KryoFlux Public Beta 1.0 - AVAILABLE NOW!

[andreas]

Originally Posted by Loedown

Double sided board, not multi layer.

Thanks for the info.

Originally Posted by Interceptor

you should be able to connect it using the same method the SDP guys use to read the disks on a pc.

http://newton.sunderland.ac.uk/~specfreak/FD1/

but i do not know anything about the 2.8" disks and whether or not they are readable in 3" drives.

IMPORTANT NOTE: the 4 pin power connector is back to front on the 3" drives! 12v and 5v are swapped, easy way is to force the connector on backwards, doing this wrong will kill the drive.

Thanks Interceptor. Unfortunately, this method also seems overly complicated, probably moreso than even FDSLoader. Also, it seems a bit antiquated, since more modern methods are sought and that's what KryoFlux is all about. That, and I'm positive I would mess this up badly if I tried! I wish I knew for sure whether this method would work on any given QD drive and if it works regardless of data type/content. I'm interested in hearing more about it nonetheless. It is still a very interesting link. I wouldn't mind hearing of peoples' mileage with it.

-Rob

[Interceptor]

sorry i think i've confused it a bit.

what i was simply saying, is that the SDP guys used a cable to connect to the pc, and in the case of kryoflux, you would do the same, use a custom cable or adaptor to connect the drive to the kryoflux device. the link was to point to the cable layout.

if using a custom cable is still too complex, then we would need to add another header on the board specifically for 3" drives....but thats up to the guys looking after the board layout.

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by Interceptor

sorry i think i've confused it a bit.

what i was simply saying, is that the SDP guys used a cable to connect to the pc, and in the case of kryoflux, you would do the same, use a custom cable or adaptor to connect the drive to the kryoflux device. the link was to point to the cable layout.

if using a custom cable is still too complex, then we would need to add another header on the board specifically for 3" drives....but thats up to the guys looking after the board layout.

The custom cable you speak of is a USB cable, that's what Kryoflux uses.

[IFW]

It's actually about connecting a drive to the KryoFlux board
The KF board is connected via a standard USB cable to your PC.

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by IFW

It's actually about connecting a drive to the KryoFlux board
The KF board is connected via a standard USB cable to your PC.

At least I was half right, can I have half a gold star?

Perhaps for your next WIP, proper specifications to help people?

[Interceptor]

Originally Posted by Loedown

The custom cable you speak of is a USB cable, that's what Kryoflux uses.

you need a floppy cable to connect the drive to the kryoflux.

then a usb cable to connect the kryoflux to the pc.

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by Interceptor

you need a floppy cable to connect the drive to the kryoflux.

then a usb cable to connect the kryoflux to the pc.

I've seen the schematics and the board layout, I knew what it uses, but I was trying to help others, I'll leave the stage for you guys to work your magic

[IFW]

Please do, your helping out is appreciated and I'd vote even for 2 stars - just in case of any ambiguity it's better to clarify for those who are actually not familiar with the whole system

Originally Posted by Interceptor

sorry i think i've confused it a bit.

what i was simply saying, is that the SDP guys used a cable to connect to the pc, and in the case of kryoflux, you would do the same, use a custom cable or adaptor to connect the drive to the kryoflux device. the link was to point to the cable layout.

if using a custom cable is still too complex, then we would need to add another header on the board specifically for 3" drives....but thats up to the guys looking after the board layout.

You know, I realized this this morning before I logged on, and sure enough, I logged in and saw your post. Sorry, it was late when I made that post. I have a FDS, a QD drive for the MSX and a MZ-1500 with QD. If it is found the device might work with these, I'd be glad to try to test them if I had one of the finished units. Of course, I'm not sure how the desgners would implement this functionality without having done the same already, so it's sort of a chicken and egg problem.

-Rob

[andreas]

In case anyone doesn't know what Rob is talking about: the QD stands for Quad Density. Since I'd never heard that term before (nor spotted any of those), I had to look it up, so here you go guys.

Originally Posted by andreas

In case anyone doesn't know what Rob is talking about: the QD stands for Quad Density. Since I'd never heard that term before (nor spotted any of those), I had to look it up, so here you go guys.

Andreas, I am referig to QuickDisks, as I mentioned inan earlier post in this thread. What is quad density?

-Rob

[LocalH]

Quad density is merely a disk capable of storing twice that of High Density - in PC terms, 2.88 "MB" as opposed to 1.44 "MB". If Amigas could use quad density disks, they could store 3520KB per disk (extrapolating from 880KB and 1760KB).

[fiath]

Here are the remaining WIP reports for the KryoFlux development up until now.

http://softpres.org/news:2010-02-22

We'll do our best to post stuff as it happens from now on

[mr.vince]

====== KryoFlux Hardware ======

//2010-02-24//

We hear you! We have had an amazing response so far, and we have understood that many would love to buy a complete solution rather building it. Therefore we are pleased to announce that we have our first hardware partner to enable us to deliver quality KryoFlux products in the not-too-distant future. Their engineers have already started enhancing our reference design to include changes that were previously planned for a later release, like increasing stability when using older 5.25" drives and to enable the use of 8" drives.

There will be more details available on this in due course. Please note that we are NOT YET ready to take pre-orders, but please spread the word that we're making progress!

We would like to take this opportunity to point out that the preservation work we do is expensive. We are are a non-profit preservation organisation and we receive no income other than donations. We specialise in the development of preservation technology, most recently KryoFlux, and the preservation of digital objects, but we also have to maintain our infrastructure. In return, we hope to dramatically improve the quality and quantity of the preservation tools available, for the benefit of everyone. Our ultimate goal is to save all those wonderful old games before they are lost, so if you appreciate what we do, you can support our efforts by making a donation, here.

Every Euro, Pound or Dollar helps covering development costs and at the same time shows that we're not on our own. Many thanks to those who already donated, your help and encouragement is very much appreciated!

Just out of curiosity, does the hardware also support ED (Extended Density; 2,88MB) drives?
(Since controllers for such drives need to handle twice the bitrate of HD drives.)

Another question I have is: Does it also support writing disks?
(Looking at the command line options it does not look like writing is supported too.)

And finally as comment, as already stated by someone else, it would be great if two drives could be used with the controller.
(I'm thinking of one 3,5" and one 5,25" drive.)

Keep up the good work. Great project.

[mr.vince]

Originally Posted by koe

Just out of curiosity, does the hardware also support ED (Extended Density; 2,88MB) drives?
(Since controllers for such drives need to handle twice the bitrate of HD drives.)

Another question I have is: Does it also support writing disks?
(Looking at the command line options it does not look like writing is supported too.)

And finally as comment, as already stated by someone else, it would be great if two drives could be used with the controller.
(I'm thinking of one 3,5" and one 5,25" drive.)

Keep up the good work. Great project.

in regard to density... we would need to give it a try. unfortunately, we don't have such a drive yet.

writing will come, but it's not in 1.00 beta. we first need good reading, then we can write back data (which was read well).

two drives are already layouted on the hardware, but beta 1.00 only addresses one drive atm. but this is only a software thing. no worries.

[papa_november]

Will a pass-through connector (like the Catweasel has) be possible? A pass-through would allow the device to take up less room if mounted internally, as it would be able to share the first drive with the PC's onboard controller.

If the internal route proves unfeasible, would any of the combo 3.5/5.25 drives work? The Catweasel always had a lot of trouble with those.

Also, will there be X68000 disk support? The format isn't terribly exotic and there's a ton of undumped X68000 games out there.

[IFW]

I will let the hw guy answer the first question, but there is no need to mount the device to any pc, as it's using usb and for example I am using it with a laptop, someone else with an EEE...

All formats are supported as a low level disk dump, there is no exception to that as long as the drive can be hooked up properly and provides the signals needed.
Many common or generic formats are supported as sector dumps; many emulators and applications can use those as is, although they usually have various extension names given so you probably need to experiment if they are picky about file selection.
Some platforms have disk image types that require special headers to be present with the sector dump etc; those need to be added to the host software. Some of the more exotic ones are already supported such as 8 bit Atari images expect bits inverted, although the real format on the disk stores them in their negated form.

I only have have one x68000 disk dumped and actually the disk is bad. Regardless, from what I could see you can create a sector dump simply by setting the target rpm to 360, sector size to 1024 and format to mfm.
ie, -v360 -z3 -i4

Two things:
1, I can't vouch for any disk or emulator specific issue as I don't even have an x68000 emulator and only one damaged x68k disk.
If someone can point me to some technical description of what they expect as disk image I could take a look.
2, Sector dumps won't work with protected games, and I'd expect them to be protected if they are originals, more over it's not preservation.
You need a low level level dump like either the stream files or later draft generated from a disk, and use those as a basis for ipf or any other format that you'd like, but always keep the low level dump of a disk for an original disk.

For more details, please read the manual in the KryoFlux package - it's available as a free download.
www.softpres.org

[mr.vince]

Originally Posted by papa_november

Will a pass-through connector (like the Catweasel has) be possible? A pass-through would allow the device to take up less room if mounted internally, as it would be able to share the first drive with the PC's onboard controller.

If the internal route proves unfeasible, would any of the combo 3.5/5.25 drives work? The Catweasel always had a lot of trouble with those.

Currently... no. Planned for the future... no. This is an external USB device. I see it did make sense when the other product was conceived and came out a decade ago and everyone was still having drives in their PCs. Today, I don't know anyone with a PC with a 3.5" drive. I must admit, I even haven't seen some tower machine in the last months. Everyone here is using laptops or desktop machines, like the iMac. This could be done and implemented, but I am very very sure we won't be they guys building support for this. If someone feels this makes sense, please take the schematics and do so.

But you can of course just hook up KryoFlux internally and connect your internal drive to the board. You just won't be able to use the drive as a normal drive in e.g. Windows. But who cares... and what would it be good for?

The combo drives are, sorry for wording, usually utter shit. They don't work reliably, even when "just" reading disks with a normal controller. We do something with a very special target... preservation and restoration of old media. There are tons of solid, good drives out there. Let's just use one of them...