Another mini-1050 SD drive

[StickJock]

I just came across this.  It looks pretty cool, but I think I would have gone with a 3-digit display to support 1000 disks instead of just 100 disks with the 2-digit display.  Three digits across and put the two buttons below them in a left-right configuration.  Or maybe 3 buttons to add a shift key to count by 10s or 100s? 

 

Even with 1000 disks, you are going to be wasting a ton of capacity on your cards if you dedicate them to the Atari.

 

Anyway, I thought it looked pretty slick.

 

 

 

https://github.com/c0pperdragon/SIO2SD

 

 

[+CharlieChaplin]

Yep, a big waste of SD-card space, but the firmware only supports 90k and 130k disk images. So 100 disks with 130k, thats less than 13MB. Anyone out there that still has a 16MB SD-card ?!?

 

On the other hand, if the LCD's always start with 00, then reaching nr. 99 may take a while; but if the up/down key logic supports going up+down in both directions and back to start/end (i.e. if you start at 00 and go down one step to reach 99), then reaching nr. 50 may take the longest time...

 

Afaik, someone in Poland developed a cheap SIO2SD without any LCD, where the firmware is using onscreen A8 text display only. That one still allows to use many thousands of ATR images with FAT16 or FAT32 (and the images can have a size from 90k up to 16MB and afair up to 8 drives are supported)...

 

[+DrVenkman]

10 minutes ago, CharlieChaplin said:

Afaik, someone in Poland developed a cheap SIO2SD without any LCD, where the firmware is using onscreen A8 text display only.

The SDrive-MAX still comes with the SDrive.ATR disk with that Atari-based interface.  Similarly, the new FujiNet lets you use the Atari itself to navigate and select files (now using FAT long file names + filtering to find exactly what you're looking for by name without needing to page through potentially hundreds of disk images). 

 

I saw this Hackaday article earlier today elsewhere and my first thought was, "Why?" 

 

[StickJock]

31 minutes ago, CharlieChaplin said:

On the other hand, if the LCD's always start with 00, then reaching nr. 99 may take a while; but if the up/down key logic supports going up+down in both directions and back to start/end (i.e. if you start at 00 and go down one step to reach 99), then reaching nr. 50 may take the longest time...

 

You could have auto-repeat, and then if you hold it down for ten ticks, it starts counting by 10s.  Then if you hold it down for 10 sets of 10, it starts counting by 100s.  Maybe have the autorepeat rate vary.  Say, tick by 1s for the first 3, then by .6s for the next 3, then by .3s for the next 4.  When you start counting by the next digit, go back to the 1s repeat rate.  Do this for both up & down.  Using this scheme, on a 2-digit system, it would take 9.6s to get fro 0 to 50.  On a 3-digit system, it would take 15.6s to go from 0-510.  Probably better to be able to select which digit to control and set them individually.  With only 10 settings per digit, you wouldn't even need a decrement key.  You could even do it all with one button.  A long press moves the digit selection over (flash the selected digit) and a short press increments the selected digit.

30 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

I saw this Hackaday article earlier today elsewhere and my first thought was, "Why?" 

 

Maybe for the retro feel of having a floppy drive and swapping disks, but with the reliability, speed, convenience & less physical volume requirements of using an SD card?

 

I still think that there is a "coolness factor" in having the mini-1050, for the same reason that I bought a 1050 case for my SDmax from @Mr Robot

[xrbrevin]

it would be a great little device if, like you say it could do over disk 100 images

is there any way of contacting the designer to see if he can make a Mk II version?