FlashFloppy - new firmware for Gotek drives, open source

[ransom1122]

Ill wait till after alpha stage. Whats the verdict as it is now?

[whiteb]

Is any part of the Gotek (any of the different versions) support IPF's yet ?

[Keir]

Originally Posted by whiteb

Is any part of the Gotek (any of the different versions) support IPF's yet ?

Only by converting to HFE. Supporting IPF on the device is tough.

[oissery77]

Originally Posted by kaffer

Only by converting to HFE. Supporting IPF on the device is tough.

I would be great if this FW could manage IPF files through HFE, but yes it will be hard. I tell you that because i own a HxC FW with a gotek and we are waiting for several years for a full support of this feature (V2). For now it's not really working. Jeff will perhaps provide it one day.

BTW, this new FW is a great news

[Higgy]

Originally Posted by danko

Hi,this is FT232RL FTDI USB? for flashing gotek?

There are two ways to flash Gotek. Those shown here:

https://cortexamigafloppydrive.wordpress.com

Or the USB method with a Male-Male USB cable, which I showed a few posts above. The USB cable is the easiest.

[Higgy]

Originally Posted by ransom1122

Ill wait till after alpha stage. Whats the verdict as it is now?

I have tested about 5 games and it seems good. Main thing is that with Cortex the selections you made in SELECTOR.ADF broke if you modified the USB stick contents. This is a major pain.

FlashFloppy does not suffer this.

Remember you can always flash back Cortex. But once you have done FlashFloppy future updates can be done off the USB stick. No opening the AMIGA and fitting jumpers (i think that is correct).

[Jeff_HxC2001]

Originally Posted by oissery77

I would be great if this FW could manage IPF files through HFE, but yes it will be hard. I tell you that because i own a HxC FW with a gotek and we are waiting for several years for a full support of this feature (V2). For now it's not really working. Jeff will perhaps provide it one day.

BTW, this new FW is a great news

The low level part is now able to executes the opcodes in the stream to support the copy protected images in the last update. So this is almost there. Just need to insert the opcodes into the converter software.

btw since the 2008 hxc usb floppy emulator (this one support all copy protection since almost 10 years) i got finally very few ask for the "ipf" support. is there some interests finally ?

[BarryB]

Seeing as there are over 2,000 Amiga IPF images in the wild I would say IPF should be fully supported. After all, they are untouched images so no bad crack issues, and manuals etc are available from HOL and other sites!!

[commie1974]

Originally Posted by kaffer

Hey guys, There is a binary link here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6...URfNGkybkVCUFE

This contains the HEX file to flash to your Gotek, and AUTOBOOT.HFE for Amiga for your USB stick, and a simple HXCSDFE.CFG.

You should use my build of AUTOBOOT.HFE on Amiga (as pointed out it is actually just a patched HxC selector). The HxC selector should work unmodified on other platforms but I haven't tested that myself.

Also worth saying this is early days. I've released it as 0.1alpha for a reason, until yesterday it had only had me mucking with it in limited test scenarios. It's undoubtedly got a suite of bugs in addition to the known limitations: it does not play nicely with other drives yet, only use it as sole drive DF0 please.

I'm interested on feedback on bugs and desired features, and how people like to configure their USB sticks. For example I'm not sure whether HxC-config compatibility was the best use of my time, it seems a lot of people would like to be able to configure packs/sets of games in a plain text config file? Perhaps with a different style of host management software based around that? With the basic firmware almost done now there is a lot of opportunity for experimentation here. The project is open and I'm happy to receive pull requests for features/fixes in the firmware, and also (perhaps even more) assistance on new host software as and when.

Cheers!

Finally, I hope to get some nice space for hosting the downloads, rather than providing cryptic Google Drive links. Perhaps I will look into Github Releases, or get hosted on one of the Amiga websites.

Thanks, man!!
What you've done here is a great deal and a priceless gift to the Amiga community! Thumbs up a thousand times!!!

[ch40s_engineer]

this is awesome news! looking forward to upcoming features.

[desiv]

Originally Posted by BarryB

Seeing as there are over 2,000 Amiga IPF images in the wild I would say IPF should be fully supported. After all, they are untouched images so no bad crack issues, and manuals etc are available from HOL and other sites!!

True, although if it were really wanted badly, seems like someone could download the IPF torrent, batch convert those IPF images to HFE, and create a torrent for that..

That hasn't happened yet... (that I've noticed, tho I haven't actively looked)

So I also wonder how much it is really wanted.
Unless there is some reason that the batch convert wouldn't work??

desiv

[Keir]

Originally Posted by desiv

True, although if it were really wanted badly, seems like someone could download the IPF torrent, batch convert those IPF images to HFE, and create a torrent for that..

That hasn't happened yet... (that I've noticed, tho I haven't actively looked)

So I also wonder how much it is really wanted.
Unless there is some reason that the batch convert wouldn't work??

desiv

Any titles using Copylock or Speedlock (and one or two other much less common copy protections) won't work with the existing HFE format as they rely on variable-rate encoding within a single track. Hence JF's work on HFEv2 which will presumably add some extra goodness to represent rate changes.

[Jeff_HxC2001]

Originally Posted by kaffer

Any titles using Copylock or Speedlock (and one or two other much less common copy protections) won't work with the existing HFE format as they rely on variable-rate encoding within a single track. Hence JF's work on HFEv2 which will presumably add some extra goodness to represent rate changes.

The HFEv2 is already supported by the SD HxC. I am preparing the v3 for the Gotek.

[Amiga1992]

Getting back on topic: I successfully installed FlashFloppy and recorded the whole thing, will post a tutorial for those shy of installing this very soon. I need to edit it and stuff. But it is very easy to do. No one should pay $60 on eBay to have this!!



Early report: Works great, I am VERY happy with this new firmware! Thanks kaffer for making it.

[Keir]

Originally Posted by Akira

Getting back on topic: I successfully installed FlashFloppy and recorded the whole thing, will post a tutorial for those shy of installing this very soon. I need to edit it and stuff. But it is very easy to do. No one should pay $60 on eBay to have this!!



Early report: Works great, I am VERY happy with this new firmware! Thanks kaffer for making it.

Thanks, I will make a new release this week. Respecting drive-select signal has made it much better behaved with multi-drive-capable games and with AmigaDOS. I would like to get basic 1602 LCD support into the next release too.

[ransom1122]

@Akira - I look forward to seeing your tutorial.

@Kaffer - Great job.... Looking forward to your new releases.

Hopefully once all updates are settled I will update my Gotek myself, Is there a noob video tutorial on installation?

[Higgy]

Looking forward to the update, and testing the 'update via USB stick'.

Regarding the 1602 LCD, I don't want to teach you to suck eggs, but it might be something helpful? - I was building a device with a 1602 LCD and mine was not the normal one, the address needed to be changed, I think the usual one is 0x27, but this particular display was 0x3f.

This was all on an Arduino and I needed to change the address. I think the 'project creator' now has both addresses in the code. It might help on improving compatibility with 1602 displays?

[idrougge]

The HxC firmware seems to find the display regardless of address.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by kaffer

Thanks, I will make a new release this week. Respecting drive-select signal has made it much better behaved with multi-drive-capable games and with AmigaDOS. I would like to get basic 1602 LCD support into the next release too.

The only issue I have found so far is the one you know about, regarding all drives (DF1:>DF4 showing up. I think this could cause some issues if teh system is reserving memory for it, or on games that just don't work with external drives plugged in.

Other than that, everything I tested has ran perfectly. At first I thought I was running into some issues with the loader, but it turned out I was testing Jeff's new HxC loader ADF instead, and fr a while that worked, although it was a bit picky! After I realized my mistake and switched t the proper FlashFloppy loader, all went well.

I mentioned on an email something about font size. Nothing to worry about with this loader, it's perfect!

A minor quirk is something about how the loader scrolls through pages. When you are at the last page, you are allowed to "go one more" with the selecting bar going to the bottom, where there's usually nothing. Make two pages worth of stuff but not enough to fill a second page, press right on the joystick on that last page and you'll see the system refresh that same page (shouldn't do that), and send the "cursor" to the bottom where there's nothing.

ANyway, working on the tutorial this morning, will post it later!

[Jeff_HxC2001]

Originally Posted by Akira

Other than that, everything I tested has ran perfectly. At first I thought I was running into some issues with the loader, but it turned out I was testing Jeff's new HxC loader ADF instead, and fr a while that worked, although it was a bit picky!

Picky about what exactly ? incompatibility with this firmware ?

For the fonts both are the same.