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-   -   Gotek Floppy emulators and Amiga computers now working together! :) (https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=72467)

Nobby_UK 11 May 2014 20:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johan1973 (Post 954027)
Some of these usb to serial port devices have drivers for later windows versions, some dont. Make sure when you buy them that yours have.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/400524483249...84.m1497.l2649

These are the ones I use, they have drivers that work even up to windows 8.1 x64. No problems.


I use the same one...
(in their pix you can see they have removed 'D-SUN' just above 'USB To TTL')
Which driver are you using ?
I use Silicon Labs CP210x USB to UART Bridge.

alexh 11 May 2014 20:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by voyager (Post 954052)
Quote:

Originally Posted by ikonsgr (Post 953892)
I also tried with another Amiga 500 with a "hacked" 68000/14.2Mhz and it seems to work fine too. I was wondering though, if it could be possible to double the transfer speed in case of an amiga with 68000/14Mhz (as it is now,it works with exactly the same speed like on a stock A500). The 'E' clock signal from a double clocked 68000 cpu it's also doubled, and this 'E' signal drives the 2 I/O CIA chips, where one of them controls the floppy drive signals. Also, i'm pretty sure that paula, which is responsible for the actual encoding/decoding of the mfm data stream from/to the floppy drive is capable of doing it in double speed.

If paula was capable of double speed, then why is a amiga HD floppydrive spinning at half RPM in HD mode? It's to reduce the reduce the data rate right?

There is quite a bit about why it doesn't work here :

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?...id=4&styleid=1

voyager 11 May 2014 21:03

So it is about DMA bandwidth 500 kpbs is the max for paula.

alexh 11 May 2014 21:52

I don't really understand.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen (Post 704686)
DD is 500kbps, HD needs 1Mbps. Doublescan screen mode will fix DMA bandwidth issue, only real problem is Paula not understanding 1us (HD) bit cell size.


ikonsgr 13 May 2014 12:55

When it comes to a usb flooppy emulator, there is no obstacles concerning drive's rpm, hall sensors,timing of motor step etc.
I kind of "prove" this my self, by testing the 68000/14Mhz hack on my A500. Using a real drive didn't work because of the double speed of "E" signal which drives the I/O CIA chips, that affect all the electro mechanical signals of the floppy. But when i tried using gotek, it worked fine!
So what i'm asking is, if the way to achieve double speed on a usb floppy emulator ONLY (and not a real drive where much more issues emerge), is changing some settings of the gotek firmware, or there is an "unbeaten" limit of the max speed paula can encode/decode mfm data stream!

tomse 13 May 2014 15:02

afaik the reason why FD HD drives, on amigas, only transfered with half speed (500kbps) (as compared to the native speeds of a HD drive) was because the chips couldn't transfer data at those higher transfer rates (1000kbps).

So this might be the answer to your question.
This can ofc be that even with a higher clockrate the transferrates remain the same (this is just speculation).

XDelusion 13 May 2014 18:10

Sounds like extra speed ain't ever gonna be an option. Well at least it works, that's the important thing. THough yes, it would be great if this was as fast as similiar drives for the Atari 8-bit line of computers. My SDrive Nuxx is blazing fast! :)

RedskullDC 14 May 2014 10:31

Hi Ikonsgr, et al.
Quote:

Originally Posted by ikonsgr (Post 954353)
...
I kind of "prove" this my self, by testing the 68000/14Mhz hack on my A500. Using a real drive didn't work because of the double speed of "E" signal which drives the I/O CIA chips, that affect all the electro mechanical signals of the floppy. But when i tried using gotek, it worked fine!

With the 14MHz hack, the timing loops on the track stepping for the floppy are running twice as fast. Violates the minimum track stepping pulse width requirement of a "real" floppy drive.

Gotek effectively has a track to track access time of ZERO ms, so doesn't have the same requirements.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ikonsgr (Post 954353)
So what i'm asking is, if the way to achieve double speed on a usb floppy emulator ONLY (and not a real drive where much more issues emerge), is changing some settings of the gotek firmware, or there is an "unbeaten" limit of the max speed paula can encode/decode mfm data stream!

Check your A500 schematic.
Paula chip is clocked by CCK and CCKQ (staggered 3.5MHz clocks) , and *not* by the 'E' clock.
This is why it still works with the 14MHz hack active.

It also means it you are stuck with the 250kbps transfer rate (or 125kbps in the so called faulty chips).
At the moment, that means DD (880kb) disks only.

I would imagine it is possible to make the firmware in the Gotek boards emulate the half speed transfer rate of the Chinon FZ-357a drives, to give HD floppy compatibility.

I guess we will know for sure when H.M. releases his source code :)

Cheers,
Red

gizmomelb 17 May 2014 04:41

hopefully source code will be released soon, was just looking at the schematics and it would be nice to add more buttons and add code support for them :)

Solo761 18 May 2014 00:39

Has anyone tried Soccer Kid ECS? I've tried all ADFs from TOSEC pack and it's "no go". First disk (boot) loads fine (tried Fairlight, Ministry ATX versions), then it asks for first disk (second of four), I press the button on gotek, it changes but game doesn't seem to notice I changed the disk, it doesn't even try to read it (floppy led doesn't blink).

I've tried ADFs on WinUAE and they work fine. I thought it may be because my A500 is not quite like standard one. It's Rev8 MoBo that I modded to A500+, added memory chips to empty spots and also inserted standard 512kB memory expansion, so it has 1.5 MB chip ram, also I swapped CPUs so it has 68010 instead of 68000. I configured WinUAE like this but game loaded fine so I'm not sure if it's gotek or Amiga configuration. Kickstart is 1.3.

amilo3438 18 May 2014 00:53

2 Attachment(s)
Quote:

Originally Posted by Solo761 (Post 955126)
also I swapped CPUs so it has 68010 instead of 68000. I configured WinUAE like this but game loaded fine so I'm not sure if it's gotek or Amiga configuration. Kickstart is 1.3.

I guess it could be cause in WinUAE the 68000 and 68010 has same timings ...
in a real world the 68010 runs a little faster, so 68010 is probably still not emulated perfect !

p.s.
In practice, the overall speed gain compared to the 68000 at the same frequency was less than 10%. (according to wiki)

... but in emulation this is still not true ?! (as shown on pic. below)

Arnie 18 May 2014 11:29

You pressed fire after changing the disk?

Solo761 18 May 2014 14:33

Yup, fire, mouse button, enter, space, escape everything I could think of :). In WinUAE it automatically continues when it recognizes disk change.

kipper2k 19 May 2014 20:08

Producing sound from Gotek on track stepping
 
I have another schematic for a buzzer for those people that want sound from their goteks, it has a very good sound level and is similar to the one that Robinsonb5 posted earlier but uses fewer components...

http://kipper2k.com/amiga/gotek/gotekbuzzer.jpg

1 x BC547 or similar bipolar transistor
1 x 1k resistor

and the buzzer (i salvaged this one off an old motherboard... http://www.jameco.com/Jameco/Products/ProdDS/138740.pdf

Nobby_UK 19 May 2014 21:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solo761 (Post 955126)
Has anyone tried Soccer Kid ECS?
First disk (boot) loads fine (Fairlight version), then it asks for first disk (second of four), I press the button on gotek, it changes but game doesn't seem to notice I changed the disk, it doesn't even try to read it (floppy led doesn't blink).

I've tried ADFs on WinUAE and they work fine.


Same for me on my A500 Plus (OS 2.0 - 37.175) 2 meg chip

robinsonb5 19 May 2014 22:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by kipper2k (Post 955336)
I have another schematic for a buzzer for those people that want sound from their goteks, it has a very good sound level and is similar to the one that Robinsonb5 posted earlier but uses fewer components...

Nice! However, be aware that a lot of external drive enclosures don't bother to connect the +12v pin, so check that if you want to use a Gotek drive in an external case.

Quote:

1 x BC547 or similar bipolar transistor
1 x 1k resistor
Interesting - is the storage time of the BC547 not a problem there? (The step signal's nominally high, and goes low very briefly when the head steps.)

Brotboxfan 19 May 2014 22:28

Nice feature. I will test it at weekend.

kipper2k 19 May 2014 22:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by robinsonb5 (Post 955360)
Nice! However, be aware that a lot of external drive enclosures don't bother to connect the +12v pin, so check that if you want to use a Gotek drive in an external case.



Interesting - is the storage time of the BC547 not a problem there? (The step signal's nominally high, and goes low very briefly when the head steps.)

This particular buzzer is rated at 5v so you could actually power it from the 5v rail, The reason i tried the BC547 is because i had it handy, it switches on/off fast enough to allow the buzzer to get a good pulse of power to beep. I figure that attaching it to the 12v rail is not overdriving it too much considering the on time

I did try the flat piezo buzzer with this ciruit and it didn't want to play. there are lots of magnetic type buzzers listed here... http://www.digikey.ca/product-search...=0&pageSize=25 I am ordering a couple of different ones to test them out


For those people who are intested in how this circuit works, check out this link...

http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_3/chpt_4/2.html

robinsonb5 20 May 2014 01:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by kipper2k (Post 955364)
This particular buzzer is rated at 5v so you could actually power it from the 5v rail, The reason i tried the BC547 is because i had it handy, it switches on/off fast enough to allow the buzzer to get a good pulse of power to beep. I figure that attaching it to the 12v rail is not overdriving it too much considering the on time

I'd agree, except the duration of the step pulse is the *off* time. (Step is an active low signal.)

Quote:

I did try the flat piezo buzzer with this ciruit and it didn't want to play.
Yeah that's what I found - and I think the reason is the storage time in the BJT, exacerbated by the tiny current through a piezo transducer and its capacitive nature.

Solo761 20 May 2014 14:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nobby_UK (Post 955346)

Same for me on my A500 Plus (OS 2.0 - 37.175) 2 meg chip

Mine has kick1.3. I'll try to write these ADFs to floppies and try with original chinon to see if problem is in configuration or in gotek.

Funny thing is that I tried FTL+trainers version first, it didn't work. Then I tried Ministry version and that one worked, but only first time. After that I couldn't get any version to recognize floppy no2.


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