USB vintage floppy emulator

[Jeff_HxC]

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

[Jeff_HxC]

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.

[Jeff_HxC]

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 ;-)





 

[Jeff_HxC]

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 ? ;-)  :



(demo here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtazXt_Kc4s )

[Jeff_HxC]

Yes but the above pcb is a prototype. The final pcb will have all this features (fdd holes, external control port,...)

[Jeff_HxC]

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 :



more informations here (in french):

http://www.yaronet.com/posts.php?s=101614&p=29

[Jeff_HxC]

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

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