Gotek and HxC working together

Is there a name for this certain serial cable? So I know what to search for.

Edit: It's a FT232RL 3.3V 5.5V FTDI USB to TTL. There up on Ebay for pocket change. Cheers!

[DerSheriff]

Originally Posted by boratintheuk

Is there a name for this certain serial cable? So I know what to search for.

Edit: It's a FT232RL 3.3V 5.5V FTDI USB to TTL. There up on Ebay for pocket change. Cheers!

I also have that, and it's the one I used for the gotek HXC upgrade.
Smooth as silk. Just remember to check that the jumper on the FT232R board is set on the 5v position.

[drHirudo]

Originally Posted by turrican9

so will the Gotek with HXC firmware work with this software for PC use? Or will it only work with the stock firmware? That software looks quite handy for retro PC use as demonstrated in this video [ Show youtube player ]

I've tried this software. It's only for the stock firmware and it works good only on XP. Pretty much it is useless and doesn't support 1000 floppy drives.
I've come with my own method for managing up to 1000 floppy drives for my Korg PA50 that works on any OS - [ Show youtube player ]
and it supports long file names.
I upgraded the second Gotek drive for use with my Amiga 1000 with the easier method by using Male To Male USB cable. A standard Male-Female USB cable can be made easily Male To Male by destroying the female part
Then I've used HxCEdit to assign the Kickstart diskette to slot 1 (or else I wouldn't be able to start the Selector.adf disk for managing the disk slots).

http://www.ifoedit.com/GotekADFEdit.html

My Amiga 1000 fully utilizing Gotek
[ Show youtube player ]
In fact I didn't use the Selector.adf becase UXCEdit is more convient to work with.

[UberFreak]

Originally Posted by drHirudo

I upgraded the second Gotek drive for use with my Amiga 1000 with the easier method by using Male To Male USB cable.

AFAIK the HxC flashing tool does not support this connection, only serial.

[Amiga1992]

OK I decided to get one of these to give it a try, and want to use Jeff's HxC firmware because its clearly superior (and, more importantly, still developed).

What is it that I need to make this work?
My shopping list consists so far of:

- Gotek floppy emulator
- HxC firmware

I know I need something to connect the emulator to my computer to be flashed, but what exactly? I have a USB to Serial adapter somewhere if I can find it (which I think I used to update a teensy type board), would that be useful for this? Seems like I need a special cable.

I have a machine running Windows 7 Pro 64-bit.

Will this display work with it?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/160897445228

Sorry for the noob questions!


Oh and one last question, probably for jeff: will this firmware support use on another machine not Amiga? For example, I have two Ensoniq synthesizers I should future-proof at some point.

[demolition]

USB to serial sounds right. It needs to have Rx, Tx, Vcc and Gnd pins. Look on ebay for 'rs232 serial ttl usb' and you will see some choices.

That display should also be fine. It doesn't need a display, but it is very useful. Note that to use the modes that uses the display, you also need to add another button since the existing two is not enough to navigate properly. It is just a button with two wires that is soldered to some pads on the Gotek.

The HxC firmware supports Amiga, Atari and PC so if your synth can use PC drives, then I think it should work.

[siyllad]

If you intend to use that display you need to do a small modification.

See http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=10555699

http://torlus.com/floppy/forum/downl...a7bffd558f5afe

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by demolition

USB to serial sounds right. It needs to have Rx, Tx, Vcc and Gnd pins. Look on ebay for 'rs232 serial ttl usb' and you will see some choices.

Am afraid what I have is no good, it's a USB to RS-232 DB-9 serial thing, like the old PC serial ports. Not TTL. Or are they the same?



[edit] found it, here is a pic. Connecting it registers as USB-SERIAL CH340 (COM4)

The HxC firmware supports Amiga, Atari and PC so if your synth can use PC drives, then I think it should work.

Am afraid Ensoniq synths don't use standard PC drives. As far as I understand, it's some sort of Shubert mechanism. Amigas can read Mirage floppies with special software though, but haven't found a tool on Amiga to write to them, or to the SQ-80 disks I also have.





Siyllad: thanks for that info! I asked about that display because it's not disgustingly blue (I hate blue lighting :P). Would like to find more options, but so far found not many except the nifty inverted red.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by Akira

Am afraid what I have is no good, it's a USB to RS-232 DB-9 serial thing, like the old PC serial ports. Not TTL. Or are they the same?

Not really. TTL is 5 V, real RS-232 is +/- 9 V. You don't want to connect that to a TTL level device.

Originally Posted by Akira

Am afraid Ensoniq synths don't use standard PC drives. As far as I understand, it's some sort of Shubert mechanism. Amigas can read Mirage floppies with special software though, but haven't found a tool on Amiga to write to them, or to the SQ-80 disks I also have.

You mean Shugart, which is the standard floppy drive interface, like the Amiga uses. PC drives deviate slightly from Shugart.

Originally Posted by Akira

Siyllad: thanks for that info! I asked about that display because it's not disgustingly blue (I hate blue lighting :P). Would like to find more options, but so far found not many except the nifty inverted red.

I have some green displays I've used with Goteks, and there are orange, yellow and white ones as well.

[drHirudo]

Originally Posted by Akira

Am afraid what I have is no good, it's a USB to RS-232 DB-9 serial thing, like the old PC serial ports. Not TTL. Or are they the same?

[edit] found it, here is a pic. Connecting it registers as USB-SERIAL CH340 (COM4)

.

I have the same cable and it didn't work out for reflashing my Gotek. I've tried getting the voltages from the Amiga 1000, lowering the voltage levels for the serial signals, cross connecting with standard serial cable, but it didn't work. So I've updated with male to male USB cable, but this works only for Cortex firmware, not for the HxC.

I've ordered serial to ttl cable more than a month ago and it's still not here. Meanwhile my Gotek works fine on the Amiga. The only problem that I found with the Gotek is that I was unable to boot MS-DOS off ADF disk from PC emulator for Amiga 1000.

[Jeff_HxC2001]

Originally Posted by Akira

Am afraid what I have is no good, it's a USB to RS-232 DB-9 serial thing, like the old PC serial ports. Not TTL. Or are they the same?



[edit] found it, here is a pic. Connecting it registers as USB-SERIAL CH340 (COM4)

!!!! Don't use RS232 cables on TTL interface. This doesn't work and you may destroy the gotek serial interface !!!!

[Jeff_HxC2001]

Originally Posted by demolition

...
The HxC firmware supports Amiga, Atari and PC so if your synth can use PC drives, then I think it should work.

No, not only. It support all type of machines, this is just a question of file image.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by Jeff_HxC2001

No, not only. It support all type of machines, this is just a question of file image.

Ok, I knew that the regular HxC supported other types, but thought that the STM32 version was more limited. But nice to know.

And regarding the serial interface - like others wrote, that type is not suitable for reflashing the Gotek as it is not TTL level.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Jeff_HxC2001

No, not only. It support all type of machines, this is just a question of file image.

So cn I connect this to my Mirage or SQ80 and it would work?

Got it about the serial interface, I'll get the right cable, I see it is described precisely above ( should have read first, sorry!) as "FT232RL 3.3V 5.5V FTDI USB to TTL".

[edit] This is my shopping list so far. Anything else needed?

[idrougge]

Yes, you need a pin header to solder into the back of the Gotek so you can connect the serial programmer cable.

A new standard Gotek should cost no more than 20 USD.

[Amiga1992]

I think I got pin headers from some other project!
As for the cost, yes, everything in that pic (sort of, I changed and ordered an FTDI-USB alone with a whole load of Dupont cables since I can use them for other projects) costed a little over 20.
Add ~10 for the firmware and it's a pretty sweet deal I think.

Thanks guys, will post again if anything comes up!

[siyllad]

A neater way of connecting the resistors

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by siyllad

A neater way of connecting the resistors

What are those for?

[idrougge]

They're pullups in case you're running an external 1602 LCD.

[appiah4]

Originally Posted by Jeff_HxC2001

Hi,

For the SD HxC and Gotek HxC owners :

New version of the manager : Speed up the sub-directory change/browsing.

http://hxc2001.com/download/floppy_d...AlphaTrial.zip

http://hxc2001.com/download/floppy_d...or_Manager.zip

Ok, wait, I'm confused.

Either the homepage is not up to date, or I'm completely stupid. I'm looking here: http://hxc2001.com/download/floppy_d....html#stm32hxc

There is a Beta Firmware. Firmware is 3.0.8.2a. Am I correct in understanding that this firmware, despite being called Alpha, is newer (a version or README would be nice)?