CPCWiki forum

General Category => Technical support - Hardware related => Topic started by: CraigsBar on 10:49, 09 October 15

Title: Whilst researching ways to write Amiga discs I found this...
Post by: CraigsBar on 10:49, 09 October 15
http://m1web.de/ADTWin/

With many new PC's not having floppy drives any more, and it being relatively easy to add a parallel port, would it be possible to create a dsk version. Of this tool to use the same setup with CPC discs?
Title: Re: Whilst researching ways to write Amiga discs I found this...
Post by: pelrun on 13:19, 09 October 15
Bitbashing a floppy drive via the parallel port? That's grotesque  :laugh:


USB parallel port adapters also generally don't work for this sort of abuse.


Title: Re: Whilst researching ways to write Amiga discs I found this...
Post by: CraigsBar on 13:27, 09 October 15
No, Indeed, but both PCI and pcie parallel cards are a: cheap and b: reported to work.
If this can be modified to support the dsk format we might have an alternative to a kryodisk or catweasel 4 to add a floppy controller.
Title: Re: Whilst researching ways to write Amiga discs I found this...
Post by: CraigsBar on 13:35, 09 October 15
Quote from: pelrun on 13:19, 09 October 15
Bitbashing a floppy drive via the parallel port? That's grotesque  [emoji23]


USB parallel port adapters also generally don't work for this sort of abuse.
I love the line....

"Note, that the parallel port is actually not intended to be operated as a disk drive controller"

No shit sherlock!
Title: Re: Whilst researching ways to write Amiga discs I found this...
Post by: Bryce on 13:53, 09 October 15
Quote from: CraigsBar on 13:35, 09 October 15
I love the line....

"Note, that the parallel port is actually not intended to be operated as a disk drive controller"

No shit sherlock!

Although "not intended", iomega used the parallel port quite successfully for their ZipDrives.

Bryce.
Title: Re: Whilst researching ways to write Amiga discs I found this...
Post by: CraigsBar on 14:01, 09 October 15
Quote from: Bryce on 13:53, 09 October 15
Although "not intended", iomega used the parallel port quite successfully for their ZipDrives.

Bryce.
Oh yeah, even with a pass through I'd I recall correctly. I only had SCSI, ide  and USB zip100's so forgot about those.
Title: Re: Whilst researching ways to write Amiga discs I found this...
Post by: TFM on 16:51, 09 October 15
Intended? You humans do think in such a variety of strange, unlogical and just weired categories.


We as machines understand the 0 and the 1. Any connection is welcome.  :)
Title: Re: Whilst researching ways to write Amiga discs I found this...
Post by: CraigsBar on 16:54, 09 October 15
Heheheh.
Title: Re: Whilst researching ways to write Amiga discs I found this...
Post by: TFM on 16:57, 09 October 15
Why not? If it works - then it works!  :)
Title: Re: Whilst researching ways to write Amiga discs I found this...
Post by: CraigsBar on 17:20, 09 October 15
Indeed, are you volunteering to look at the source and see if it can be modded? ;)
Title: Re: Whilst researching ways to write Amiga discs I found this...
Post by: arnoldemu on 17:45, 09 October 15
Quote from: Bryce on 13:53, 09 October 15
Although "not intended", iomega used the parallel port quite successfully for their ZipDrives.

Bryce.
It's possible they used IEEE-1284 or similar.

IEEE 1284 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1284)

But I do believe the writing Amiga drives over a parallel port on a PC doesn't follow any nice specs and they really are hitting the parallel port.
You may need to configure the parallel port to ECP/EEP or similar in the BIOS to get multi-directional data on the parallel port.

I had a parallel port ATA based harddrive that used IEEE-1284. It was made by Shuttle and had a seperate enclosure. It was a bit slow. I now use it to power my CPC ;)
Title: Re: Whilst researching ways to write Amiga discs I found this...
Post by: TFM on 19:12, 09 October 15
Quote from: CraigsBar on 17:20, 09 October 15
Indeed, are you volunteering to look at the source and see if it can be modded? ;)


Sorry - me only speaking Z80 and ATMega16.  :-X
Title: Re: Whilst researching ways to write Amiga discs I found this...
Post by: pelrun on 03:24, 10 October 15
Quote from: CraigsBar on 13:27, 09 October 15
If this can be modified to support the dsk format we might have an alternative to a kryodisk or catweasel 4 to add a floppy controller.


Oddly enough, it's actually possible to use a Gotek connected to a CPC to directly read/write a disc in the A: drive, with a few minor mods to the Gotek and the right software...
Title: Re: Whilst researching ways to write Amiga discs I found this...
Post by: CraigsBar on 14:24, 20 October 15
Quote from: CraigsBar on 10:49, 09 October 15
http://m1web.de/ADTWin/

With many new PC's not having floppy drives any more, and it being relatively easy to add a parallel port, would it be possible to create a dsk version. Of this tool to use the same setup with CPC discs?
Well the drive and cable works perfectly for writing Amiga adf files to floppies. I still hope someone with the required skills here might consider looking at the source for the app to see if adding support for dsk is possible. If so we'd have a new platform for getting games to our cpcs.
Powered by SMFPacks Menu Editor Mod