BMOW Floppy Drive Emu Issue

[ColecoGamer]

I can’t decide if the Floppy Drive Emu I purchased from BMOW is defective or not.

 

I’ve read through the User Guide online.

 

First, I select the emu type (i.e. 3.5 or 5.25 floppy; I turn off the Apple IIC; and then when I restart the computer (and select a disk image appropriate for the emulation I selected), the Floppy Disc Emu says, ‘Read’ but the image never boots. 
 

I even restarted the computer from a cold boot thinking this would help, but I get a ‘Check Disk Drive’ message on-screen.

 

I can’t figure out what I am doing wrong, unless my Apple IIc’s external floppy drive port is bad. I hope not!

 

I was hoping someone who owns one of these devices could chime in with some advice.

 

Thank you for reading my post, and answering if you do!

 

Edited April 23, 2022 by ColecoGamer
Added photos and updated title

[+remowilliams]

IIc isn't going to boot from an external floppy like that as far as I'm aware, unless you've done modifications.

 

I have one of these for my IIc to external boot the Floppy Emu.

 

https://www.bigmessowires.com/switcher/

 

 

[ColecoGamer]

2 minutes ago, remowilliams said:

IIc isn't going to boot from an external floppy like that as far as I'm aware, unless you've done modifications.

 

I have one of these for my IIc to external boot the Floppy Emu.

 

https://www.bigmessowires.com/switcher/

 

 

This would explain it! Thank you @remowilliams!

[magnusfalkirk]

I have an Apple IIc+ and according to the FloppyEMU documenatatio here:

 

This quirk of the Apple IIc only applies to 5.25 inch floppy emulation mode. When using Floppy Emu in Smartport or Unidisk mode with the Apple IIc, use the external 19-pin disk port.

 

So theoretically I shouldn't have any trouble. But I do, I boot gthe IIc+ and it tells me it can't find a disk to boot, even though I have the FloppyEMU set to Smartport Mode. Any ideas?

[nick3092]

3 hours ago, magnusfalkirk said:

I have an Apple IIc+ and according to the FloppyEMU documenatatio here:

 

This quirk of the Apple IIc only applies to 5.25 inch floppy emulation mode. When using Floppy Emu in Smartport or Unidisk mode with the Apple IIc, use the external 19-pin disk port.

 

So theoretically I shouldn't have any trouble. But I do, I boot gthe IIc+ and it tells me it can't find a disk to boot, even though I have the FloppyEMU set to Smartport Mode. Any ideas?

AFAIK, the IIc+ does a slot scan similar to the way the IIgs does, except I think it looks at slot 5 first, as where the IIgs looks at 6 first. If the built in slot 5 drive 1 doesn't have a disk, it should start checking the externals.  But I wonder if it acts the same way as the IIgs, where it sees the 3.5 drive and won't boot smartport without some trickery.

 

If you have a 3.5 hooked up to a IIgs and you want to boot off the FE smartport, you have to use the option on the FE called something like Smartport Unit 2. This causes the FE to actually briefly appear as a slot 6 5.25 drive so it can intercept the boot process, and then switches over to smartport mode.

 

I would suggest trying that mode to see if it boots the smartdrive on the IIc+. I know on a regular IIc the Unit 2 mode is not needed, but then again it doesn't have a built in slot 5 drive 1 interfering. 

[magnusfalkirk]

Update:

 

Downloaded and installed latest version of the firmware to see if that would fix the problem. No dice. I did discover that if I select Apple II 3.5 Floppy the FloppyEMU will show a screen saying "Select Disk". At that point I can select a 3.5 disk image, reboot the computer and it will load the disk. So the problem seems to be that when I select Smartport there is no "Select Disk" option. I think I'll contact Big Mess O' Wires and see what I hear from them.

[nick3092]

1 hour ago, magnusfalkirk said:

Update:

 

Downloaded and installed latest version of the firmware to see if that would fix the problem. No dice. I did discover that if I select Apple II 3.5 Floppy the FloppyEMU will show a screen saying "Select Disk". At that point I can select a 3.5 disk image, reboot the computer and it will load the disk. So the problem seems to be that when I select Smartport there is no "Select Disk" option. I think I'll contact Big Mess O' Wires and see what I hear from them.

There is no select disk option for smartport hard drives. Read the manual for how to name the hard drive files. 

[magnusfalkirk]

I did read it and named the hard drive images appropriately. The drive images show up on the lcd display for the FloppyEMU after I have selected Smartport, but the IIc+ still says "Unable to find a bootable disk online". Tomorrow I'll contact Big Mess O' Wires and see what he has to say.

[nick3092]

6 hours ago, magnusfalkirk said:

I did read it and named the hard drive images appropriately. The drive images show up on the lcd display for the FloppyEMU after I have selected Smartport, but the IIc+ still says "Unable to find a bootable disk online". Tomorrow I'll contact Big Mess O' Wires and see what he has to say.

Did you try both the Smartport and Smartport Unit 2 options as I suggested?  What hard drive file are you trying to boot?  Testing with a known good one like Total Replay from the Internet Archive would be a good test.

[magnusfalkirk]

2 hours ago, nick3092 said:

Did you try both the Smartport and Smartport Unit 2 options as I suggested?  What hard drive file are you trying to boot?  Testing with a known good one like Total Replay from the Internet Archive would be a good test.

I did try both Smartport and Smartport Unit 2, with two different copies of Total Replay, renamed smart0.po and smart1.hdv. Neither of them booted, though the computer did say "Rebooting from Smartport Unit 2" and then crashed with this line on the screen: 08DB- M=00 A=FF X=00 Y=00 P=85 S=F9. Any ideas?

[nick3092]

17 minutes ago, magnusfalkirk said:

I did try both Smartport and Smartport Unit 2, with two different copies of Total Replay, renamed smart0.po and smart1.hdv. Neither of them booted, though the computer did say "Rebooting from Smartport Unit 2" and then crashed with this line on the screen: 08DB- M=00 A=FF X=00 Y=00 P=85 S=F9. Any ideas?

I found a video the Nox Archaist guys put together on using a FE in smartport with a IIc+. Apparently there is a timing issue between the devices that won't let it boot from a cold power on. Probably because the FE is still initializing when the IIc+ is scanning.

 

Basically, it should be in regular smartport mode (not unit 2) and you have to do an OA-Ctrl-Reset after you get the "no bootable devices message".  If you jump to 5:06 in the video below, they show them booting it this way.

 

And I don't now if it matters, but I always name my files like "smart0-Total Replay.hdv". Not sure if it's required, but then I know what they are. Then you can leave the "smart-" in front of the names and just remove the number to quickly swap images. 

 

 

[magnusfalkirk]

Thank you for that, especially the link to the video! Watching that and then doing the three finger salute, and continuing to hold down the OA and control until something showed up on the IIc+ screen, got me into Total Replay. Now I can use the Floppy EMU to run the old Apple II games I have on the IIc+! It's nice to have an emulator to run the games on my Mac, Virtual II is my emulator of choice, but it's nice to finally be able to run them on the real hardware. Again thank you very much. By the way how did you find the Nox Archaist video? I never would have thought to go to their website even though I bought a copy of Nox Archaist.

[nick3092]

3 minutes ago, magnusfalkirk said:

Thank you for that, especially the link to the video! Watching that and then doing the three finger salute, and continuing to hold down the OA and control until something showed up on the IIc+ screen, got me into Total Replay. Now I can use the Floppy EMU to run the old Apple II games I have on the IIc+! It's nice to have an emulator to run the games on my Mac, Virtual II is my emulator of choice, but it's nice to finally be able to run them on the real hardware. Again thank you very much. By the way how did you find the Nox Archaist video? I never would have thought to go to their website even though I bought a copy of Nox Archaist.

Glad you got it sorted out. I'm on their discord server and I know in the past people with IIc+'s had confirmed it working with a FE. So I just did a search there to see if any of them mentioned having to do anything special. And in the process found that video.

[ColecoGamer]

On 4/26/2022 at 12:43 PM, nick3092 said:

Glad you got it sorted out. I'm on their discord server and I know in the past people with IIc+'s had confirmed it working with a FE. So I just did a search there to see if any of them mentioned having to do anything special. And in the process found that video.

Thank you! I was starting to worry that I wasted my money on the FE!

[nick3092]

34 minutes ago, ColecoGamer said:

Thank you! I was starting to worry that I wasted my money on the FE!

Well, the situation we addressed was specific to the IIc+ And didn't affect the IIc.  And really probably should have been it's own topic as it didn't apply to your situation.

 

The FE is a very solid device. I've only encountered 2 disk images out of a whole lot of images that don't work right with it. I've reported them to Steve. But lately he seems more interested in amateur radio than looking into these issues. His product, his call. It still works in 99.99% of the cases.