Old user returning to TI/Geneve world with questions

[mvancopp]

Hello Everyone,

I am rejoining the TI world after being away for many years. I am in the middle of restoring a Geneve system and two TI systems. First I would like to thank shift838 and Bob Carmany for their service to the community and their help to me personally. I have ordered EPROMs from Bob to update various PEB cards and the Geneve boot. I currently have the Geneve (1.0 boot, v7.30 MDOS) running with an HFDC and Myarc RS232. I have resurrected three floppy drives (2-DSDD, and a 1.44). I purchased a Gotek floppy emulator and loaded the FlashFloppy software. I can read .DSK files (Ex: MDOS 7.30a.DSK) but I cannot write to the DSK file. Ex: I try and write to the MDOS 7.30a.DSK to put the "LOAD/SYS" file and I get a device error.

I will have many questions as I get the systems up and running and get back into the hardware arena and programming (I still need to find my copy of GenProg and hope it is still on readable floppies :-) ).

My first questions are:

1. Does MDOS still require LOAD/SYS. The 7.30 disks don't have this but it wouldn't boot without it.
2. Should I be able to write to the Gotek with a DSK file as the disk? (DSDD MDOS) or do I need to use the hfe file format to write?
3. It doesn't appear that the Gotek can be set as a HD 3.5 drive in the HFDC and read a DSDD disk. It appears to walk two tracks at once when stepping as you expect for a 40 track floppy. Is there away to use a per DSK file cfg to specify the geometry?

 

Thanks for any assistance you can offer!

Mark

[+9640News]

First thing, there is a Geneve topic for MDOS 7.30 so it would be better to use that topic for questions.  I have no problem responding here, but wanted to point that out.

 

OK, with MDOS 7.30 and the 2.0 Eprom, it will be SYSTEM-SYS and LOAD-SYS for the HFDC, not SYSTEM/SYS and LOAD/SYS.  Just wanted to point that out.  If you were not upgrading to a TIPI/PI setup, I would have stayed with the 1.0 eprom.  The 2.0 eprom just added ability for the IDE/SCSI/TIPI booting.  And in that case, you would have kept SYSTEM/SYS and LOAD/SYS as filenames.

 

As far as Gotek and use, someone else will need to respond to those questions.  Myself, I would not use the 1.44 MB option with floppies with the HFDC.  I would stay at 720K maximum.

 

Beery

 

[+Schmitzi]

 

For #3) I only remember my problems with Lotharek drives,

that - once selected and used i.e. a 360KB floppy.HFE -

I cannot select/switch to any other format in that drive # (i.e. 1.2MB), without rebooting the Geneve.

And vice versa. It seems to stuck (what does not sound so strange at all)

 

I´ve never tried that with a real floppy drive, but it´s on my list.

 

 

[mvancopp]

Thanks for the info @Schmitzi.

The inability to write to a dsk file with the Gotek/FlashFloppy appears to be a issue when used with HFDC. Both 360K and 720K dsk files read fine but cannot be written. MDOS (6.0 or 7.3) format completes and verifies but the contents are untouched (old files are still there untouched and working). If I connect a TI FDC on the Geneve then I can read and write the 180k dsk files and the 360k file fails to read or write (I do not yet have the 80 track mod installed). I have not gotten the 4A systems running yet to try the HFDC/Gotek there. The HFDC does work with 5.25" 90k-360k and 3.5" 1.44 (and lower) on the Geneve. I will hopefully get the 4As running soon.

 

Has anyone been successful in using and HFDC and a Gotek drive (dsk?, hfe, any file type)?

 

Thanks,

Mark

 

[+Ksarul]

9 hours ago, mvancopp said:

Thanks for the info @Schmitzi.

The inability to write to a dsk file with the Gotek/FlashFloppy appears to be a issue when used with HFDC. Both 360K and 720K dsk files read fine but cannot be written. MDOS (6.0 or 7.3) format completes and verifies but the contents are untouched (old files are still there untouched and working). If I connect a TI FDC on the Geneve then I can read and write the 180k dsk files and the 360k file fails to read or write (I do not yet have the 80 track mod installed). I have not gotten the 4A systems running yet to try the HFDC/Gotek there. The HFDC does work with 5.25" 90k-360k and 3.5" 1.44 (and lower) on the Geneve. I will hopefully get the 4As running soon.

 

Has anyone been successful in using and HFDC and a Gotek drive (dsk?, hfe, any file type)?

 

Thanks,

Mark

 

Actually, I have a Lotharek connected to an HFDC modified to work as a floppy-only controller in a TI. It too fails to write--although it reads fine. I thought the issue might have been a cabling issue that I haven't had time to look at as write wasn't super-high on my needs list, but your experiences tell me I might want to try a different controller just to see what happens there. Looks like I may need to dig out one of my spare controllers. . .