Generating 2.88 sector overlays with hxcfe vs gui

[pleonard]

I've encountered a difference in the behavior of the gui hxcfloppyemulator versus the command-line hxcfe, despite what I believe to be identical config.script / internal parameter settings.

Within the gui tool, loading the first track00.0.raw file of a 2.88mb "Extended-Density" correctly overlays the 36 sectors:

gui.jpg (116.82 KiB) Viewed 3397 times

But executing this command results in a kind or red-purple error overlay:

Code: Select all

hxcfe -script:config.script -finput:Mathematica_202_Disk1/track00.0.raw -foutput:Mathematica_202_Disk1.bmp -conv:BMP_DISK_IMAGE

cmd-resized.jpg (126.68 KiB) Viewed 3398 times

I'm not sure if there's a way to "force" an interpretation of the raw data according to IBM MFM?

[Jeff]

I've encountered a difference in the behavior of the gui hxcfloppyemulator versus the command-line hxcfe, despite what I believe to be identical config.script / internal parameter settings.

Within the gui tool, loading the first track00.0.raw file of a 2.88mb "Extended-Density" correctly overlays the 36 sectors:

gui.jpg

But executing this command results in a kind or red-purple error overlay:

Code: Select all

hxcfe -script:config.script -finput:Mathematica_202_Disk1/track00.0.raw -foutput:Mathematica_202_Disk1.bmp -conv:BMP_DISK_IMAGE

cmd-resized.jpg

I'm not sure if there's a way to "force" an interpretation of the raw data according to IBM MFM?

Is it the same disk ?

"-script:config.script" : this doesn't sound good. just copy the config file to the Mathematica_202_Disk1 folder.

[pleonard]

Thanks -- I'll see what I can do to run it on the exact same image and collect the logs. (Sounds like I should use the --verbose option?)

[pleonard]

Right, so I think I've learned a bit more (and been a bit more careful in testing).

It's not actually a case of hxcfe vs hxcfloppyemulator -- it's a case of both not being able to correctly overlay the colored track visualizsation on raw flux dumps from IBM MFM 2.88 disks.

Here is the overlay working correctly on both a 1.44 raw dump (top) and the img file generated from it (bottom):

144out.jpg (221.93 KiB) Viewed 213 times

Here is the overlay failing to generate on a 2.88 raw dump (top) but working on the img file generated from it (bottom)

288out.jpg (202.4 KiB) Viewed 213 times

I wonder if there's any parameter I can modfiy to adjust the sensitivity? Or perhaps it's a mismatch between what the program thinks an ED floppy is and what I have? (These are 'official' IBM ED disks...)

1992-10-01_IBM_PenPointOS_101_53G2353_2of3_2880k.jpg (85.73 KiB) Viewed 213 times

[Jeff]

Please share the stream.

[pleonard]

Sure, here we go:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YHlQA2 ... sp=sharing

[Jeff]

If you set the FLUXSTREAM_PLL_INITIAL_BITRATE variable to 1000000, the software is able to generate the correct cell stream.

But there is another catch : The MFM decoder don't decode the data areas because of the sector id / data id distance. Will see how to fix this.

Screenshot at 2025-08-29 09-11-16.jpg (206.51 KiB) Viewed 88 times

Screenshot at 2025-08-29 09-11-27.png (80.62 KiB) Viewed 88 times

[pleonard]

Thanks, very much appreciate your effort!

I have Sony 2.88 drives from both NeXT and IBM hardware, as well as commercially-mastered disks for both platforms, for testing.

I'm using a Greaseweazle F7 Lightning Plus as this has the high-speed USB required to accomodate the data rate from these drives.