Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: blanning on March 08, 2009, 09:28:20 PM
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Not sure if we've talked about this here yet:
http://jeanfrancoisdelnero.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/index.html#projetssimilaires
Looks like you open the disk image with the windows software, and it makes the vintage machine think it's talking to a floppy drive. Cool stuff.
brian
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comeback when they have a flashcard connector, i dont want to be depended on a pc....
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A1260 wrote:
comeback when they have a flashcard connector, i dont want to be depended on a pc....
So you are the representative of Aorg, and you have a license to speak for us all? :rtfm:
OT. looks great, but the site's french. I don't really get it what it is and what it's doing exactly.
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If anyone will produce this item I will certainly buy it.
blanning wrote:
Not sure if we've talked about this here yet:
http://jeanfrancoisdelnero.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/index.html#projetssimilaires
Looks like you open the disk image with the windows software, and it makes the vintage machine think it's talking to a floppy drive. Cool stuff.
brian
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Good thing us americans speak only one language. ;-)
Here's a rough translation of the salient points, starting about 2/3 of the way down the page just below where it says Un petit mode d'emploi. Most things above that is technical stuff about how to make the board:
To change an image, simply drag and drop the file onto the application. The application loads the plugins associated with the file type. The plugin extracts information from the disk image and uses that to setup the emulation. All of this takes about a second.
Load an image: method number 2: You can associate the file type in windows with the application, then you can just double-click bla bla.
Then there's a discussion of drive cables with and without twists, and how the software can handle this automatically.
Higher up it says that the emulator emulates the rotation speed and format of the disk as closely as possible for as much compatibility with a real drive as possible.
Maybe someone who speaks better french than me can fix mine.
brian
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Who doesn't have a PC anymore? I'd kill for something like this.
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by A1260 on 2009/3/8 23:39:28
comeback when they have a flashcard connector, i dont want to be depended on a pc....
Well, check out this site, which seems to be the english main site and not just the project site: http://www.torlus.com/floppy/
They already have a flashcard based one.
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Yes i know that i should convert the project page into english ;-)
you can see some old video on youtube:
USB HxC Floppy Emulator video demo - part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JtvMyur-DY
USB HxC Floppy Emulator video demo - part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMFbRTSsr58
SDCARD HxC Floppy Emulator - demonstration :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0arlGguYEts
SDCARD HxC Floppy Emulator - Amiga 600 - State of The Art:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtazXt_Kc4s
Le projet HxC Floppy Emulator (a NoLife tv documentary, in french):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9MN5t9i1Tc
Project page (sources, pcb and firmware are available on this page):
http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/index.html
Project Forum (french & english):
http://www.torlus.com/floppy/forum
there still some USB units available. Contact PeterSieg on this forum :
http://www.forum64.de/wbb3/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=23289&pageNo=23
Jeff / HxC2001
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ok, so how much? And is it assembled or a kit?
also, it would be easier to buy one if I didn't have to join a german message board first. ;-)
edit: never mind, just sent peter an email.
brian
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A floppy in a modern pc is like tits on a bull...
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persia wrote:
A floppy in a modern pc is like tits on a bull...
:lol:
I haven't used a floppy for over 10 years on my box, even my Atari XL, MSX, Spectrum and Commodore 64 are using SD/Flash cards nowadays.
This disk emulator is very nice for people using Amiga's without a harddisk.
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persia wrote:
A floppy in a modern pc is like tits on a bull...
Huh? Amiga, ST, etc. are modern? :rtfm:
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I would so buy one of these. It means never worrying if the FD will go bad ever again. As Nostalgic systems get older and part get harder to find this will be a god send weather it needs a PC or works VIA SD Media. All hail the great wonders of floppy emulation :p
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This project is very old. It's been "finished" for several years.
The developer is a very good engineer and the product reportadly works well, however the PCB design is rather clunky.
If only the PCB had been designed to be the same form factor as an FDD it could have gone inside the computer instead of the FDD!
If the USB connector had been a mini-USB connector the cable could have been inserted through the hole in the computer case left for the floppy disk.
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alexh wrote:
This project is very old. It's been "finished" for several years.
The developer is a very good engineer and the product reportadly works well, however the PCB design is rather clunky.
If only the PCB had been designed to be the same form factor as an FDD it could have gone inside the computer instead of the FDD!
If the USB connector had been a mini-USB connector the cable could have been inserted through the hole in the computer case left for the floppy disk.
Yes but the pcb space cost a lot...
The sdcard floppy emulator used the floppy drive form factor, but i need to reduce it to be viable.
EDIT : Mounting holes of the USB Floppy Emulator Rev C are compatible with the floppy drive form factor.
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;-) Now that's impressive! This looks to be very useful.
:-? Can it also be made to emulate high density floppies, or just double density? Can one boot the Amiga from this?
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XDelusion wrote:
Who doesn't have a PC anymore?
Those of us who have a Mac.
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Hi all.
So finally you don't have to register at a german c64 forum to get access to me ;-)
BTW, I think I am a registered amiga.org user since a couple of month already.. ;-)
Some 'historical' informations first. I had the problem, that more and more floppy disk stopped working on my amigas.. allso some disk drives had problems.. this could be overcome with modifying pc drives.. however, I seeked out for some kind of drive replacement.. From the app. 5-6 projects I found and evaluated, the hxc usb project from Jeff was finally selected, because all is open source and firmware as well as pcb layouts were availabe.. and the forum/web site was still active.. My only problem was/is the french language ;-) But Jeff is and was very helpful in every aspect!
I had a lot of respect to solder
the FT245 in the TSOP package at the first units.. but after all it is not a problem anymore ;-)
So when I did the first batch of 20 black units, I never expected so much and ONLY positive feedback!
Since I have such units, I have never used a floppy drive nor disk ever after that.. (but I only need reading!).
Right now, after 45 black units from me, 20 red ones from CrazyIcecap, 20 blue ones from me again, I do have now only a few units left off me latest 20 white units..
So more then 100 units/sets have been made and send to: Japan, Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, USA...
So far, all are quite happy with it.
Concerning the form factor, 2 holes are fitting right to replace a original disk drive.. so I have one sitting in an external floppy case for an amiga..
So If you want a unit, only a few are available. Price is
80€ + 10€ shipping with registered mail to the US.
The material price tag is already quite hight (20€ cpld, 5€ FT245, other parts 10€) and I still need app. 2-3h for soldering and testing with my a600..
Just let me know at: peter (dot) sieg1 (at) gmx.de
Have fun,
Peter
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Just out of curiosity ... so this allows someone to have USB support without the need for an 030 Accelerator Card?
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no this allows you to plug in your Amiga to a PC and send ADF files to a Amiga FD Emulator and never need a real floppy again!
I so wanna get one but don't have a lot of money. About to go check transfer rates.
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I have now ordered one from Peter :) I've had enough about those damned read/write errors :)
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I only wish I had the money. I need this and a blizzard 1230. sigh. Hopefully they will make more of these.
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sim085 wrote:
Just out of curiosity ... so this allows someone to have USB support without the need for an 030 Accelerator Card?
No, it uses the floppy port so it can't do anything but access 880kb of data.
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This is exactly what I have been waiting for. I ordered one almost immediately after viewing this thread. This is WELL worth the money. According to the site, seems to work with many other devices as well. Awesome!
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Time to bump this up since mine had arrived and I figured I'd give a small review as to how it is and how it operates:
The board is about the size of a 3 1/2 inch floppy. Very sturdy and well designed, and contains four LED indicator lights so that you can tell what is happening and when (mounting disks, loading, power..etc)
The install was pretty straightforward. Plug it in USB, install the drivers and run the software. What I have tested hookup wise thus far:
Plugged it directly into the internal Amiga 500 Floppy port using a standard floppy cable - Works of course as DF0:
Plugged it into the innards of an Amiga 1010 floppy drive and then plugged that into the Amiga 500 external floppy port - Works as DF1:
Plugged it into DF0:, mounted an ADF image of "XCopy", booted in, then mounted a random game ADF, and copied to a REAL disk on DF1:. Not that I plan on ever using that feature again, but regardless it worked perfectly.
As for loading disk images, it works perfectly. Every single disk image I have tried (that is Amiga 500 compatible of course) has worked. I did run into a slight snag in which I could not play multi disk games because the emulator did not seem to poll the second disk when mounted, but that was just a setting that needed to be changed. After that, everything worked great. I have tested dozens of games and demos thus far, and have not hit a single snag.
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.
Where all seems to be perfect there is one tiny drawback, and that is NO write support, and this is a hardware limitation. In other words, ADF's mounted are read only through the emulator. This would mean you could not save your high scores on games that would take advantage of that. Although, there were certain games that I do remember that required the actual disk to be un-write protected to function correctly (Hoyle, Tetris) and these worked just fine without giving an error....so the emulator is doing something here to bypass that, and it is a good thing.
Bottom line is that this device is incredible. Can I recommend it? Absolutely! No longer having to shuffle disks is a great thing. It has successfully run image counterparts of each and every single original Amiga disk I own and then some. With literally thousands of disk images out there and the little time I have has using the device, it is hard to say exactly what the compatibility rate is. I can say again however that I have not come across an image that did not work, so my guess is that it is quite high :)In fact, I love it so much I purchased ANOTHER one for my brother, who loves the Amiga almost as much as I do! :)
The only real problem with this is probably the limited availability!
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Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
it uses the floppy port so it can't do anything but access 880kb of data.
I dunno if that is strictly true. I would imagine you could go beyond 880Kbytes if you wanted to.
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alexh wrote:
Speelgoedmannetje wrote:
it uses the floppy port so it can't do anything but access 880kb of data.
I dunno if that is strictly true. I would imagine you could go beyond 880Kbytes if you wanted to.
What I wanted to say actually is that this device is subject to floppy drive controller limitations.
Though, to think of it, the Amiga floppy drive controller is pretty flexible. Still, it's surely no USB port equivalent.
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I imagine almost all limits are due to the trackdisk.device! It would be a simple task to rewrite it if need be :-)
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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
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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..
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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
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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 (http://www.amiga-resistance.info/bboahfaq/index.php?action=artikel&cat=67&id=2920) 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 (http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://a5oo.nvg.org) :-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:
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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 ;-)
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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...
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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.
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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 ? ;-) :
(http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/sdcardfloppyemulator.jpg)
(demo here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtazXt_Kc4s )
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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
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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.
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Yes but the above pcb is a prototype. The final pcb will have all this features (fdd holes, external control port,...)
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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,...)
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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?
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@Gavilan: Just send me an e-mail..
peter (dot) sieg1 (at) gmx (dot) de
Peter
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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...
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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
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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
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Any news about this?
Or these:
http://sensi.org/~tnt23/megadrive/index.html
http://www.classicamiga.com/images/stories/news/amiga_floppy_emulator1.jpg
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The only thing being actively talked about is the open-source Cyclone 20.
This can write back disks with copy protection.
The idea was to expand to perform floppy disk emulation.
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Any news about this?
Or these:
http://sensi.org/~tnt23/megadrive/index.html
http://www.classicamiga.com/images/s..._emulator1.jpg
the sd card floppy emulator is working. you can get all informations needed to build one for yourself here :
http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/index.html#SDCARDFloppyemulator
The only thing being actively talked about is the open-source Cyclone 20.
This can write back disks with copy protection.
The idea was to expand to perform floppy disk emulation.
the hxc floppy emulator and the sdiskemul will do the same soon ;-) .
here the pcb of the new hardware :
(http://hxc2001.free.fr/vrac/ultimatefu.gif)
more informations here (in french):
http://www.yaronet.com/posts.php?s=101614&p=29
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Hi,
A new and probably the last batch of USB HxC Floppy Emulator will be made by petersieg:
http://torlus.com/floppy/forum/viewtopic.php?t=242
Hello.
I have decided to build another final batch of app. 10 HxC USB floppy emulators.. They will be fully assembled and tested with Amiga 600.
If you are still interested, I am trying to stay with the former price tag
of 80€/Unit plus 10€ shipping insured inside EU or uninsured to other countries.
However, I need to have at least 4 unit preorder and prepayment, to
order pcb's, programmer and parts.
Manufacturing time will take app. 4-5 weeks! (Sorry)
So, if you still want want, let me know at: peter.sieg1gmx.de
Thanks, Peter
(http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/HxCFloppyEmu1.jpg)
The projet page:
http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/index.html#USBFloppyemulator
The pictures/videos page:
http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/pictures/index.html#usb_hxc_floppy_emu_pictures