Some questions before I plunk down $$$

[deathshadow]

I've been playing with the idea of building one of these -- I say build because the system it's going into, a Tandy 1000 HX, carries voltage on pins that are ground on a normal device -- even though all the even numbered pins are identical to a standard floppy interface. They put +5v on pins 3,5,7,9 and 11, with +12 on pins 29,31 and 33... Needless to say you plug in a normal floppy drive, bad things can happen since you'd be shorting +5 and +12 to ground.

The usual 'fix' is to butcher a cable, but I'd rather make a device that works properly from the start... Was thinking it might be a cute revision to the official board to throw two sets of jumpers on there that switch those pins from ground to being wired to the appropriate voltage inputs. (I suppose only the +5 really matters, +12 could/should be left disconnected)

In any case, I had some questions:

1) The Tandy 1K's only support 250 and 300kbit speed, and so can't use high density drives -- it is possible with this device to make a 1.44 or even 2.88 image that runs at the lower bitrate?

2) What's the limit on sectors per track (if any)? Has anyone tried using non-standard parameters in DOS to try and get larger disk sizes? I was thinking if I could get it to support 256 tracks of 64 sectors per track, I could get the 16 meg maximum supported disk/partition size of the ROM DOS 2.11 using DRIVEPARM to set up the different disk format... Also, it says 255 track limit -- we sure that's not 256 counting from zero? Or is zero reserved for some other internal use? (Might be nice if it used more than a byte to count tracks -- since old DOS can go to 999)

3) The 'automount last floppy' option -- can that be set manually from the config file BEFORE you try to use it? Does that only automount the first 'drive', or will it remember both? Ideally I'd like to have a 720k image on "drive 0" that has the DOS 2.11 utility disk and sets driveparams on B: to the above mentioned 256/64 format... (the Tandy ROM will read config.sys off drive 0 during ROM boot) -- once booted B would then be available as a 16 meg "floppy".

After all, if we are going to fake having a floppy, why not fake a giant one?

Which would be nice since getting a zip drive or hard drive working in these particular models of Tandy 1K (I've actually got two HX and two EX here) is a pain in the ass given the lack of standard ISA slots... (Though the oddball plug is electrically compatible, there are... other issues like non-standard IRQ assignments) or even the partition limits of DOS 2.11 or DOS 3.3 (and with only 640k of RAM to work with, DOS 5+ is a really BAD idea)

4) Does the display output have a mode that shows what the current track/head/sector being worked on/with is? Just thinking it would be a nice feature.

5) Is the contact form over on Lotharek's site even working? I sent two messages on it about a week ago inquiring about getting just the preprogrammed Pic18, and still haven't heard back. I'd rather not spend extra for a circuit board I'm just going to pitch in the trash.

[pulkomandy]

255 track is the limit because track 255 is used to access the SD card directly for the 'host software' mode. On Atari ST, Amiga and Amstrad CPC you can use this to "mount" a floppy image.

The trackand sector can be seen on the LCD.

For the rest, I don't know

[Jeff]

1) The Tandy 1K's only support 250 and 300kbit speed, and so can't use high density drives -- it is possible with this device to make a 1.44 or even 2.88 image that runs at the lower bitrate?

Yes.

2) What's the limit on sectors per track (if any)? Has anyone tried using non-standard parameters in DOS to try and get larger disk sizes? I was thinking if I could get it to support 256 tracks of 64 sectors per track, I could get the 16 meg maximum supported disk/partition size of the ROM DOS 2.11 using DRIVEPARM to set up the different disk format... Also, it says 255 track limit -- we sure that's not 256 counting from zero? Or is zero reserved for some other internal use? (Might be nice if it used more than a byte to count tracks -- since old DOS can go to 999)

Yes. Try the windows software, you can create some <<big>> ms dos floppy.

3) The 'automount last floppy' option -- can that be set manually from the config file BEFORE you try to use it? Does that only automount the first 'drive', or will it remember both? Ideally I'd like to have a 720k image on "drive 0" that has the DOS 2.11 utility disk and sets driveparams on B: to the above mentioned 256/64 format... (the Tandy ROM will read config.sys off drive 0 during ROM boot) -- once booted B would then be available as a 16 meg "floppy".

A new firmware with some improvement on this side will be released soon.

After all, if we are going to fake having a floppy, why not fake a giant one?

Which would be nice since getting a zip drive or hard drive working in these particular models of Tandy 1K (I've actually got two HX and two EX here) is a pain in the ass given the lack of standard ISA slots... (Though the oddball plug is electrically compatible, there are... other issues like non-standard IRQ assignments) or even the partition limits of DOS 2.11 or DOS 3.3 (and with only 640k of RAM to work with, DOS 5+ is a really BAD idea)

If you have some programming talents , you can also code a small driver to use the floppy emulator as an Hard disk drive.
The SD HxC Floppy emulator feature a direct access mode. In this mode the host computer can access to all SDcard sectors (up to 32GB).
An Atari ST driver will be available soon.
More technicals infos in this file:
https://hxc2001.com/floppy_drive_emulat ... s_mode.pdf

4) Does the display output have a mode that shows what the current track/head/sector being worked on/with is? Just thinking it would be a nice feature.

This is the case by default.

5) Is the contact form over on Lotharek's site even working? I sent two messages on it about a week ago inquiring about getting just the preprogrammed Pic18, and still haven't heard back. I'd rather not spend extra for a circuit board I'm just going to pitch in the trash.

try by email.

[lotharek]

is working as far i know ...