Use a Raspberry Pi as an HxC drive!

[Gryzor]

Really cool:


AMIGA RPI DRIVE


(cue discussion about whether it's possible to do for the CPC...)

[TFM]

If the Amiga can do it, then it's no problem for the CPC. One of my drives is still an Amiga drive.[nb]I'm just too lazy to change it, else I would use an other drive with more quick step rate.[/nb]

[ralferoo]

I'm just too lazy to change it, else I would use an other drive with more quick step rate.

What? The step rate is determine by how fast you pulse the signal (within reason). Swapping another drive won't change that, it's the setting in the DPB that'll determine that. On the 765, the step rate is determined by the top nibble of the 1st byte in the specify command. It's almost certainly stored in the DPB somewhere too.

[ralferoo]

It a shame he only supplies a prebuilt RPI image, but still sounds like an interesting project.

[TFM]

What? The step rate is determine by how fast you pulse the signal (within reason). Swapping another drive won't change that, it's the setting in the DPB that'll determine that. On the 765, the step rate is determined by the top nibble of the 1st byte in the specify command. It's almost certainly stored in the DPB somewhere too.

Well, sorry for being unclear. (English is my 2. language). What I mean is the following: Every drive has a minimum of step rate time. For 3" drives this is 12 ms. In some cases 10 ms.
The usual 3.5" can work with a 4 ms step rate time.
The 765 can adjust the step rate time in even numbers: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 and so on. Of course you do need an DOS / OS supporting to change the step rate. I remember you can change that in Amsdos / ParaDOS / X-DDOS / V-DOS and so on. For sure you can set a default for CP/M and FutureOS. I don't know for SymbOS or Contiki though.

It a shame he only supplies a prebuilt RPI image, but still sounds like an interesting project.

Right, especially if one already owns an RPi.

[jrodriguezv]

I've heard autor is debugging code for releasing sources. It can be a good start for porting it to CPC.

[Gryzor]

If it's so simple as he says it is, it'd be a fantastic, very cheap alternative to the HxC. As long as someone writes the CPC software...

[Jeff_HxC2001]

 Cheap ? Are really sure that this solution is a lot more cheaper than the Ready-to-use Slim HxC Floppy Emulator ?!?
Add all costs and we will see (http://www.lotharek.pl/product.php?pid=91)
What is incredible is that the HxC Floppy Emulator was open since years but almost no one talk about the open part...

Anyway the HxC Floppy Emulator softwares are already working on Raspberry Pi :



USB HxC and RaspberryPi TCP/IP Network Floppy Emulator : control and upload through a web browser (the video demo)


http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=58345

http://torlus.com/floppy/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1120
This is the old USB HxC Floppy Emulator working with the Raspberry PI (Rev B) under linux.
In the present demo the file images (ADF,ST,MSA,IPF, DSK...) are uploaded to the Raspberry PI throught the Ethernet port.
Since all is working under Linux (Unlike the above solution...) the same can be done through a wifi interface, or an simple USB key, or what you want.

All sources are availables since years there :
HxC Floppy Drive Emulator / Code / [r1041] /HxCFloppyEmulator
All the software and libraries are working under Linux (and Raspberry Pi), Mac OS X, Windows...

Here is the file images loaders currently present in the library:
HxC Floppy Drive Emulator / Code / [r1041]

Please note that there is no conversion to do for the user: all is done "on the fly"...

To build your own USB HxC all is there :
http://sourceforge.net/p/hxcfloppyemu/code/HEAD/tree/HxCFloppyEmulator/USB_HxCFloppyEmulator/USB_HxCFloppyEmulator_PCB/

So yes, i am actually working on the next generation HxC. All the software is already there.
Just need to finish the new hardware part to replace the old USB version. It will be probably very cheap to build but i want it decent enough to be able to use Linux and its network possibilities.. (and emulating the protected disk images like IPF... ) ...

[Gryzor]

Well, regarding price, the HxC Slim (which is veeeery sexy indeed!) is €60. A Pi can be had for €20 maybe, and the guy says the extra board costs €5-10 to make, so it's half the price.


Regarding functionality[nb]it's not clear to me how the project I linked to works in terms of controlling the Pi, I would guess with an Amiga program and not externally??[/nb], while the video is very cool as a tech demo, it's not really convenient. I'd go for the classic way any day of the week...


Can we prise some details for the HxC² out of you?

[redbox]

An extension of this would be to have a serial connection from the CPC to the Pi as well (in the 2nd USB slot) much like demonstrated recently using Viewdata.

Then you could use Honeyterm (or any CPC comms program) to log into the Pi and download DSK images etc - no need for the Web interface on another PC and basically you would have a "standalone" CPC connected to internet with every single DSK image at your fingertips.

If you could shoe-horn a Pi, HxC USB, MegaFlash and MiniBooster into a normal CPC you'd have the most uber setup ever. 

[Gryzor]

That's a fantastic idea, although I'd prefer a customised terminal program that would do things more easily rather than typing in commands. But, great idea indeed!


Why would you then need both a Pi and an HxC?

[redbox]

Why would you then need both a Pi and an HxC?

Well I just said that because I liked the example Jeff linked to above.

Of course if you could get the Pi working as a floppy emulator on it's own as well (like with the Amiga) you'd have more space in the CPC

[Gryzor]

Ah, I see, and agree The extra connectivity would indeed make this a superb mod.


Let's hope when this guy opens the project up someone in here can translate it to the CPC...

[reallynew]

Sorry Jeff it will break your business... I make it for mi Amiga and it works pretty well! 6,35 Euro (+23 euro raspberry pi I use also for other stuff) and totally of 3 hours of work...
We hope you improve your product, considering external hd (aca-500) costs like an HxC I don't see any market for that...
I hope I will able to use for my CPC too ! ! It will be really awesome!

[Gryzor]

Hello ReallyNew, why don't you register and describe your process? I'm sure lots of people would be interested!

[robcfg]

It's half the price if you only consider materials.


Now, a professional finish, the time saved soldering and testing, etc... is worth the other 30€.

[Bryce]

What is incredible is that the HxC Floppy Emulator was open since years but almost no one talk about the open part...

I may not have spoken about it, but I was certainly very happy and appreciative that it was open source. As well as the 7 or 8 HxCs I've bought from Lotharek, I've also built 2 or 3 (very early versions) of them for myself

Bryce.

[ralferoo]

Only the USB version of the HxC floppy emulator is open source. The SD version seems to be completely closed, only the PC program to create images has source code available.

Or at least, if the source for the SD is available, I've not been able to find it anywhere despite looking (and asking) several times...

Of course, it's totally understandable. If the source was available, there'd be numerous knock off versions of the HxC floating around.

[Bryce]

I definitely have schematics for the SD version that I built back then (Schematic date is 2008 Rev. A). Can't remember where I got the files from though? Here's a picture of what they looked like back then...
I built at least 2 of these. The source code wasn't supplied, only a pre-compiled HEX file.

There was an even earlier version that overlayed text onto the CRT and although I planned to make one of them too, I never got around to it

Bryce.

[gerald]

As far as I remember, early revision of SD version schematic was available like the USB version. It become 'closed' when some clones appeared on ebay.

[Bryce]

Mine didn't go on ebay. They got disassembled after I bought my first real ones from Lotharek.

Bryce.

[gerald]

There was an even earlier version that overlayed text onto the CRT and although I planned to make one of them too, I never got around to it

http://atariamiga.free.fr/sdiskemul.php ?

[Gryzor]

Overlay text onto the CRT? How...?

[Bryce]

Overlay text onto the CRT? How... ?

That's easy. Strip the sync signal (with an LM1881 or similar) and use it to trigger a routine that pulses a single output pin of the PIC to switch one of the colour channels as required. With a bit more trickery you could even manage full colour overlays.

This is how those old VHS subtitle editors used to work.

@gerald: Yup, that's the one.

Bryce.

Edit: Found a picture of what the overlay looked like:

[ralferoo]

Sorry, yes I meant the firmware for the SD version. I did manage to find an older version of the schematic for the SD card, but I never managed to find the source code for the firmware.