manterola Posted August 16, 2020 Share Posted August 16, 2020 (edited) I have read a lot about the different roms and after that I came to the conclusion that there is no rom that support two mechs (at the same time with a single controller board) . Except the CSS rom which is not available. Is this correct? I have a couple of Panasonic 360KB drives and I want to use them by assembling a sf551 board from @Dropcheck. On the other hand, @cwilbar recommended me to search scsi drives to reuse the external enclosure, and I did it, it was a great idea, thanks. So really, what are my options? Woolley or Hyperxf with a switch to select a drive? Or is there a not-that-hard way to hack a firmware to support two drives? (like respond to D1 and D2 commands and then use ds0 or ds1 accordingly to address each mech.) Mauricio Edited August 16, 2020 by manterola 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted August 16, 2020 Share Posted August 16, 2020 Bob wooley's XF ROM only does the minimum patches to Atari's code to fix some of the most annoying bugs, and necessary changes like increased maximum track number and reduced stepper speed for 3.5" drives. Same max 38400 2x SIO speed as the original Atari firmware. The HyperXF firmware adds a lot of additional features, the biggest one being US Doubler compatible UltraSpeed protocol support, so it works with a lot more software in highspeed mode, as well as faster SIO, not sure exact bitrate (somewhere in the 3x Range similar to US doubler).. Could put all three on one EPROM and use a 3-position toggle switch and have your choice of all three at will. Two other ideas come to mind... Just using two SF551 controller boards in the same case, each with a different SIO ID. Or, with 1 controller, since both mechs would need to be the same DS select ID, maybe a toggle switch which just selects which of the two mechs receives power. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted August 16, 2020 Share Posted August 16, 2020 Hello Mauricio Or you can try to contact Stephan Dorndorf and ask him if he would be willing and able to extend/upgrade his HyperXF ROM so it supports automatic switching between two (or more) mechanism's. Sincerely Mathy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwilbar Posted August 17, 2020 Share Posted August 17, 2020 Who owns the rights to the CSS ROMs ? There can't be much money to be made on these anymore. Would be great to see some of these older modifications released into the public domain.... and if not that, transferred to a 3rd party that still makes/sells/etc stuff for them. I can't imagine that there would be significant changes required to an XF551 on the hardware side. I don't know how (i.e. in a PC) drive selection is handled on the hardware side. If the logic that drives the drive select lines on the drive cable are handled by the controller chip, or additional (separate) logic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwilbar Posted August 17, 2020 Share Posted August 17, 2020 Looks like additional logic is required..... see: http://www.nleaudio.com/css/products/xfduald.htm There is a 'module' and you tie into some pins on the FDC and on the CPU. With a bit of studying, the workings of this may be able to be deduced. It ties into the 8040/8050 on 27, 28, 30, 32, 33, 35, and 40. It ties into the FDC on pins 14 and 20. I think it would be cool to have a moodified XF dual that uses a combo 3.5" and 5.25" drive. Running both at 80 tracks double density. Wouldn't be too useful as a boot drive, but good for a data drive. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sup8pdct Posted August 17, 2020 Share Posted August 17, 2020 7 hours ago, cwilbar said: Looks like additional logic is required..... see: http://www.nleaudio.com/css/products/xfduald.htm There is a 'module' and you tie into some pins on the FDC and on the CPU. With a bit of studying, the workings of this may be able to be deduced. It ties into the 8040/8050 on 27, 28, 30, 32, 33, 35, and 40. It ties into the FDC on pins 14 and 20. I think it would be cool to have a moodified XF dual that uses a combo 3.5" and 5.25" drive. Running both at 80 tracks double density. Wouldn't be too useful as a boot drive, but good for a data drive. Also a modified drive cable and small plug in card between them. 2 wires soldered to the small card for drive select lines 2 and 3. original drive mech drive select jumper moved from 1 to 2 and 3.5 jumpered to 3. I have the rom but the logic is also required. Makes an excellent drive, USD compatible to boot. The logic is potted so unable to say what is in it. James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manterola Posted August 17, 2020 Author Share Posted August 17, 2020 Thanks for the answers... My understanding is that at least the floppy cable provides two motor and two drive select (DS) signals for managing two drives. On the other hand, it looks like the Wd1772 controller has only one MO(motor on) signal, which drives the DS0 and MOTOR input of the mech. So it looks like additional logic is needed to redirect this signal to DS0 or DS1 accordingly. So it is not only a matter of firmware change but also adding some electronic components. Also thanks Mathy for the idea, I might need to figure out with Sascha how to login in ABBUC forums and contact him there. It looks like the simple solution is assembling two boards , which mainly means two WD1772 and everything, assuming I can fit two inside the case... I'll check this possibility, as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted August 17, 2020 Share Posted August 17, 2020 (edited) Hello Mauricio There is only one motor control line, that is used for all drives. Stefan visits AtariAge from time to time. Lets summon the master: @StefanD Sincerely Mathy (rubbing the lamp as we speak) PS maybe @mytek can take care of the hardware design if Stefan can will do the firmware?! Edited August 17, 2020 by Mathy Added the PS 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted August 17, 2020 Share Posted August 17, 2020 11 hours ago, cwilbar said: Who owns the rights to the CSS ROMs ? There can't be much money to be made on these anymore. Would be great to see some of these older modifications released into the public domain.... and if not that, transferred to a 3rd party that still makes/sells/etc stuff for them. Bob Puff would be the guy to contact about this. And I would say their has been zero money made from this for well over a decade. 11 hours ago, cwilbar said: Looks like additional logic is required..... see: http://www.nleaudio.com/css/products/xfduald.htm There is a 'module' and you tie into some pins on the FDC and on the CPU. With a bit of studying, the workings of this may be able to be deduced. It ties into the 8040/8050 on 27, 28, 30, 32, 33, 35, and 40. It ties into the FDC on pins 14 and 20. 4 hours ago, sup8pdct said: Also a modified drive cable and small plug in card between them. 2 wires soldered to the small card for drive select lines 2 and 3. original drive mech drive select jumper moved from 1 to 2 and 3.5 jumpered to 3. I have the rom but the logic is also required. Makes an excellent drive, USD compatible to boot. The logic is potted so unable to say what is in it. Yes there was a potted blob with wires needing to be attached as described that came with the new ROM. I think @Dropcheck tried to de-pot one of these, but the epoxy that was used made it next to impossible to do so. And probably even Bob Puff wouldn't be of much help since it's my understanding that he lost all the design files many years ago due to a hard drive crash. 20 minutes ago, Mathy said: PS maybe @mytek can take care of the hardware design if Stefan can will do the firmware?! In order to do that we first need to know what's the logic inside the blob doing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
re-atari Posted August 17, 2020 Share Posted August 17, 2020 This subject was already discussed here some 6 years ago. Take a look at: Depotting can be done with Nitromors, though I'm not sure if it will work in this particular case. re-atari 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwilbar Posted August 17, 2020 Share Posted August 17, 2020 I'd imagine the extra logic is around how it picks up from the modified firmware which drive should be being accessed, and does the appropriate things with the drive select lines to the drives, and anything that might be needed by the FDC. I haven't looked at the XF design... but the pins this ties in to on the cpu is Vcc, P10, P11, P13, P15, P16, and P24. On the FDC pins 14 and 20 are GND and MO. MO is the motor signal. So, the logic seems to detect when the FDC starts the motor, and ties into the CPU pins in order to determine from the firmware which drive to select. P24 is unused normally in the XF551. This may be what is used to drive the drive select logic. P10 and P11 connect to A0 and A1 of the FDC. P13 is the DD signal to the FDC. P15 is R/W to the FDC. P16 is inverted on the XF and sent out direct to the SIDE signal on the FDC cable. It would appear that all the signals on port 1 could have been wired to the FDC chip with that upgrade, and that leaves P24 as the drive select. If there is a dump/disassemble of the CSS Dual drive firmware, then drive selection is being handled this way. I'm unsure why the DD, R/W, A0, and A1 connections are needed, but I'm wondering if this is because something needs to be latched/unlatched (via flip flop ?) in that blob. Though the MCS-48 holds the port (p24) at whatever state is programmed to, unless changed or cpu is reset (so far from what I can find). It would be really cool to see a HyperXF version and a bit of hardware to make a new 'super css dual' upgrade for XF551. Something that supports a dual drive mechanism, with firmware smart enough to double step or single step depending on setup from dos would be cool. You could still boot SSSD games, but you could do up to 720K on 5.25" DD media, and do 720K DD 3.5s. All in the original XF551 form factor. Another interesting option would be to stack an XF551 and a PC551 and put a 3.5" drive in one, a 360K 5.25" (probably simply retain original XF mech), and have a cable out of the XF that connects to the PC551 and it looks like a stack of 2 XFs but controlled by one controlller and one SIO connection. Possibilities ? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted August 17, 2020 Share Posted August 17, 2020 16 minutes ago, cwilbar said: It would appear that all the signals on port 1 could have been wired to the FDC chip with that upgrade, and that leaves P24 as the drive select. If there is a dump/disassemble of the CSS Dual drive firmware, then drive selection is being handled this way. I'm unsure why the DD, R/W, A0, and A1 connections are needed, but I'm wondering if this is because something needs to be latched/unlatched (via flip flop ?) in that blob. Though the MCS-48 holds the port (p24) at whatever state is programmed to, unless changed or cpu is reset (so far from what I can find). It could just be the means of implementing a hardware dongle to prevent people from simply burning an EPROM with his code and jumpering a couple of things. 41 minutes ago, re-atari said: Depotting can be done with Nitromors, though I'm not sure if it will work in this particular case. The primary ingredient used in Nitromors Paint Stripper is was methylene chloride which has been replaced due to it being a carcinogen. Nitromors – The Review They Didn’t Want You to Read This article mentions a few possibilities including methylene chloride - How to Remove Cured Epoxy. The freezing suggestion sounds like a safe possibility, especially in my profession where I work with -100C gas chillers . I'll have to try it on something and see how effective it is. Then I would need to locate one of CSS's potted devices. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwilbar Posted August 17, 2020 Share Posted August 17, 2020 Its possible all but P24 is to protect the product.... hard to say.... but there is some similar wiring to another XF upgrade that doesn't do dual drives..... so hard to say. I think reverse engineering the firmware could confirm that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simius Posted August 17, 2020 Share Posted August 17, 2020 There is an XF551 clone with two drives: http://atariki.krap.pl/index.php/XFD602 Because it is my own design, I can tell you, what is missing on the original hardware to control the two drives. It's at least one additional, external RAM byte for saving the WD1772 track register for the inactive drive. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted August 17, 2020 Share Posted August 17, 2020 Hello guys You can find the documentation to the CSS XF551 upgrades on my Docs page. Sincerely Mathy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwilbar Posted August 17, 2020 Share Posted August 17, 2020 @Simius, How did you solve that problem ? There isn't much technical information on that web site ? Have you released any of this info, updated firmware ? Or do you sell upgrades for this ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manterola Posted August 17, 2020 Author Share Posted August 17, 2020 5 hours ago, Simius said: There is an XF551 clone with two drives: http://atariki.krap.pl/index.php/XFD602 Because it is my own design, I can tell you, what is missing on the original hardware to control the two drives. It's at least one additional, external RAM byte for saving the WD1772 track register for the inactive drive. I am very interested in an upgrade. BTW, how are you doing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted August 18, 2020 Share Posted August 18, 2020 11 hours ago, mytek said: The freezing suggestion sounds like a safe possibility, especially in my profession where I work with -100C gas chillers . I'll have to try it on something and see how effective it is. Then I would need to locate one of CSS's potted devices. How about an ingot power supply? ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted August 18, 2020 Share Posted August 18, 2020 45 minutes ago, Nezgar said: How about an ingot power supply? ? That would be a good chunk of epoxy for sure, but I don't have any of those to experiment on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simius Posted August 18, 2020 Share Posted August 18, 2020 9 hours ago, cwilbar said: @Simius, How did you solve that problem ? There isn't much technical information on that web site ? Have you released any of this info, updated firmware ? Or do you sell upgrades for this ? http://www.jsobola.atari8.info/dereatari/atarisch/xfd601a.zip 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manterola Posted August 18, 2020 Author Share Posted August 18, 2020 Thanks Simius! check this out: http://blog.3b2.sk/igi/post/Floppy-disk-drive-XFD601a-XFD602.aspx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dropcheck Posted August 18, 2020 Share Posted August 18, 2020 22 hours ago, Simius said: There is an XF551 clone with two drives: http://atariki.krap.pl/index.php/XFD602 Because it is my own design, I can tell you, what is missing on the original hardware to control the two drives. It's at least one additional, external RAM byte for saving the WD1772 track register for the inactive drive. 8 hours ago, Simius said: http://www.jsobola.atari8.info/dereatari/atarisch/xfd601a.zip . So this schematic should allow dual drives aka the 602? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manterola Posted August 18, 2020 Author Share Posted August 18, 2020 (edited) 58 minutes ago, Dropcheck said: So this schematic should allow dual drives aka the 602? That is my question... It look like the schematics for 601 is the same as 602, because of the memory and the wiring to DS1, etc. Is the ROM dump also good for xfd602? Dropcheck: Good to see you in this topic, I was wondering why you weren't in the discussion. Edited August 18, 2020 by manterola Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dropcheck Posted August 18, 2020 Share Posted August 18, 2020 24 minutes ago, manterola said: That is my question... It look like the schematics for 601 is the same as 602, because of the memory and the wiring to DS1, etc. Is the ROM dump also good for xfd602? Dropcheck: Good to see you in this topic, I was wondering why you weren't in the discussion. I made a pcb several years ago with this schematic, but had no luck getting a drive to work. I didn't pursue it due to other priorities. It would be nice to see if we could get dual 3.5 drives in one box. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dropcheck Posted August 18, 2020 Share Posted August 18, 2020 10 hours ago, Simius said: http://www.jsobola.atari8.info/dereatari/atarisch/xfd601a.zip Curious. There's a SF826 transistor listed as Q1. I'm not finding that particular version on Mouser or Digikey. What NPN transistor would be a good substitute? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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