The HxC Floppy Emulator Firmware Customization

Last update: 2024-08-19 08:06

Firmware base code version : v5.2.3.3a

Hardware modifications/extensions support

3 Digits 7 Segments screen support

2 Digits 7 Segments screen support

LCD support

Rotary Type Single step rotary No rotary / Disable Single step rotary Double step rotary Single step Blackberry trackball Double step Blackberry trackball Extra up / down buttons

Extra Select button

Buzzer

Misc / Default setup

Default Step sound setting on off

Default standby timeout 5s 30s 20s 10s 1s

Sound step volume 100% 75% 50% 25% 12% 6%

Default auto select delay 4 seconds No auto select 1 second 2 seconds 3 seconds 4 seconds 5 seconds 6 seconds 7 seconds 8 seconds 9 seconds 10 seconds 15 seconds 20 seconds

GUID Partition Table (GPT) support

Disk browser : USB media cache

Disk browser : Files sorting support

Disk browser : Restore the last folder position at power up or stick insertion

System Monitor support (Temperature and voltage monitor)

Serial Debug output (8N1 115200Baud)

The USB stick write swap file is a new feature currently under test.
This help Artery/AT32 Goteks with small internal RAM size (32KB vs 64KB) to have better reliability with big sectors,tracks and format write operations.

USB Stick write swap file support

Force the swap file activation

If you want to test the Gotek IO lines you can enable the following option.
The drive will automatically toggle all outputs and show you all inputs state.
See the release notes for more details.

IOs pins test mode

New AT32F435 Support

Experimental new ADF write method (if unsure keep it unchecked)

Reversed ribbon message timeout 10 seconds Disabled 2 seconds 5 seconds 10 seconds 20 seconds 40 seconds 60 seconds 1 hour

General screen setup

Default backlight standby timeout 20s 30s 10s 5s 2s Always OFF Always ON

Default text scroll speed Normal Fast Slow

Default characters per line 16 Characters 8 Characters 9 Characters 18 Characters 20 Characters 21 Characters 40 Characters

7 segments screen : display track position

OLED/LCD : Hide files extensions

OLED Screen setup

Here you can setup the OLED support : Change the I2C address, select the model, change the text font.

OLED support

OLED Model OLED 128x32 (No-name/diymore i2c 0x78) OLED 128x64 (Adafruit i2c 0x7A) OLED 128x64 (Noname SH1106 i2c 0x78) OLED 128x64 (Noname 2.42 inch i2c 0x78) OLED 128x32 (ZHONGJY_TECH 2.23 inch SSD1305 i2c 0x78) OLED 128x64 (Gotek SFR1M44-U100LQD screen i2c 0x78)

Upside down screen

Turn off oled screen when entering standby instead of dimming it.

Text font 6x13 font 8x12 font (xwindow) 8x16 font (xwindow) 8x32 font (xwindow) 8x16 font (Atari) 8x12 font (Dangen) 8x13 font (X_B) 14x30 font (HVdosbox) 8x8 font (DOS437 unknown) 10x20 font (8514oem) 12x23 font (NEWDOS Uwe Sieber) 12x24 font (SVGADOS Richard E Harvey) 12x27 font (HVDosBox Procon) 16x37 font (HVDosBox Procon) 25x57 font (HVDosBox Procon) 8x6 font 8x8 font (st) 8x16 font (unscii) 8x32 font (unscii) 8x12 font (VGA)

Minimum row alignment 8 pixels 16 pixels 24 pixels 32 pixels 40 pixels 48 pixels

Screen top margin No margin 8 pixels 16 pixels 24 pixels 32 pixels 40 pixels 48 pixels 56 pixels

Screen left margin No margin 1 pixel 2 pixels 3 pixels 4 pixels 5 pixels 6 pixels 7 pixels

Max number of text lines to display 2 lines 1 line

Default screen contrast 100% 75% 50% 25% 2%

Default screen background Black White

I2C bus speed 100 khz 400 khz

On screen display support (OSD overlay)

The HxC firmware for Gotek now support the On Screen Display !
You can now select images and see the drive status on the machine's screen without any additional software and at any moment
No need to have LCD/OLED anymore.

Basically you only need 2 wires and a resistor to connect the Gotek to the machine video signals : One wire is used for the CSYNC video signal (Composite Sync), the other wire for the red, green (prefered) or blue signal.
One resistor must be put in serie on the color signal between the gotek and the machine.
You can use a value between 220 and 470 ohms for the resistor

This was currently tested on Amiga 500, Amstrad CPC 6128 and Atari STE machines, but should work with any machines having a composite sync signal.

On machines without CSYNC signal available you can enable the additional input for the VSYNC signal.

Please check the manual/instructions for more details !

On screen display support (OSD overlay - PAL/SECAM/NTSC)

AT32F435 Compatibility (unchecked : STM32 Compatibility)

Embedded OSD file selector support

Additional VSYNC input at Gotek U8 Pin 1 (PB12) (If no CSYNC available)

CSYNC/HSYNC source pin PA14 Gotek "JTCK-SWCLK" pin PB14 Gotek U8 Pin 2

Active high HSYNC/CSYNC (Default : active low)

Video output on PA10 (UART RX)

Screen / resolution type 20x24 characters resolution - for PAL/SECAM/NTSC 40x24 characters resolution - for PAL/SECAM/NTSC 20x24 characters - for 640x480 VGA style resolution (31Khz hfrequency) 40x24 characters - for 640x480 VGA style resolution (31Khz hfrequency)

OSD Start line

Standby splash screen

Power up splash text Line 0

Power up splash text Line 1

Page 0 Line 0

Page 0 Line 1

Page 1 Line 0

Page 1 Line 1

Page 2 Line 0

Page 2 Line 1

Page 3 Line 0

Page 3 Line 1

Page 4 Line 0

Page 4 Line 1

Page 5 Line 0

Page 5 Line 1

Page 6 Line 0

Page 6 Line 1

Page 7 Line 0

Page 7 Line 1

7 segments display splash screen

First digit h 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A b C c d E F G H h i J K L M N o P Q r S t U v w X Y Z ° - _ Blank Seg a Seg b Seg c Seg d Seg e Seg f Seg g Seg e+f Seg b+c Seg a+g Seg d+g Seg a+d

Second digit X 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A b C c d E F G H h i J K L M N o P Q r S t U v w X Y Z ° - _ Blank Seg a Seg b Seg c Seg d Seg e Seg f Seg g Seg e+f Seg b+c Seg a+g Seg d+g Seg a+d

Third digit c 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A b C c d E F G H h i J K L M N o P Q r S t U v w X Y Z ° - _ Blank Seg a Seg b Seg c Seg d Seg e Seg f Seg g Seg e+f Seg b+c Seg a+g Seg d+g Seg a+d

File image formats support

ADF Amiga file support

Amstrad/Spectrum file support

HxC Floppy Emulator HFE file support

TI99 4/a DSK file support

Generic RAW Images file support (DSK,IMG,OUT..)

Raw file image family preference No preference Amiga Acorn Atari ST IBM PC AT/XT Camputer Lynx Commodore 1581 Thomson x68000 SAMCOUPE MSX Spectrum Akai Casio Emax Ensoniq GeneralMusic Korg Ensoniq ASR10 Opus Discovery TI99/4A Robox RC9400 Kawai Yamaha QX3 User defined format Roland BAS E-mu

User defined raw file image/disk format

You can define here a raw file image/disk geometry.

Number of track

Number of sectors

Number of sides 2 Sides 1 Side

Encoding MFM (DD/HD) FM (SD) MFM (DD/HD) Amiga MFM

Sector size 512 Bytes 128 Bytes 256 Bytes 512 Bytes 1024 Bytes 2048 Bytes 4096 Bytes

Track first sector ID

Inter-sectors spacing (GAP3)

Sectors interleaving

Sectors skew per track

Sectors skew per side

Bitrate (bitcells) 250 Kb/s 125 Kb/s 250 Kb/s 300 Kb/s 500 Kb/s 1000 Kb/s

RPM 300 RPM 360 RPM 600 RPM 150 RPM

Floppy Interface mode Generic SHUGART Generic IBMPC_DD Generic IBMPC_HD Generic IBMPC_DD_HD S950_DD S950_HD S950_DD_HD EMU_SHUGART ATARIST_DD ATARIST_HD AMIGA_DD AMIGA_HD CPC_DD MSX2_DD Interface disabled

Exchange Side 0 and Side 1

Sectors Side ID is always 0

Sides are not interleaved in the file

Side 1 tracks file opposite order

File extension

Ignore the file size

Direct access / host control support

The host machine can send special commands and access to the whole flash media through the floppy interface thanks to the direct access protocol.
This support is needed by the Atari ST / Amiga / Amstrad CPC HxC File selector and others specials tools.
Note : If needed, follow this link to download the direct access protocol documentation.

Direct access support

Firmware identification

FW Version ID

Track access

Default number of sectors

Sector size 512 Bytes 128 Bytes 256 Bytes 512 Bytes

Encoding MFM (DD/HD) FM (SD)

Bitrate (in kb/s)

Inter-sectors spacing (GAP3)

Sectors interleaving

Named write sector support (Amiga)

USB Stick folder to FAT/DOS virtual floppy auto-mount

This feature allows you to directly put your files in a stick's folder and mount this folder as a FAT/DOS floppy disk.
See the release notes or the manual for the usage details.

USB Stick folder to FAT/DOS virtual floppy auto-mount support

Empty FAT/DOS image path

Mounted FAT/DOS image path

USB Stick Image-less mode

The HxC firmware is able to emulate floppy disks directly from the USB Stick partitions.
This mean that you can easily exchange files without the need of any floppy image
with machines supporting the common DOS/FAT file system.
You need to prepare the USB stick to use the Image-less mode.
Some USB stick files are available in the Image_Less_Mode folder in the firmware archive.
You can write them with rufus or dd or any other tool.
When this feature is enabled, the firmware is also compatible with the original Gotek "Batch Manage Tool" software.
Please have a look to the documentation for more details !

USB Stick Image-less mode support

USB Stick format function support

USB Stick format function built-in disk image HD 1.44MB DOS Disk HD 1.2MB DOS Disk DD 720KB DOS Disk

Config user interface

Here you can disable the embedded configuration functions (config files/menus/...).
This may help to reduce the risk of user’s mistake in some critical/sensitive environments.

Embedded Menu support

7-segments screen Gotek embedded menu support

HXCSDFE.CFG support

7-segments screen Gotek : Press both buttons to eject/insert the current selected disk

HXCSDFE CFG

EEPROM emulation

Show current folder (WIP!)

Autoboot/File selector file name

STARTUPA Image

STARTUPB Image

User Interface mode From config file Normal / Free browsing mode Indexed mode Autoboot/File selector mode

Indexed mode filename prefix

Note : You can specify a full path in the above file names and prefix if you want to change
the configurations files and indexed images place on the usb stick.
examples : /configurations/HXCSDFE.CFG, /floppyimages/DSKA****, ...

Floppy interface

The non-gated mode is a workaround to the software based floppy bus gating.
When enabled the output lines are driven permanently.
This fix issues with some machines (Korg Trinity and some others).
Note: This mode shouldn’t be enabled for machines with more than one floppy drive unit.

Non gated mode

Default Write protect Write allowed Write protected

Head settling time Auto 0 ms 5 ms 10 ms 16 ms 20 ms 25 ms 30 ms

Motor ON - Ready delay 400 ms 0 ms 50 ms 100 ms 200 ms 250 ms 300 ms 400 ms 500 ms

Motor input line Always ON Floppy Select line J7 Pin 1 Always OFF

Ignore SIDE input signal

Floppy Interface mode Auto Generic SHUGART Generic IBMPC_DD Generic IBMPC_HD Generic IBMPC_DD_HD S950_DD S950_HD S950_DD_HD EMU_SHUGART ATARIST_DD ATARIST_HD AMIGA_DD AMIGA_HD CPC_DD MSX2_DD Advanced pins configuration Interface disabled

Advanced pin 2 configuration Auto Low state High state nReady Ready nDensity Density nDiskChanged (mode 1 : DSKCHG Clear -> Step only) DiskChanged (mode 1 : DSKCHG Clear -> Step only) nDiskChanged (mode 2 : DSKCHG Clear -> Step + timer) DiskChanged (mode 2 : DSKCHG Clear -> Step + timer) nDiskChanged (mode 3 : DSKCHG Clear -> timer) DiskChanged (mode 3 : DSKCHG Clear -> timer) nDiskChanged (mode 4 : DSKCHG Clear -> pin 1 reset) DiskChanged (mode 4 : DSKCHG Clear -> pin 1 reset)

Advanced pin 34 configuration Auto Low state High state nReady Ready nDensity Density nDiskChanged (mode 1 : DSKCHG Clear -> Step only) DiskChanged (mode 1 : DSKCHG Clear -> Step only) nDiskChanged (mode 2 : DSKCHG Clear -> Step + timer) DiskChanged (mode 2 : DSKCHG Clear -> Step + timer) nDiskChanged (mode 3 : DSKCHG Clear -> timer) DiskChanged (mode 3 : DSKCHG Clear -> timer) nDiskChanged (mode 4 : DSKCHG Clear -> pin 1 reset) DiskChanged (mode 4 : DSKCHG Clear -> pin 1 reset)

Enable Reset DC (Diskchange) input signal (pin PA14)

Bitrate override Auto 250kbits/s 300kbits/s 500kbits/s 1Mbits/s

Read emulation pipeline buffer size Normal Short Long Very short (Quickdisk only)

HFE blind write mode support (don't check/ignore sync words)

GCR encoding method write mode support

QuickDisk Support

When the QuickDisk mode is enabled, the Gotek become a QuickDisk floppy drive emulator.

Please note that in this mode all normal floppy file images format support are irrevelant and are disabled. Only a specific QuickDisk image format is currently supported.

In this mode the Floppy port pinout change.

Please check the manual for more details !

QD / QuickDisk emulation mode

Roland QuickDisk drive mode

Only set the following options if needed by your machine:

Disable write gate filter

Long write splice emulation

Apple II Support

Apple II emulation mode

Build order

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