Poll
Question:
Do you like to have a floppy controller for up to four additional drives more?
Option 1: Yes, a complete and fully working board
Option 2: Yes, the PCB without chips
Option 3: Maybe...
Option 4: No
A Floppy controller for four drives was developed and the prototype is now under heary testing.
It supports up to four drives or floppy-emulators. But it has no annoying ROM, because any desired DOS / OS ROM can be placed on your ROM expansion anyway.
Interested?
I mean, always interested in new stuff, but isn't four drives an overkill?
Quote from: Gryzor on 09:23, 07 December 22I mean, always interested in new stuff, but isn't four drives an overkill?
I could see a use for a 3" drive, a 3.5" drive, and a gotek, connected at the same time.
Pretty hardcore but I guess it can be done😁
On PC, they have removed the support of four drives very soon from the FDC.
On Amiga it was used to do more copy at the same time. On CPC, it is more "I did it".
Well, we do not suffer any longer the limitations of the past or other systems.
Just imagine now you can do this for example:
- Having two 3" drives on your internal floppy controller (that's DDI-1 for CPC464)
- Two 3,5" drives (at the external FDC)
- Two 5,25" drives or Floppy emulators (at the external FDC)
This way you will be able to copy things quite quick - especially on big formats (80 Tracks, 2 Sides, around 0.7 MB). :)
You can copy complete discs from any physical format to any other. Just depend on the drives you want to use. :)
Of course there will be always some eternal yesterdays-users who will tell "We don't need that. That's shit..." or what every they told visionary CPC users since decades. But who cares?
Please don't turn this thread in another flame war again and stay positive, the CPC deserves it!
This project is for CPC loving guys and girls who want to discover the new power of Floppy disc usage - or anybody who would love to copy a batch of discs as quick as never before.
Well, I will care to have a first batch of 10 units first.
@TFM Does That mean we could have 4 Double Sided disk drives, being used as double sided (Not 8 Sides)
Keep Safe
Ray
Quote from: GUNHED on 20:05, 07 December 22Of course there will be always some eternal yesterdays-users who will tell "We don't need that.
You mean all those, that do no longer believe in floppies as a future proof storage medium?
Just kidding ;-) cool project for some I guess.
Do you have a price estimate for the final card and which chips are being used?
Well, since the FDC765 and the TTL chips are expensive these days I thought about providing the PCBs with sockets, that shall be cheaper. So everybody can buy the chips cheap or at a 'cheaper time'.
A fully working card will probable not be not very cheap. See picture...
The picture is from Hans who developed the controller. :)
Quote from: GUNHED on 20:05, 07 December 22Well, we do not suffer any longer the limitations of the past or other systems.
But we also don't suffer from being limited to floppies either.
Bryce.
Quote from: GUNHED on 01:42, 08 December 22Well, since the FDC765 and the TTL chips are expensive these days I thought about providing the PCBs with sockets, that shall be cheaper. So everybody can buy the chips cheap or at a 'cheaper time'.
A fully working card will probable not be not very cheap. See picture...
The picture is from Hans who developed the controller. :)
wow... the data separator alone is quite expensive.
That's why I said it's pretty hardcore... Not that you can't use them ports, but how many do/will?
In any case I'm all for new hardware, I wouldn't mind even if I never used it.
Quote from: GUNHED on 01:42, 08 December 22Well, since the FDC765 and the TTL chips are expensive these days
i dont get it, our FDC can already handle 4 drives
dont you need "only" to wire drv2 pin? and maybe manage the drive selection of 4 drives with some affordable logic gates?
Quote from: GUNHED on 01:42, 08 December 22Well, since the FDC765 and the TTL chips are expensive these days I thought about providing the PCBs with sockets, that shall be cheaper. So everybody can buy the chips cheap or at a 'cheaper time'.
Just check the poll, 0% is interrested by that. Juste replace the LS chip with HCT chip, or with HC when possible.
Quote from: roudoudou on 12:26, 08 December 22i dont get it, our FDC can already handle 4 drives, dont you need "only" to wire drv2 pin? and maybe manage the drive selection of 4 drives with some affordable logic gates?
Sure, if someone really need to have more than one external drive connected to the floppy disc port, it require to connect DS1 from the FDC and decode it with DS0 through a 74*139 IC. Next, to properly wire the drive select lines for the internal and external usage.
Yes, with some serious effort it's probable doable to wire the CPC internally in a way to have four drives. But you need to add chips internally (like the 2 to 4 decoder).
Or alternatively you can switch B-drives, but in this case you still have only 2 drives accessible during the same time.
This project is for enthusiasts who still like floppy discs to be in use or to use them as backup storage or what ever else. :) We're fully aware that the M4 card exists with unlimited storage space.
There are already lots of threads about if CPC users shall be allowed to use Floppy discs any longer or not. This thread is actually for assessing the interest and guessing how much units shall be produced in the first run.
With this solution you will be able to use 6 drives at the same time (8 would be perfect anyway). Currently I do have six drives at my CPC and I love any single one of them! :)
@TotO : What would be the gain of replacing LS by HC chips?
Quote from: GUNHED on 15:48, 08 December 22What would be the gain of replacing LS by HC chips?
The board consumption. HC/HCT are less expensive and more easy to find.
Quote from: TotO on 16:00, 08 December 22Quote from: GUNHED on 15:48, 08 December 22What would be the gain of replacing LS by HC chips?
The board consumption. HC/HCT are less expensive and more easy to find.
Thank's I will tell Hans about it. :)
How can I access them in Amsdos? Is there a Unidos node available for this controller?
How will this work together with hardware like the M4Board? Will you have drive D,E,F,G or so then?
It sounds like you want to have some kind of retro feeling when still using floppy discs with a lot of drives (6 in total...). But will old software work with the new disc drives as well?
Quote from: Prodatron on 16:07, 08 December 22How can I access them in Amsdos? Is there a Unidos node available for this controller?
How will this work together with hardware like the M4Board? Will you have drive D,E,F,G or so then?
There is a variety of examples: You can use VDOS 2.11 or you can use the (I/O patched) ParaDOS / VaraDOS.
Unidos support? Strange question, how can it be there when we just have the first fully working prototype. I don't know if the Unidos team will ever support it - support would be definitely appreciated.
Up to now I was not able to see any kind of compatibility issues.
Quote from: Prodatron on 16:07, 08 December 22It sounds like you want to have some kind of retro feeling when still using floppy discs with a lot of drives (6 in total...). But will old software work with the new disc drives as well?
Well, the old software worked in the Mid-80ies with VDOS, there is no reason that it won't any longer. Compatibility problems are there not less or more as with most B drives. Maybe even a bit less, because you can have an A drive in this case - just external.
Using ParaDOS / VaraDOS for it should enable 99% of all (old and new) software to run just fine.
@Prodatron I will see a real interrest about using a second FDC, if Western Digital.
To allow to make copy of protected floppy disc using the write track feature like SamDisk does on PC.
I'm still not convinced. It's like adding a USB port to a sextant although GPS now exists. Maybe I'm just not as retro fanatic as others.
Bryce.
Quote from: Bryce on 19:25, 08 December 22I'm still not convinced. It's like adding a USB port to a sextant although GPS now exists. Maybe I'm just not as retro fanatic as others.
Bryce.
Nobody want's to convince you. But please allow others to have their own opinion.
Quote from: GUNHED on 19:50, 08 December 22Quote from: Bryce on 19:25, 08 December 22I'm still not convinced. It's like adding a USB port to a sextant although GPS now exists. Maybe I'm just not as retro fanatic as others.
Bryce.
Nobody want's to convince you. But please allow others to have their own opinion.
I'm neither blocking nor disrespecting anyone else's opinion, I'm just giving mine.
Bryce.
This project is useful for users (like me) who have PCWs as well as CPCs. It opens up the possibility of being able to copy from many different disc formats without connecting/disconnecting drives all the time.
Although I voted for a complete board, a PCB only or a PCB with sockets is fine (with a clear component list).
Keep going, this is great!
Thank you very much! Yes, you got the point. :) :) :) Just no need to switch disc drives at cables any more and access to all physical formats. :) :) :)
One example from my life... "Hey Stefan, you have the 25 ZSUS Discs on 5,25" format on 700 KB discs. Can you copy them to me, but on 3,5?". Right in this moment I'm very glad not be forced to dis-/reconnect floppy drives 50-times. :laugh:
@GUNHED Ok I will need a schematic and a list of components.
and some OS that will handle A - B - C - D - Drives ?
Keep Safe
Ray
Hi,
here's the state of affairs regarding the Vortex F1-D controller clone that I made:
I started by depopulating the original controller that I have and capturing the schematic from the PCB layout. I then rearranged the schematic, threw out the ROM decoding logic and updated the address decoder. The resulting design is a little wasteful in terms of the number of TTL chips that it uses for address decoding, but given that a limited number of these boards will be built, I think it is OK. The first version of my PCB required a couple of bodge wires, but it does work -
@GUNHED now has it for testing.
I've produced another set of boards, but unfortunately this version uses the DD-1/F1-D addresses (&FB7E/F) where
@GUNHED tells me that most people will want to use the F1-X addresses (&FBF6/7). Once I have these new boards in my hands, I will test them. If they're good, I'll make another version that has the I/O address switchable between the two alternative I/O address ranges.
The design will be open source, but I'm not going to point you to the design files before we have finalized testing to save you from ordering PCBs that might not work. I have a couple of chips that I'm going to use for testing the layouts and that I'll eventually pass on to interested people. The board is not difficult to assemble, but the passives, voltage regulators and the oscillator are SMD parts. I understand that some people still don't like SMD and I will be willing to build some boards with those parts soldered on for those. A couple of DD-1/F1-D PCBs will be available in early January, the version with address select jumpers will take until February.
If you're interested in this project, you can fill out my Google form (https://forms.gle/sHYXwSzxtK8iaS4v6) and I'll reach out to you once the designs and boards are available.
Cheers,
Hans
Quote from: Audronic on 05:19, 10 December 22@GUNHED
Ok I will need a schematic and a list of components.
and some OS that will handle A - B - C - D - Drives ?
Keep Safe
Ray
Regarding the software at present time you can use VDOS 2.11 which supports three drives, but it's two at a time. The !S command can switch between the drives. So you can use all 3, but 2 at a time. One of them is the internal 3" drive.
Furthermore I do intend to patch ParaDOS to support The Vortex controller. Also like all CPC DOS it supports 2 drives at a time.
Since you ask for all drives support, at the moment that's only FutureOS (maximum of 8 drives).
However, maybe there could be a Unidos node, but that's probably the realm of Unidos coders.
I think this is sort of interesting but as cool as it would be to have 4 drives - at least here in Australia, it is hard to get the actual drives at a sane price. Yet... for some reasons USB floppy drives are really really cheap - maybe there could be a way to make a USB drive work on such a card instead, or 2 of them perhaps? Using a microcontroller or an FPGA to map FDC commands to USB? or even at a high level protocol-type access? If done somewhat right, we could also plugin USB DVD and CDROM drives too? So perhaps put 4 USB ports on it.
Using USB ports for floppies is an interesting idea, but a completely own (and complex) project.
Well, sind I'm here already I can give you an update about this project: Eventually there was no help from the hardware people in this forum here, but Thanks to LambdaMikel I got in contact with Hans from good old Germany. And he did it! :) :) :)
Since a couple of weeks I do test the Vortex Controller clone for four drives. What are the specs?
- You can use up to four drives with DS0 to DS3, the port on the controller fits the current floppy cables (from older PCs). So the plug is space saving
- The connection to the CPC is made by using the MX4 plug. So you put it on your Mother X4 expansion back plane
- After intensive (but not fully completed) testing it seems to work 100% perfect.
Probably in a month there could be a first run of 10 units, but I can't promise that yet. If you're interested in the project you can PM me and I will give you a link to continue. Or even better directly contact Hans (see his post before).
Quote from: zhulien on 01:59, 11 January 23USB floppy drives are really really cheap - maybe there could be a way to make a USB drive work on such a card instead, or 2 of them perhaps
USB floppy drive controllers almost always only support HD floppies and you won't be able to access your vintage floppies. Of course you probably could somehow make it work, but then there is no real point to use a USB floppy and not a USB stick.
Quote from: hans on 07:18, 10 December 22If you're interested in this project, you can fill out my Google form and I'll reach out to you once the designs and boards are available.
I had a look at the Google form and saw that you are using the FDC9229. Is that a better option than the other data separators that have been in use with the Amstrad? Do you have a good source to get that IC? I can only find few offers on Ebay and all of them quite expensive.
Quote from: eto on 12:57, 11 January 23Quote from: hans on 07:18, 10 December 22If you're interested in this project, you can fill out my Google form and I'll reach out to you once the designs and boards are available.
I had a look at the Google form and saw that you are using the FDC9229. Is that a better option than the other data separators that have been in use with the Amstrad? Do you have a good source to get that IC? I can only find few offers on Ebay and all of them quite expensive.
I don't know of compatible data separators that could replace the FDC9229. I did think about making another version of the controller using the AIC37C65CL, which integrates both the data separator and the open collector drivers and is very cheap, but I'm not sure if there is enough demand and I'm a bit fed up with floppies myself. I had not used them in many years but now I remember how glad I was when they vanished from the market :D
Quote from: hans on 13:03, 11 January 23I'm a bit fed up with floppies myself
I can relate ;-)
Quote from: hans on 13:03, 11 January 23I don't know of compatible data separators that could replace the FDC9229.
In the CPC 6128 they have been using the SED9420C but according to the schematics they have also been using the FDC9216. But I have no idea if they would be an option.