bootstrap a system, be it amiga or atari or whatever. A bonus for us minimig tinkerers is that we can test adfs on minimig and real hardware from the same SD card :)
B5D6A1D019D5D45BCC56F4782AC220D8B3E2A6CC
---
A3000/060CSPPC+CVPPC/128MB + 256MB BigRAM/Deneb USB
A4000/CS060/Mediator4000Di/Voodoo5/128MB
A1200/Blz1260/IndyAGA/192MB
A1200/Blz1260/64MB
A1200/Blz1230III/32MB
A1200/ACA1221
A600/V600v2/Subway USB
A600/Apollo630/32MB
A600/A6095
CD32/SX32/32MB/Plipbox
CD32/TF328
A500/V500v2
A500/MTec520
CDTV
MiSTer, MiST, FleaFPGAs and original Minimig
Peg1, SAM440 and Mac minis with MorphOS
 

Offline Gulliver

Re: New Smaller HxC SD Card Floppy Emulator Preorder
« Reply #7 on: March 11, 2010, 10:08:50 AM »
Then, that way it sounds more reasonable! :)
 

Offline tonyyeb

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Re: New Smaller HxC SD Card Floppy Emulator Preorder
« Reply #8 on: March 11, 2010, 11:29:12 AM »
Only problem I see is that this listing is for a pre-order item that isn't yet built. I thought ebay didn't like that.
Chris (aka tonyyeb)
 

Offline polardark

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Re: New Smaller HxC SD Card Floppy Emulator Preorder
« Reply #9 on: March 11, 2010, 04:16:36 PM »
According to the specification sheet the HxC Floppy Emulator doesn't support writing for Amiga disks. With this in mind I could see a use for this for my other computers and maybe for installing things from floppy images onto hard drive on Amiga. Other than that...
 

Offline Darrin

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Re: New Smaller HxC SD Card Floppy Emulator Preorder
« Reply #10 on: March 11, 2010, 04:28:53 PM »
Quote from: polardark;547198
According to the specification sheet the HxC Floppy Emulator doesn't support writing for Amiga disks. With this in mind I could see a use for this for my other computers and maybe for installing things from floppy images onto hard drive on Amiga. Other than that...


I thought it was the USB one that connects to a PC that doesn't allow the write function...

From the spec sheet:

Here are the main features of the SDCard HxC Floppy Emulator:

Hardware/software specifications:

- 40Mhz PIC18F4525/PIC18F4620 based.

- Read/Write support:
Track mode based floppy emulator (Full track pre-encoded in the image file)
>Read support: Most of existing formats (FM/MFM/Amiga track...) supported. Custom tracks supported.
>Write support: ISO MFM 256/512/1024Bytes sector write supported.


Whereas this is the USB one which is NOT the device being offered on eBay:

Here are the main features of the USB HxC Floppy Emulator:

Hardware specification:

- Read only Floppy emulator (SD,DD,HD & ED mode)
- USB 1.1 device interface (based on the FTDI FT245.).
« Last Edit: March 11, 2010, 04:32:59 PM by Darrin »
A2000, A3000, 2 x A1200T, A1200, A4000Tower & Mediator, CD32, VIC-20, C64, C128, C128D, PET 8032, Minimig & ARM, C-One, FPGA Arcade... and AmigaOne X1000.
 

Offline trekiej

Re: New Smaller HxC SD Card Floppy Emulator Preorder
« Reply #11 on: March 11, 2010, 07:09:21 PM »
I was hoping someone would make one of these.
Amiga 2000 Forever :)
Welcome to the Planar System.
 

Offline raketa

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Re: New Smaller HxC SD Card Floppy Emulator Preorder
« Reply #12 on: March 11, 2010, 07:09:30 PM »
some time ago I bought the usb version - the main problem was inability of writing (game save positions etc.).
so I asked Peter S. if this function will be implemented in sd version. Here is his reply:

"HxC USB is read only by design - so no writing.. writing will be just ignored.. In the sd version, that is coming up in the next weeks/month,
write support is implemented.. only on Amiga, I am not sure at the moment,
because of memory contrains.. will have to wait until Jeff the developer
will release it with final specs..".

so I asked the seller - "lotharek1977" if writing to sd card is available -> no reply from him.
 

Offline Dr_RighteousTopic starter

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Re: New Smaller HxC SD Card Floppy Emulator Preorder
« Reply #13 on: March 11, 2010, 07:30:18 PM »
This has actually been available for quite some time as a DIY project. Jeff recently redesigned it with a smaller footprint and fewer chips. As I understand it, this version is not going to be released for DIY. Lotharek has been given the design to produce and is producing completed boards. The preorder is so he knows how many to make.
- Doc

A4000D, A3640 OC-36.3MHz, custom tower, Mediator A4000D. Diamond Banshee 16M, Indivision AGA 4000, GVP HC+8.

Mac Mini 1.5GHz, that might run MorphOS someday, when the fools who own it come to the realization that 30 minutes just isn\'t enough time to play with it enough to decide whether or not you like it enough to cough up $200.

 - Someone please design SOME kind of DIY accelerator for the A4000. :D -
 

Offline raketa

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Re: New Smaller HxC SD Card Floppy Emulator Preorder
« Reply #14 on: March 12, 2010, 08:49:52 AM »
now as updated description says: Write support not available on Amiga computers!