osborne 1

[mrdoornbos]

Formatting floppy works now by cut the signal 34 of the ribbon.

I want to know if this floppy adapter of the url is working with the original HXC?

https://github.com/WayneVisser/Osborne1FloppyAdapter

yes this should work without issue.

I have this adapter. I feel like I'm pretty close. I select an image, hit return and it seeks to track 0, then track 1 and stops.

[mowgshopping]

I have a problem with an early Osborne 1, which seems to see and select the HxC software Gotek drive but won't read anything from it. I have set it in the menu to the "Shugart" type, but made no other changes (everything else is defaults). I'm using the hardware converter previously mentioned to pull the power off the floppy cable but have made no hardware changes.

I have an original Osborne 1 drive connected as drive B on the chain, and both drives are selected at power on briefly as normal so it looks like the HxC Gotek is correctly set up as drive A.

When I press Return to try to boot the machine from the monitor, the letters "RA" appear to the left of the track indicator but the track indicator doesn't move at all. The green select light on the Gotek comes on, but the Osborne just lists "READ ERROR" on the output.

Is there a guide as to what the letters mean, and does anyone have a standard configuration for an HxC enabled Gotek for the Osborne 1? Is the R reading, and the A is drive A?

I tried writing a HXC configuration file to the USB drive, and I explicitly turned off drive B emulation and set the types to Generic Shugart but no change, it still behaves as indicated above.

Is there a way to manipulate pins 2 and 34, like there is with the FlashFloppy configuration file?

Thanks, Mowgli

[Jeff]

Yes you can change the pin 2 & 34 settings in the embedded menu (remove the stick and press both button to under it)
and you can also use the hxc software to edit the cfg file.

but i recommend you to reset the settings to the default value, use the default config file (shugart mode) and check this :


viewtopic.php?p=11605#p11605

Support directly done on the guenner's Osborne 1 at the Classic Computing 2015 .
So to make it works, just don't connect the SIDE signals. For some reasons this signals coming from the Osborne is switching randomly. Since this machine seems to support only single-sided drive, don't connect this signal is not an issue.



(Note : Double step setting is NOT needed with this machine)

I had to disconnect the SIDE signal.

But you can just disable the SIDE signal input in the firmware on this page :

In the "Floppy interface" section, set "Ignore SIDE input signal" then request the new firmware,

https://hxc2001.com/custom_fw/

once received, update the firmware (follow the email instructions)

(R is Reading, 'A' is drive A - the standard / non-gotek HxC is able to emulate 2 drives, that's why the 'A' is displayed ...)

[mowgshopping]

OK, this becomes quite confusing, since it depends WHICH Osborne 1 you have. So far, I have tested 3 that I have :

Serial number 005xx - Fails to read (HxC firmware)
Serial number 13xxx - Fails to read (FF firmware) (actually has a motherboard from a machine with serial 20xxx, so at least that range fails)
Serial number 200xxx - Happily succeeds to boot from CPMSYS.HFE image (with FlashFloppy v3.42)

So this signals issue appears to only affect earlier Osborne 1s. The one with the 500 serial number has only a Rev. C motherboard I think, so it's quite early in the production cycle. The 20xxx machine had maybe a Rev. H motherboard, but I'm not sure - they printed less things on the motherboard by that time, so it's hard to know if that was the whole assembly or just the board revision. I did not note anything when I did the one with the 200K serial number, so no idea what motherboard that is.

Anyhow, using the website that's quite a complicated set of changing values, in part because I used a default Firmware Image and it doesn't really have a button saying "start with this default" so you can know how you're changing the images. But I suppose I can make guesses and just see what happens.

Regarding pins 2 & 34, I see where you can set them to something, but there doesn't appear to be a setting for "ignore" or N/C. You just get to shuffle around what the pins mean, essentially - they seem to always mean something. As long as the Osborne's floppy controller isn't sending those out in some way, then I guess it won't matter. But being able to disable the entirely would be a nice option.

- Mowgli

[mowgshopping]

So, at least basic testing of checking the "ignore side selection" box with a custom firmware did not fix the problem so far. And I'm not seeing a way to actually disable pins 2 and 34 on the HxC Gotek, though I suppose I could just pull them low and hope that the controller ignores that.

- Mowgli

[Jeff]

Regarding pins 2 & 34, I see where you can set them to something, but there doesn't appear to be a setting for "ignore" or N/C. You just get to shuffle around what the pins mean, essentially - they seem to always mean something. As long as the Osborne's floppy controller isn't sending those out in some way, then I guess it won't matter. But being able to disable the entirely would be a nice option.

- Mowgli

"High" state is equivalent to disable them. This is an open collector bus.