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aftyde

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Posts posted by aftyde

  1. Posted

    I finally decided to put a Lotharek HxC 2001 drive in my PEB, replacing DSK1. As it turns out, I have found out that I no longer have a need for my IDE card anymore with this set up, thus eliminating a source of unreliability from my system. Furthermore, I also no longer need my HDX setup since I can just transfer images straight to the SD card without using clumsy cables and USB to serial adapters.

    If I need physical disks, I can just copy from the HxC to either of the real DSK2 and DSK3 drives still connected to my system. The reverse is also true.

    With 360K 5.25" drives becoming pretty scarce and rather unreliable, this move makes perfect sense.

    Better late than never I suppose :D

     

    Do you have a RS-232 HDX card you'd be willing to part with??? $$$ ;)

  2. Posted

    Agreed - but I'm not saying we use Ethernet (though PEB over IP would be cool) - just the cable between a small circuit board (perhaps stuffed into a speech synth box) and a PEB card.

     

     

     

    I remember we had a calculation some time ago concerning that idea. You must not forget how many cables we have in that firehose, and that very many of them must be able to switch independently from another at a 333 ns rate. A 100 MBit/s connection would not be sufficient; you'd have to go for a gigabit connection.

  4. Posted · Edited by aftyde

    Hi All,

     

    Have been debugging floppy weirdness for months. Are there any tools out there that will look at a real floppy and tell the format type, interleave, skew, GAP3 length, format value and other details? I have picked through details on diskette formats and can't seem to find one place that adequately documents the format. I'm hoping I can take an actual known good floppy, and create a known good image that will read, write and init on my system.

     

    For some strange reason, I can't init a disk. Can read and write to it no problem. Passes all non-destructive tests. However a init always formats and kicks back an error 16 when verifying.

     

    Have tried swapping controllers, cables, PEB. console, moving cards around, cleaning edge connectors... have not yet found a virgin but that may be next.

     

    Cheers, Arthur...

  5. Posted

    Ah, sorry - it takes the HDX1 fine... in TI-Base to set the program and data drives you normally might set (at the TI-Base command line or in a script)

     

    SET PRGDISK=DSK1.

    SET DATDISK=DSK2.

     

    It will however be happy with anything...

     

    SET PRGDISK=DSK1.

    SET DATDISK=HDX1.

     

    works - but it won't access the file properly. I see the same behavior in Classic99 when using any disk for data. It might be the '/' - hard to say...

     

     

     

     

    If the DSR isn´t coming with the app, but calling it,

    isn´t it possible just to hexedit it and to change from "DSK1" to "HDX1" ?

    • Like 1

  6. Posted

    The problem is that the database application sees HDX1.AFTBASE/D as different than DSK1.AFTBASE/D, it'll work with the diskette based file but NOT with the HDX based file even though both are identical. I think it's a DSR problem.

     

     

     

    Just out of curiosity, have you checked out the format of those files using Ti99Dir? At the present time the HDX only recognizes V9T9 format. If the file is in TIFILES format it currently will not work, this may change in the future, but at the present time you need to highlight the file using Ti99Dir, go to the "Tools" selection and then select "Convert TIFILES file to V9T9 file".

  7. Posted

    HDX is a requirement - it's almost as good as having a network stack. Wish it was easier to come by though - I have one in my system at home, but have been waiting a long time to get one for my system here in the US. Unfortunately, dsk2pc looks for the HDX device - so I have been unable to upload a disk image to my PC without having the modified RS-232 card.

     

    For disk images, if you have a Lotharek - it's invaluable. The ability to just pull down a disk image onto a mounted .hfe is significantly easier than copying around and converting disk images.

     

    HDX however isn't without it's problems. I have had issues with programs that r/w from floppies not being able to use the HDX device properly. TI-Base dies when manipulating databases on hard disks and HDX, but works great with floppy disk images of any size (on a Myarc controller) - go figure...

     

    :)

  9. Posted

    I am counting on the Lotharek to maintain a steady data transfer rate. I'm guessing (hoping) that since it's reading from a flash card no matter what diskette image is mounted - that it probably regulates the speed at which it talks to the controller. I have tried, for example with the Corcomp - to change the step speed from 10ms to 3 or 6 - and the Lotharek didn't seem to like that. The Corcomp diagnostic sees the disk "spinning" at exactly 300 RPM and it seems to like the step rate at 10ms.

     

    I'd certainly be willing to burn some ROMs for the TI controller and experiment a bit.

     

    Changing the number of tracks is one thing, the number of sectors quite another.

     

    The controller cannot likely keep up with the data rate that would be required to read that from the (emulated) disk.

     

    Consider that a 300RPM disk is feeding data to the controller at 200000/6450=46.5ms per byte.

    You are asking it to instead read 200000/(80*364)=6.8ms per byte.

     

    Now that is if the floppy drive is emulated at the low level I think that the HxC does. If it actually could fake out the controller to feed data in at the normal rate but a much larger track, you might be able to do this. I don't think this is the way it works. The index signals would be much further apart and I think this logic is embedded in the 179x controller chip, not in DOS ROM.

     

    I recall reading about that... The Lotharek supports 2880 with the Myarc controller 80 track DSDD mode. The Lotharek is a floppy disk emulator - I've tried it with TI (40 and 80 track), Corcomp (40 track DS), and Myarc (40/80 DSDD). I have no idea how the Myarc controller achieves 2880 but it seems to work as I have database files in excess of 1800 that seem to work OK.

     

    I don't know enough about the Lotharek DSR to have the complete answer; but, a simple TI-type floppy image only has enough room in the sector map for 1600 sectors. Obviously, if the Lotharek is capable of 2880-sector images (as you posted elsewhere), it is doing something different from the TI DSR and likely dependent on the SCSI controller you have it attached to. Also, from your other post, it would appear that is controller dependent, so without rewrites of CorComp or TI DSRs, 1600 is probably the limit with those controllers. As you may know, that is what Jaime Malilonmg did with the CF7/nanoPEB image volumes.

     

    ...lee

  10. Posted · Edited by aftyde

    Hi All,

     

    Way out of my depth here... but I read that the 80 track mod for the TI controller basically boiled down to a two byte change in the ROM. That got me thinking - with the Lotharek Floppy Drive emulator - you can define any sort of diskette you want and mount the thing. So - what if I did something like this...

     

    80x80x256

     

    and created an 80 track, 80 sector (256 bytes per sector) image...

     

    That would be a 12800 sector floppy image - enough space where I'd stop complaining for a while... ;)

     

    So I'm wondering - what outlandish figures could I pop into a ROM, match to the Lotharek and give it a go. Would probably need tidir support for formatting these images as the Lotharek tanks on disk init commands. (but seems to read and write to converted images with no issue)

     

    Possible - or wishful thinking?

     

    Cheers, Arthur...

  11. Posted

    Good discussion point - I love my FR99. The problem is, mostly - I don't use carts other than EB v2.7 Suite and EA. So for me it's BAWriter80, TI-Base, and I'm having fun with RXB and Cortex Basic. I only need the FR99 and my EB 2.7 Suite cart. Everything else is back in the bin. (would love to see Multiplan on FR99 (hint). Would also like to see the FR99 reduced in size a bit so it might fit better into a standard cart footprint. I have the 3d printed black case - and it's an ugly baby! :)

     

    What I need, and will ALWAYS need is storage. I have two systems, one in Manila and the other here in the US. In Manila, I have the Myarc controller and a WHT SCSI connected to a SQ 44MB drive. So 2880 sector diskette images (on the lotharek) and a hard drive has me happy. Here in the US I am suffering with a Corcomp DSDD 1440 sector diskette solution (Lotharek) and that's it. My primary database is already pushing 1900.

     

    Given that almost every other computer has a solution for this - I am surprised we are so behind the curve. Yes, the CF7 is a possible option. My experience though, and I have four of these things, is they are wonky and unreliable - and if you toast one the maker won't respond to fix requests. (meaning - I send a note saying "I am a moron and plugged 12v into it - can I send you a pile of money and you please fix for me" never gets responded to)

  13. Posted

    Would that be one of these???

     

    http://www.ebay.com/itm/ATMEL-ATMEGA1284P-replaces-ATMEGA644P-ATMEGA32-ATMEGA16-/270792917133

     

     

     

    Since you have an UberFROM card and an AT49F040, you'll also need to obtain an Atmega 1284P. The RXB requires BOTH chips.

     

    Download both files in << THIS POST >>. You might also want to go << HERE >> and get the instructions on how to program the 1284 if it's your first time programming that type of chip. Good luck!

  15. Posted · Edited by aftyde

    This weekend I accomplished a number of small projects. One was the installation of a decent fan in my PEB - amazing, no more jet engine. Scraped, cleaned, and relabeled all the cards in the PEB. Lastly, I installed the MG ROM's into my Corcomp DSDD controller and popped that in to see how well it'll work with the Lotharek drives - jury is still out on that one... :)

    • Like 2

  19. Posted

    Think you can brew up a P-Code card based on my earlier scan - I suck at this... but I did manage to get them to print! Which is sort of a win! New labels for mem, disk, serial and hopefully P-Code.

     

    Don't hold your breath but I'll try to recreate my disk controller label. Doing it in PS right now, super spare time, may do it in illustrator next.

    However; Here is a blank disk label to use for your own custom labels.

     

    attachicon.gifBlankLabel.png

  21. Posted

    Any chance the card will fit into a TI clamshell? That might be a good thing. That's awesome - the Myarc DDCC is the only card I have that completely and perfectly works with the Lotharek floppy emulators. All other controllers read and write, but only the Myarc will init a .hfe disk image. If I had access to these boards - I'd chuck all the other controllers back into the history bin.

  22. Posted

    Looks fantastic! :) What are the fonts used? I have two TI controllers - one with the Guion mod (adds access to a 4th drive and lower case disk designations. You can have a DSK1 and a dsk1 responding as different drives) and the 80 Track Mod (DSK1 and DSK2 to 80 track and DSK3 to 40 track). I'd like to doctor the label in a manner consistent with your design.

     

    This is not an exact duplicate. It's close, I did what I thought does justice without nitpicking over an exact replica.

    I hope you find it acceptable - Hi Res Tif here -->>attachicon.gifDisk Controller_T.zip

     

    attachicon.gifDisk-Controller.png

  24. Posted

    Good suggestions - tried both, including new cables. What is odd is I can (on the Lotharek) I can write to files, read files, the works. I can't init a disk image. I have heard that this just doesn't work.

     

     

    You might also want to move the disk controller to another slot (tests the PEB bus) and verify that none of the wires in your floppy cable are broken. You should also move your flex cable interface to a new slot, just in case the connector problem is at that point on the bus. These machines have been around long enough for oxidation and other gunk to build up on contacts and interfere with the mechanical connections. . .

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