Atari-Collector Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 Found this on ebay http://www.ebay.ca/itm/3-5-1000-Floppy-Disk-Drive-USB-emulator-Simulation-1-44MB-Roland-Keyboard-HS-/221601321059?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item339877d063 And was wondering if anybody has tried these with Atari or and any other type of classic computer like the TRS-80? They have a standard 34 pin connector, the question would be is if they can be configured to appear are a SS-SD or SS-DD for a older machine. I know about the HxC, I have one already, but these caught my attention with the low price. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 Those types emulate a floppy drive at a lower level and are only good for computers and devices that have the controller chip at the computer side, e.g. ST, Amiga, BBC etc. In theory it might be possible to put something like this inside a 1050 or XF551 but it wouldn't be all that worthwhile, the IO speed would barely improve - only the seek and rotational latency delays would be eliminated. To emulate Atari drives you have to process the high level commands coming over SIO - most devices have the added advantage that they also allow the faster IO modes for 4x or better performance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Audronic Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 @ Atari-Collector The Gotek will not work in the TRS-80, as it uses 512 byte sectors, it would require new firmware to suit 256 byte sctors. Rybags covered the rest. Good luck Ray W_____________ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 Nevertheless... tempting to bung one in an XF551 and see what happens. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari-Collector Posted February 5, 2015 Author Share Posted February 5, 2015 Oh well.. It was worth thinking about at least.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 For that price it's worth a try. It's on my watch list... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bumzyman Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 That GoTek looks like it only emulates a 1.44MB Floppy. I know there's no comparison when it comes to cost but, a serious floppy emulator would be something like what Lotharek makes HERE. His compatibility matrix indicates that it works with the TRS-80 too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted February 6, 2015 Share Posted February 6, 2015 Fair point - I didn't notice it only did 1.44MB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sup8pdct Posted February 6, 2015 Share Posted February 6, 2015 Check out these. http://lotharek.pl/category.php?kid=7 Am thinking about getting one for my ATR8000, tho will need to figure out format problem. James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted February 6, 2015 Share Posted February 6, 2015 I like the form factor (and casing) of the eBay one mind you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eeun Posted February 6, 2015 Share Posted February 6, 2015 Fair point - I didn't notice it only did 1.44MB. There are 720K versions of the Gotek available as well, but they tend to be more expensive...I guess because there's a smaller market for them. There's another thread around here somewhere, or maybe at Atari Forum, noting that there's an Amiga compatible firmware that can be flashed into these things. Regardless, they're apparently a PITA to set up and use compared to HxC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted February 6, 2015 Share Posted February 6, 2015 (edited) Lotharek's Rev. F floppy emulator is cosmetically the closest thing to the Gotek, but it costs £102.99 EUR. I had one of the uncased HxC models some time ago, but sadly circumstances at the time forced me to sell it on. Here's a 720KB model, quite appealingly priced: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3-5-SFRM72-FU-DL-ABS-720KB-USB-Floppy-Drive-Emulator-Machine-for-Industry-/321188946516?pt=UK_Computing_FloppyDiskDrives_SM&hash=item4ac85a6254 Edited February 6, 2015 by flashjazzcat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari-Collector Posted February 6, 2015 Author Share Posted February 6, 2015 Well it was worth a thought I guess. I figured it'd be a long shot. But if the day comes I ever have a 1050 or xf551 with a bad drive in it I may still get one to try. I already have an SIO2SD on it's way, started getting an SD card ready for that, but that's a whole different topic.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ricortes Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 Every one of the emulators I have seen so far use 512 byte sectors. That pretty much limits their utility to [not most 8 bits]. As James points out, it may possibly be used with an ATR8000 in CPM mode. There are utilities included to access a number of formats. It could probably be made to use with Indus CPM too with a lot of effort. At that it would have to be used as a 720k floppy with 512 byte sectors. Everything else would need a hacked ROM and/or controller. IIRC the 1.44M floppy uses a 500kHz clock which is twice as fast as a conventional Atari floppy. For instance the Ajax chip in an ST has to run at twice the clock rate of a stock chip to get 1.44 meg. My kind of trivia there is something like ~'Type II' mode for 5.25" 1.2 Meg floppies that can be made to work as 8" double sided 77 track disks recognizable by MyDOS and SD<?>. What seems to be less well known is that some 3.5" drives supported the 8" mode too. I wasted a week or two trying to figure out the pads to jumper and short, pins to connect, but came up dry for a modern floppy I bought at Fry's. I doubt if anyone will ever come across a floppy emulator that supports this mode, but if you do, please give me a heads up. Since our drives typically only expect 128 or 256 byte sectors, ~1 meg is about the best we can do w/o some hack. For instance you should be able to hack a 3.5" drive into thinking it is an 8" drive with 80 tracks w/o too much trouble. Trouble comes when you ask the people to add 8" emulation in their emulators! I doubt if anyone of the people selling these would do it for a small market such as ourselves. I hope I am not confusing the issue for everyone as much as I am confusing myself! In order to get 1.44 megs of data on a 3.5", you have to read and write the data twice as fast as our controllers can do it. Flat out top speed we can get is 8" mode with 300kbits/sec which gives you 26 sectors 256 byte sectors per track. You can wish manufacturers support all modes but in practice they don't seem to. We are mostly stuck with what we have and what they make. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 With the low-level type floppy emus, they generally need to have support for each given format, so you'd need to check for e.g. 18 * 128 byte sector FM data, 26 * 128 byte MFM data etc... Atari used somewhat nonstandard floppy formats, the older IBM 5.25" drives could do r/w to Atari single-density but probably nobody else used that format which means emulation might ignore it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sup8pdct Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 I asked about the ones i linked to. it supports at least FMF and 128 byte sectors. If you dig through the docs, I am sure it supports much more. James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 Wish I'd tried my HxC in an XF before getting rid of it. Can anyone else? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Larry Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 Never saw one of these before. How do you "switch disks?" Basically like a SIO2SD or Sdrive, only you'd need new software? -Larry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 (edited) Similar type of situation for doing mounts and such using controls directly on the device, would vary among them somewhat but overall similar to the SIO2SD. Unsure if any of them would allow commands coming from the host to do stuff like image mounts - the luxury of the SIO types is since it's a higher level emulation you can fairly easily throw in extensibility that will often work with little extra software at the host side. Edited February 7, 2015 by Rybags Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gamer-stu Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 (edited) Here is firmware and a detailed description of what needs to be done to turn one of these devices in to an Amiga floppy emulator: https://cortexamigafloppydrive.wordpress.com/ As soon as my Gotek arrives from China I will be attempting this on my Amiga 2000. In reference to whether you should get the 720kb model or 1.44mb model, at least in the context of the Amiga, it doesn't really matter, since the firmware gets flashed anyway: "The Gotek floppy emulators can be found everywhere. Since all Gotek drives are based on the same hardware, any version should be compatible.For reference i got the drive for 24.5Euros/33$ (Shipping included) on Ebay. I also bought a different model, without the 7- segments display & buttons from another place to check if there is some differences. There is no difference and the firmware is working on both models without any modification." Edited February 7, 2015 by gamer-stu 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bumzyman Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 Here is an article about using the Gotek in an Atari ST. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scitari Posted December 29, 2019 Share Posted December 29, 2019 Has anyone gotten a Gotek working with an ATR8000? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daedalus2097 Posted December 31, 2019 Share Posted December 31, 2019 I know most of the thread is old, but regarding Goteks, it's worth looking into FlashFloppy, which is an alternative firmware developed for Gotek drives and their clones. It supports a lot of more advanced hardware options like LCD and OLED displays, rotary encoders for image selection, etc. It also supports many different image formats including .ATR, and supports different densities as required. I've no idea if it would work to replace an Atari mechanism, but if it uses a Shugart-style interface, I don't see why it wouldn't work. As said though, a dedicated SIO-orientated device will likely offer better performance. I have a Biggus Dickus from Lotharek, which is basically an SIO2SD with a larger display and a nice case, and it's excellent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.