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XF551 OSes


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well, lets see...There is a PAL version ... from Atari I assume.

 

There is the Bob Woolley version that fixes a few issues in the original. There is also a Bob Woolley 3.5" 720K version.

 

From CSS there was the "XF Update" that improves upon the stock OS as well as the "XF single Drive Upgrade" that also upgraded to a 3.5, and the "XF Dual Drive Upgrade" that allows the XF551 to support both a 5.25 and a 3.5 mechanism at the same time as 2 separate drives. This upgrade includes both an OS upgrade as well as some additional electronics to support the second drive.

 

Those along with the stock NTSC and the 2 versions of the Hyper-XF are the ones that I am aware of.

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well, lets see...There is a PAL version ... from Atari I assume.

 

There is the Bob Woolley version that fixes a few issues in the original. There is also a Bob Woolley 3.5" 720K version.

 

From CSS there was the "XF Update" that improves upon the stock OS as well as the "XF single Drive Upgrade" that also upgraded to a 3.5, and the "XF Dual Drive Upgrade" that allows the XF551 to support both a 5.25 and a 3.5 mechanism at the same time as 2 separate drives. This upgrade includes both an OS upgrade as well as some additional electronics to support the second drive.

 

Those along with the stock NTSC and the 2 versions of the Hyper-XF are the ones that I am aware of.

Thanks that's just what I'm looking for the XF Update. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

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Well,

Atari itself did several versions of the XF551 OS. I had an XF551 with a Mitsumi drive and OS version 7.0. Another Mitsumi XF551 had a different OS version. Last not least I had an XF551 with a Chinon drive (those were uses for Amigas and others afaik) and again another OS version...

 

In general we have:

 

- Atari XF551 OS (various versions with various bugs)

- patched XF551 OS by Bob Woolley a) for 5,25" drives and b) for 3,5" drives

- Hyper-XF-OS by Stefan Dorndorf a) for 5,25"drives and b) for 3,5" drives

- CSS XF551-Single Upgrade OS

- CSS XF551 Dual-Upgrade OS

and of course some XF551 OS versions from eastern europe...

 

-Andreas Koch.

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I have burned the Hyper-FX mod and installed it but it seem very unstable, especially when using the drive with APE/Prosystem and SIO2PC. I still see issues switching between disk formats and problems while imaging floppies to ATR's. I know Bob Woolley has fixes for the original OS but all I can find is OS edits to get 3.5 720K compatibility. What is the best option for the XF551 to fix the density issue and get higher speeds from the drive?? ROM images would be welcome!!!

Edited by Guitarman
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I have burned the Hyper-FX mod and installed it but it seem very unstable, especially when using the drive with APE/Prosystem and SIO2PC. I still see issues switching between disk formats and problems while imaging floppies to ATR's. I know Bob Woolley has fixes for the original OS but all I can find is OS edits to get 3.5 720K compatibility. What is the best option for the XF551 to fix the density issue and get higher speeds from the drive?? ROM images would be welcome!!!

I'm in need of all the XF551 ROM images, I've been talking to Steve "Classics" about I idea I have. ;)

Edited by walter_J64bit
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Back when I did some work for ICD, I actually had the XF551 source code in my hands. I wish I could remember the name of the author- it was someone fairly high-profile & I'd heard of before (Mike someone??). I'm guessing Atari farmed it out.

 

-Bry

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I believe this is the Woolley 5.25 version:

 

XF551.zip

 

I will burn and try this one but I think, do to the included text file, that this is the 3.5 720K rom. I'm really looking for any mod that will fix the drives ability to switch densities, as I am trying to images a collection of disks and the drive will not recognize the change between double side or single side disks.

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I will burn and try this one but I think, do to the included text file, that this is the 3.5 720K rom. I'm really looking for any mod that will fix the drives ability to switch densities, as I am trying to images a collection of disks and the drive will not recognize the change between double side or single side disks.

 

Yeah, I think you're right. Maybe this is the one. It's the only other 360K one I have, but it might be stock too, I don't know for sure.

xf551360.bin

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Can any one burn a rom of Bob Woolley OS(5.25) for me?

 

 

I could. I still haven't tried it out to see if the posted one gets rid of the density change issues. It's too bad there isn't a hex change list for the individual fixed for the OS. That way a rom could be edited for whatever mods you want, ie density fix, ultraspeed enhancements, 3.5/720K drive upgrades, etc. There is a lot of reference to the density issue but no steadfast info on the hex fixes for the rom. Woolley's upgrade doc goes into a lot of detail for the 3.5 drive mod, timing and drive letter reassignment, but that's about it.

 

By the way, the way I am testing the density change issue is by using APE/Prosystem to image various disks with various densities. I can run the software and image a disk of a certain format, say DSDD, with no error. When I put a known SSSD or SSED in the drive and try to image it, it starts imaging as if it were a DSDD disk and errors half way through. I get the same issue the other way around. I start with a SS disk and image just fine. If I put in a DS disk, it will only image half and then say completed.

 

Steve, if you're reading this thread,

Should Prosystem recognize the change in disk density/format on the fly?? The XF551 being the only DSDD drive to test with, it makes it hard to see if it is the drive or just the way the software works.

Edited by Guitarman
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Now that I'm actually looking for it, I'm not sure there ever was a Woolley 5.25 version. I think his may have just been the 3.5 mod and I had confused the CSS XF Update with a Wooley patched version. I'm pretty sure the XF551360.bin I posted is just the stock XF OS.

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Now that I'm actually looking for it, I'm not sure there ever was a Woolley 5.25 version. I think his may have just been the 3.5 mod and I had confused the CSS XF Update with a Wooley patched version. I'm pretty sure the XF551360.bin I posted is just the stock XF OS.

 

 

That's kinda what I was thinking. Maybe we can get CSS/Bob Puff to tell us the hex edits he used for the CSS upgrade.

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Ill tell you what ROM I want for an XF551...

 

And someone would have to make/patch it manually..

 

Bob puff had a ROM that would let you use 2 drive mechs with it.. A 5.25" and a 3.5" at the same time.. ANd they showed up as 2 separate drives to the atari.

 

I want one that lets you use DUAL 360k 5.25" mechs.

 

I have 10 working XF551s to play with..

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Ill tell you what ROM I want for an XF551...

 

And someone would have to make/patch it manually..

 

Bob puff had a ROM that would let you use 2 drive mechs with it.. A 5.25" and a 3.5" at the same time.. ANd they showed up as 2 separate drives to the atari.

 

I want one that lets you use DUAL 360k 5.25" mechs.

 

I have 10 working XF551s to play with..

 

I've got one of those 5.25 + 3.5 mods in one of my XF551's, but there's more to it than just a ROM, there is also an epoxy sealed module with several wires that attach to various points on the MB.

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Hello guys

 

If you bend a specific pin on Bob Puff's XF-OS, you can use two 3,5" drives. But I'm not sure, if all versions have that, or only the "newer" versions. Not sure if there were more/newer versions, but if there were, these newer versions are just updates of older versions, you can't choose between versions.

 

Greetings

 

Mathy

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Ill tell you what ROM I want for an XF551...

 

And someone would have to make/patch it manually..

 

Bob puff had a ROM that would let you use 2 drive mechs with it.. A 5.25" and a 3.5" at the same time.. ANd they showed up as 2 separate drives to the atari.

 

I want one that lets you use DUAL 360k 5.25" mechs.

 

I have 10 working XF551s to play with..

 

I want a copy of the ROM and an internal picture of the protoype 3.5" XE drive Curt has.

 

Woolley's original patch information: http://www.lspenc13.us/Lenspencer/fxep/xf551.txt. I know Puff had mentioned a density switching problem and a fix. Still trying to track that down.

 

And some more notes -- on hooking up an SF314 from Woolley ( I believe ):

 

" As for operating quirks, the drive will normlly post a "no DOS" message (or rather, SpartaDos posts the message) when you boot the first DS/DD disk. You have to re-boot to get it to load in, but only the first time. It seems that the device will only change density when it reads sector 1. This appears to solve the problems that crop up in protection schemes that rely on an 810 or 1050 to fail to read a DD sector stuck in a SD disk. I tried a number of commercial software packages that are known to croak on DD drives and found no problems. There MAY be a few out there, but I would guess not many. (very good news for those buying their first and only drive...)

 

This new kid will also read SS/DD diskettes from ICD and such. Unlike the ST SS drive, the format of the DD drive does not write all the sectors on one head of a track and then switch to the other head and write those sectors before moving to the next track. By writing 36 DD sectors before moving the head, you get a higher transfer rate, but you lose SS compatability. This means that I can read the first 180K of my DS/DD disks on my ICD modified 1050 (a SS drive)! Much handier than having the ST style format, even if it is slower.

 

So, this XF551 is quiet, fast and holds lots of data. Just what we wanted, right? Yeeesssssss..... ,,,,, but I kinda liked the idea of a 3.5 inch drive, too. And I'm kinda partial to the PBI on my 800XL, 1200XL and 130XE..... and ,,,,,

 

Out Come The X-Ray Glasses...

 

The best part of this drive is the part you never see, inside the covers. The power supply is an old standard 400/800/810/1050/1200XL transformer that should last forever and costs almost nothing. There is a single-chip microprocessor in there directing traffic, a couple of TTL ICs and a WD1772 floppy disk controller. The same controller as the ST. Exactly the same. The one that does 720K on a 3.5in drive..... Looking at the drive, it seems to be a bone-stock, IBM style, 360K drive. With a regular 34 pin interface cable. Just like the 720K, 3.5in ST drive....

Out comes the book, on goes the soldering iron, snip-snip, solder-solder. Using a 14 pin ST drive connector and a foot of 14 conductor flat cable, I soldered a cable to the XF551's 34 pin connector site that would plug into an SF314 drive. You have to pull the connector to the 5.25 drive in the XF551 since the controller will select both drives at once if they are both plugged in. Without any 3.5in disks to boot from, I had to boot from a 1050 with the XF551 set as D2:. Calling the XINIT program, I formatted a 3.5in disk as DS/DD, 80 tracks. 720K of available space!! Of course, it didn't really have 720K of space, since the XF551 ROM does not understand 80 tracks vs. 40 tracks. With the ROM in a nice socket, someone should be able to fix that (are you listening, Tom?). Regardless, the 3.5in drives work fine at 360K and promise to be even more useful in the future.

 

Did I mention the drive select line on the WD1772? The one that tells which of the four drives on the 34 pin buss to pay attention? If one were to plug the SF314 into the buss, but use the D2: select line instead of the D1: line (the line that the 5.25 drive reponds to), one could run both drives from the one controller. No conflicts, no hassle. A second SF314 plugged into the back of the first SF314 (using a standard ST cable), would be D3:! It would require a new ROM to implement this configuration, but little else. Of course, if you were going to use the PIO to talk to the XF551, you wouldn't use the ROM anyway. Gee, the SF314 sits perfectly up there on top of the XF551. They make such a wonderful pair.

 

And on such a wonderful machine.

Made a little more wonderful by the addition of an XF551.

 

 

For Those Who Must...

 

SF314 connector XF551 cable

 

1 30

2 32

3 gnd

4 8

5 10

6 12

7 gnd

8 16

9 18

10 20

11 22

12 24

13 26

14 28

"

Edited by kheller2
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  • 3 months later...

Ok. I need a PAL compatable ROM image for use in an XF551.

 

Someone has recently mailed me his XF551 mainboard from Europe, for repairs. He purchased this drive off of EBAY, and could not get it to work reliably with his PAL 130xe. Upon recieving the board, I hooked it up to my NTSC machine, and it worked fine.

 

I went ahead and fixed the crappy solder joints on the SIO connectors, but I do not want to ship this mainboard back without correcting the true problem.

 

From what I understand, the timing incompatability lies in a bug in the eariler released US/NTSC firmware. The later firmware supposedly would work with both PAL and NTSC.

 

I know that the HyperXF ROM was written in Germany. Is this ROM compatable with both PAL and NTSC? or is there 2 different versions of it? I burned the HyperXF-A rom and it seems to work fine in the drive on my NTSC system (but so did the original ROM). Unfortunately, I do not have a PAL system to test it on.

 

I need a ROM image that I can burn on an 2764 EPROM and install in this drive, that is guaranteed to work with a PAL system, so I can mail this guy his board back.

 

Any help I can get on this would be GREATLY appreciated.

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Ill tell you what ROM I want for an XF551...

 

And someone would have to make/patch it manually..

 

Bob puff had a ROM that would let you use 2 drive mechs with it.. A 5.25" and a 3.5" at the same time.. ANd they showed up as 2 separate drives to the atari.

 

I want one that lets you use DUAL 360k 5.25" mechs.

 

I have 10 working XF551s to play with..

 

I've got one of those 5.25 + 3.5 mods in one of my XF551's, but there's more to it than just a ROM, there is also an epoxy sealed module with several wires that attach to various points on the MB.

 

I have a 551 drive with a 720K 3.5" and the CSS enhanced rom. It allows ultraspeed and is definitely not a patched stock rom. I also have a drive with one of the epoxy modules but its for allowing the 5.25" to write to the back side of the disk.

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