FlashFloppy - new firmware for Gotek drives, open source

[Keir]

Originally Posted by Fook42

hello keir, Thank you for your effort!

i've tried this version on my GOTEK without any rotary encoder nor 3.button.
my first impression is: the handling isn't that well as expected - automatic changes after 3seconds, buttons that need to be pressed at the right time.. and the navigation through the filesystem is a bit unclear. (with the wraping at 0 ...)

here are my suggestions (i will try to implement it on my own as well in order to see wether they are useful or not)
1) dont wrap at 0 / max.. if being in a subfolder

Will be configurable. Some people do like this.

2) use some brackets or special character before (and after) directory-names to make clear its a directory.

I put "DIR" on the second line which I hoped would suffice. I am generally happy for suggestions to change the screen layout for navigation though. I would like to digest long filenames into a sensible short form, and perhaps it makes sense to suffix folder names with '/'?

3) dont "jump" into a folder automatically (after 3sec.)

This auto-select will soon be configurable but... how else to select things without a third button? [Oh, I see point 4 immediately below ]

By the way, you would make auto-select configurable three ways: Never, Always, Files-Only?

4) add a new "button" function like a "double-klick" .. to select/change images

Ah ok. I think you will have to try implementing and see how it works in practice. I'm happy to see a new 'button gesture' if it works slickly.

5) use both text rows for the navigation

Not convinced. It only gives you one extra line of context, it's not like adjacent dirents in FatFS are necessarily related at all, and the second line I think does hold useful info. You will have to mock this suggestion up and see how well it works.

6) dont turn off OLED as default

(a) Will soon be configurable
(b) 0.8.1a will re-enable display on any drive activity (head activity). Again this behaviour will probably be made configurable.

7) adding of easter bunny

LLRRLRLR

dont get me wrong, it's great to have the new features but i need a different user interface for it.

This kind of report is very useful. Also you are able to implement your suggestions for proof of concept which is even better.

[Keir]

Originally Posted by ikonsgr

Keir, what exactly "All config files can now be stored in FF subfolder" means? That you don't have to copy config file to usb's root dir anymore?

That's right.

AUTOBOOT.HFE, HXCSDFE.CFG, LASTDISK.IDX (and any future config files) can go in FF/ to make the root folder neater.

Either *all* or *none* of the config files must go in FF/ -- you can't have some there and some in the root.

[Keir]

v0.8.1a: Interim bug fix release

https://github.com/keirf/FlashFloppy/wiki/Downloads

- Fix config-less navigation with simple digit displays
- Respond to USB stick pull when in ejected state
- LCD/OLED: Increase activity timeout to 60 seconds
- LCD/OLED: Turn on display on drive activity

[danko]

Hi,i have a gotek floppy but the pcb is different from the other have, maybe i was wrong to jumper the pins when i flasho with dfuse i get an error.

[supaduper]

Originally Posted by danko

Hi,i have a gotek floppy but the pcb is different from the other have, maybe i was wrong to jumper the pins when i flasho with dfuse i get an error.

Nah I have had goteks with 4&3 pins on the bottom and bridged them all and never blew it up lol, just bridge other connection and it should be ok

[danko]

Originally Posted by supaduper

Nah I have had goteks with 4&3 pins on the bottom and bridged them all and never blew it up lol, just bridge other connection and it should be ok

Hi, do you have a pics with correct bridge?

[joedredd]

Dirs - awesome!
Like the idea of a backslash prefixing the dir name.

Originally Posted by kaffer

Ah ok. I think you will have to try implementing and see how it works in practice. I'm happy to see a new 'button gesture' if it works slickly.

Double click buttons? Some of these Gotek buttons fail to register on one click, so that will make it a usability nightmare. I wouldn't go down that road.

Originally Posted by kaffer

- Respond to USB stick pull when in ejected state

Is swapping USB sticks whilst powered up OK to do? I'd always presumed it would be A Bad Thing and only swapped whilst powered down.
One time I did pull the stick powered up and I ended up re-flashing the Firmware as it stopped responding to any USB stick. Maybe a one off.

[Keir]

Originally Posted by joedredd

Dirs - awesome!
Like the idea of a backslash prefixing the dir name.

Double click buttons? Some of these Gotek buttons fail to register on one click, so that will make it a usability nightmare. I wouldn't go down that road.

That's my suspicion sadly but I'll be delighted to be proved wrong.

[Keir]

Originally Posted by joedredd

Is swapping USB sticks whilst powered up OK to do? I'd always presumed it would be A Bad Thing and only swapped whilst powered down.
One time I did pull the stick powered up and I ended up re-flashing the Firmware as it stopped responding to any USB stick. Maybe a one off.

Apologies stupid phone cut off this section of your post. My previous reply was to your comment on double click buttons.

It should be safe to pull a USB stick while powered on. I have done it many times in testing with no ill effects. It certainly shouldn't cause you to need to reprogram the Gotek!

[supaduper]

Originally Posted by danko

Hi, do you have a pics with correct bridge?

correct bridging for USB TO USB

Bridge first two ( looking at the gotek from the back) on top row for flash enable, then bridge the third one on the top row to the second or third one on the bottom row depending on the version of gotek

[danko]

Originally Posted by supaduper

correct bridging for USB TO USB

Bridge first two ( looking at the gotek from the back) on top row for flash enable, then bridge the third one on the top row to the second or third one on the bottom row depending on the version of gotek

I tried again how it worked! thank you all!

[ikonsgr]

Originally Posted by kaffer

That's right.

AUTOBOOT.HFE, HXCSDFE.CFG, LASTDISK.IDX (and any future config files) can go in FF/ to make the root folder neater.

Either *all* or *none* of the config files must go in FF/ -- you can't have some there and some in the root.

And what if you keep various config files for amiga/amstrad/atari st in subfolders (/sdcard/amiga, /sdcard/amstrad etc) ? Which one it will choose? If i put one of them (for example the amiga config files) in usb root dir, does it have higher priority than the ones in subfolders and gotek will start in amiga mode?

[Keir]

Originally Posted by ikonsgr

And what if you keep various config files for amiga/amstrad/atari st in subfolders (/sdcard/amiga, /sdcard/amstrad etc) ? Which one it will choose? If i put one of them (for example the amiga config files) in usb root dir, does it have higher priority than the ones in subfolders and gotek will start in amiga mode?

Priority is FF/ directory, then root directory. That's all. The subfolders you mention will never be searched for config files.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

[solidcore]

Originally Posted by kaffer

Unfortunately I have no experience of Falcon whatsoever. You will have more luck on an Atari forum where they should be able to point you at disk images that are at least known to work, and then you can go from there.

If you've failed to boot any disk whatsoever then it could even be a Gotek setup problem -- select jumper set to S0? Is the ribbon cable the right way round? (I've noticed Atari drives seem to have the ribbon connector upside down!).

The ribbon is correctly set and s0 as s1 doesn't work.

And I appreciate what you're saying, I will research into it over there. And also is your project open in the respect that as a C programmer myself I could commit to it IF I find anything useful to add/change for the Falcon.

I may be running in the wrong mode with plenty of 'upd' files in the root dir but perhaps I'm only meant to have the one the root of the zip FF_Gotek-v0.7.4a.upd and not along side the alt/ 7x16..upd or reloader/ upd? Perhaps it's this at fault.

Edit: Nevermind I understand now, updated to 0.8.1a and still no luck with games. I'll keep looking for working games.

Chris

[Keir]

Originally Posted by solidcore

The ribbon is correctly set and s0 as s1 doesn't work.

And I appreciate what you're saying, I will research into it over there. And also is your project open in the respect that as a C programmer myself I could commit to it IF I find anything useful to add/change for the Falcon.

You can download it, modify it, and submit patches. Or fork it on Github, modify it, and issue pull requests.

[Higgy]

Many thanks for sub-folder support.
I have had a quick play in my A500 and it works well with just 2 buttons.
I am using Akira's Gotek image so all the games are in alphabetical folders, and that works well.

Not tried with Amstrad yet as I have been opening up the OLED display window and fitting in the 3rd button just to avoid keep taking it apart.

Looks like HxC has just got native .DSK support with the last firmware update. Again not tried it yet on my other Amstrad.

[Keir]

Originally Posted by Higgy

Many thanks for sub-folder support.
I have had a quick play in my A500 and it works well with just 2 buttons.
I am using Akira's Gotek image so all the games are in alphabetical folders, and that works well.

Not tried with Amstrad yet as I have been opening up the OLED display window and fitting in the 3rd button just to avoid keep taking it apart.

3rd button and disable auto-select (config option coming soon) will be even nicer to use

[Higgy]

I see the 3rd button already acts as Directory Enter / File Select.

Is scrolling speed going to be a config? I think the faster speed of HxC would be more helpful.

I think it needs to scroll through a long file name before the image is automatically selected time wise (ok not relevant with 3rd button and disabled auto-select). If auto-select is 3 sec, then the image file name should easily be viewed/scrolled within 2 seconds.

For example this file name: Amiga Format #002 (1989-08-24)[Coverdisk 2, Sep 1989].ADF

Shows - Amiga Format #00 and is selected before I know if it is Amiga Format #002 or #003 etc. It then starts loading before I have selected the actual file I want.

Cheers

kaffer , we have the source code of HXCmount for atari here :

Gilles Bouthenot , was very kind and posted the source code here:

https://github.com/gbouthenot/hxcmount

hope you can now make FLASHFLOPPY work with it

[Keir]

Originally Posted by Higgy

I see the 3rd button already acts as Directory Enter / File Select.

Is scrolling speed going to be a config? I think the faster speed of HxC would be more helpful.

I think it needs to scroll through a long file name before the image is automatically selected time wise (ok not relevant with 3rd button and disabled auto-select). If auto-select is 3 sec, then the image file name should easily be viewed/scrolled within 2 seconds.

For example this file name: Amiga Format #002 (1989-08-24)[Coverdisk 2, Sep 1989].ADF

Shows - Amiga Format #00 and is selected before I know if it is Amiga Format #002 or #003 etc. It then starts loading before I have selected the actual file I want.

Cheers

There's no scrolling of long names during file selection at all at the moment. Probably should be, guess I will add it