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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: ozkano on August 11, 2008, 03:48:58 PM
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hi all, there are two floppy emulator projects still in progress in turkish commodore comminity,
I have one of the hardware,
here two videos I have taken, sorry about the conversation it is in turkish, :)
few information about emulator
- works with all games that I tried (dos or track loading)
- supports 2 GB SD card
- adf or addz files have to convert to compitable format
- lcd screen, easy to select, eject, file
- works as df0: or Df1:
- bla bla blaaaaa
http://www.vimeo.com/1497793
http://www.vimeo.com/1497888
:-D :-D
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Great stuff. Shame you have to convert ADF's to get them to work. Any chance this could be fixed?
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Good work, this project very nice more than others(russian project) :)
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this is the first version and cheap pic used (8 bit, 10 z speed), to directly emulate adf files it must have a faster cpu and RAM requierd. we also thnik about it but it cots more expensive :(
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As Hancock would say "good job" (film reference)
Surely it doesn't matter that it does not support ADF directly as long as the conversion process is quick and the tools support batch processing?
If I can make a few suggestions for possible improvement:
To get the price down further you could consider getting rid of the LCD. It might sound drastic but you've got a display device connected to the host computer!
You could replace the LCD with a default disk image on the SD card which would contain a boot program (different for whatever host you are running on) small, just a few sectors. The boot program would display the SD's contents using the hosts gfx on the Monitor/TV screen. It require some clever PIC code to convert the current SD card contents dynamically into virtual disk data on the rest of the disk. Disk image selection would be made by the host computer issuing particular floppy disk commands the PIC code can interpret. Once a disk image has been select it would remain selected until power off, or the eject button is pressed whereby it would default back to this boot disk image.
If you could do that it would be advantageous to make the PCB the same size as a standard floppy disk drive so that it would fit internally, the control interface could be only one button (Eject) used in a similar way to the Mac mouse (single click, double click, click and hold etc).
I am sure you could find suitable programmers to produce the boot menu program for each platform, if you open-source the API then communities would just write their own!
Just some suggestions.
Of course this idea is not practical for devices without a display.
Also the Amiga is not a good commercial target for this device, WHDLoad almost makes it redundant :-(
The Atari ST is much more of an attractive platform, commercially, for floppy disk emulation. However they have some coders who are creating their own equivalents of WHDload.
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alexh thanks for your suggestion, first of all this project does not belong to me and I dont know wheather owner of the project release source or not
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If you understand the concepts I bring up here and you like them, why not re-post them to the turkish bbs where the developers read?
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mhh , this one looks very very similar to mine floppy emulator (HxC Floppy Emulator) : is it the same ?
http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/index.html#SDCARDFloppyemulator
(http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/sdcardfloppyemulator.jpg)
http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/SDCARD_HxCFloppyEmulator.avi (http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/SDCARD_HxCFloppyEmulator.avi)
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yes it looks very similar,
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It looks rather identical, could they be building upon HxC's already published Floppy Emulator? If they are they should give credit where credit is due.......... :whack:
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by Firedawg on 2008/8/12 17:02:52
It looks rather identical, could they be building upon HxC's already published Floppy Emulator? If they are they should give credit where credit is due..........
agreed!
this doesn't encourage to make open source projects...
ozkano, who make this emulator and which software are you using to convert adf/adz file ?
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This project was done by EMREZ (http://www.commodore.gen.tr/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=23). I had my eyes on this for a while, this is an elusive guy and he can not give logical answers to some questions I asked about his projects on the forum, so I'm sure he couldn't have done this project by himself without some kind of 'intervention'.
Actually, I believe there might be a misunderstanding in place, cause I don't remember him claiming to have done the design of this project himself. He just built the HxC emulator and Ozkan thought he done the design himself. He should have told he's using the design from jeff though ... And ozkan should have asked about this before opening this thread. (Ozkan, abicim keske atlamasaydin, millet tasarimi emrez yapti zannetti.)
Actually, in this thread (http://www.commodore.gen.tr/forum/index.php?topic=2218.0) he says he got some problems about 'software' which were solved with the help of a 'friend from france' :lol: wonder who he is :lol:
Finally, I would like to mention that this project has nothing to do with the other Turkish floppy emulator project, TFE, which is totally Tolga's original work.
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@Jeff_HxC, this guy name is emre, if you wish I can give his email (by the way he does not know english)
is your project open source I saw your hardware design but have you relaes pic firmware
he use CAPSImg.dll with small gui
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Who is the guy in the video?
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moto
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motorollin wrote:
Who is the guy in the video?
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moto
Why ? fancy a trip to Istanbul ? :-P
He's Emre, the guy who did the 'project'. Ozkan is the cameraman AFAIK.
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countzero wrote:
motorollin wrote:
Who is the guy in the video?
Why ? fancy a trip to Istanbul ? :-P
Yep ;-)
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motorollin wrote:
countzero wrote:
motorollin wrote:
Who is the guy in the video?
Why ? fancy a trip to Istanbul ? :-P
Yep ;-)
I'm afraid you better start your Turkish lessons cause he doesn't speak English :-P
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@countzero:
thanks for the explanations, all is clear now.
Actually, in this thread he says he got some problems about 'software' which were solved with the help of a 'friend from france' wonder who he is
lol, he probably talked about this thread :
http://torlus.com/floppy/forum/viewtopic.php?t=146 (http://torlus.com/floppy/forum/viewtopic.php?t=146)
@ozkano:
yes the pic firmware have been released since february:
http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/HxCFloppyEmulator_Soft_PIC.zip (http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/HxCFloppyEmulator_Soft_PIC.zip)
is this the gui software ?: http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/HxCFloppyEmulator_soft.zip
here a video-demo of the emulator on A600, with the same demo ( lol ), made some months ago:
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=KtazXt_Kc4s
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countzero wrote:
motorollin wrote:
countzero wrote:
motorollin wrote:
Who is the guy in the video?
Why ? fancy a trip to Istanbul ? :-P
Yep ;-)
I'm afraid you better start your Turkish lessons cause he doesn't speak English :-P
He wouldn't need to :evilgrin: