Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Marketplace => Topic started by: yadda on January 17, 2015, 12:56:06 AM
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So, I'm in a bit of a jam.
If you've ever had a Catweasel Mk4Plus, you'd know that it only works with the original floppy cable that came with it, else it'll misidentify the drive attached to it and fail to read or write disks.
I recently had the itch to get back into Amiga stuff, but unfortunately I seem to have misplaced this cable.
Does anyone have a Catweasel Mk4Plus they're not using who wants to sell me their cable? To clarify, I mean the 3.5 inch floppy cable, not the little tiny 5.25 inch adapter cable.
If needed, I'm comfortable buying the entire kit as well, as long as I get the cable.
Thank you in advance.
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The cable looked identical to a 34-pin PC floppy cable to me; I sold my 2 cards in favor of a MK2 as I didn't have a PC with WinXP 32-bit, and hated emulation on a PC.
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It looks the same, yeah, but from what I've read online, if you try using a different cable (and this is happening to me), it misidentifies the drive as a 5.25in drive instead of a 3.5in drive and can't read or write anything.
Thanks anyway!
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yadda
you are probably not going to find anyone willing to sell a catweseal. Have you contaced individual maybe jens can make u a cable? Or amigakit?
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How would I go about getting contact information for Individual? Their website currently lacks any support system beyond the wiki.
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How would I go about getting contact information for Individual? Their website currently lacks any support system beyond the wiki.
Looks like they've redone their website recently. The shop page is very nice. Hell, it makes me want to spend money. ;) Found this quote: "We will shortly add a way to open support tickets on this site. That's one of the things that don't work yet. Bear with us..."
I sent them a ticket back on their old page and Jens responded very quickly. He doesn't have an account here anymore but I think he's over on EAB or that German site (A1k)? Try messaging him there. Good luck!
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Sent Jens a message, hopefully I get an answer. Until then, if anyone is feeling altruistic, I'll be here.
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The pin out of the cable has no way of telling what type of drive it is connected to; the drive itself, as I recall, sends this info back on its first initialization by the controller. On the amiga, the drive spins at least once and a binary code is sent back to ID it.
Kernal manual on hardware
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I've never heard of this problem, and always use a standard cable (or my adapter cable to let me use 3" drives).... but then on AmigaOS 4 you set the drive type in the prefs program.
Are you using it on a PC?
I've never heard of a drive identifying itself anyway - even PCs can't do that, you have to tell them in the BIOS. Are you sure you're not just missing a setting in the software?
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I've never heard of this problem, and always use a standard cable (or my adapter cable to let me use 3" drives).... but then on AmigaOS 4 you set the drive type in the prefs program.
Are you using it on a PC?
I've never heard of a drive identifying itself anyway - even PCs can't do that, you have to tell them in the BIOS. Are you sure you're not just missing a setting in the software?
Well, I don't know about PC's but the Amiga does it as I described above; certainly there is no cable line for the type of drive.
Commodore Amiga Book: Amiga Hardware Reference Manual (1985)(Commodore) (https://archive.org/stream/Amiga_Hardware_Reference_Manual_1985_Commodore#page/n7/mode/2up) Page 357, Appendix I for Device ID:
https://ia801709.us.archive.org/BookReader/BookReaderImages.php?zip=/7/items/Amiga_Hardware_Reference_Manual_1985_Commodore/Amiga_Hardware_Reference_Manual_1985_Commodore_jp2.zip&file=Amiga_Hardware_Reference_Manual_1985_Commodore_jp2/Amiga_Hardware_Reference_Manual_1985_Commodore_0364.jp2&scale=4&rotate=0
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@ yadda
I've used generic cables for both my 5.25 and 3.5 drives for my CWMK4+ with no issues. If you tried one that didn't work then it was most likely defective
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I've tried multiple cables, and other people have reported this issue, so I'm at a loss then. Note I'm trying to use it on PC with the imgtool3 software that Individual has on their website, which has no option for choosing the type of drive, only the type of floppy you're attempting to read or write.
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Can you show a picture of the cables you have used?
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I asked Jens, here is his response:
The cables aren't very special: The motherboard-to-controller cable is a 1:1 34-pin IDC cable, and the controller-to-floppy cable is a standard floppy cables that was shippid in billions with PC motherboards back in the days when floppy drives were in every computer.
hope this helps,
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Jens Schönfeld
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Have you tried the CW MK4 in an Amiga? I used one in my X1000 and it worked fine; after all, PC's are pieces of junk.
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Have you tried the CW MK4 in an Amiga? I used one in my X1000 and it worked fine; after all, PC's are pieces of junk.
I like to think AmigaOS 4 support is better these days than for the PC. :) Never used used mine on the PC though.
On the original Amiga drivers from Jens, the type of drive is implied by the format you use. I.e. if you tell it to use the PC HD format, it assumes a 3.5" drive is fitted; if you tell it to use a C64 1541 format, it assumes a 5.25" drive is fitted.
The AmigaOS 4 version is actually more versatile as you can tell it via the prefs program what type you have exactly, so you can fit (for instance) an Amiga 3.5" drive, or a Single-sided 40 track drive, or a 40 track 3" drive, or an 80 track 3.5" drive etc. etc. - I don't think Jens put this into the PC drivers, I believe it assumes the drive connected is a standard PC drive and just assumes the correct type is being used for the format that's being read or written.
Incidentally, on the OS4 driver even if you set the drive to be a 3.5" you can still write 5.25" formats to it, for example. The driver just sends the information, it has no idea what the actual drive is except what you told it in the prefs.