I am a complete newcomer to the world of Gotek; I found my way here because I was looking for a reasonably priced solid-state replacement for Apple II floppy drives; the US alternatives are too expensive, even with the dollar plunge. I am a software guy rather than hardware, so when I saw a locally made (UK) Apple II Gotek adaptor I started bought one and started investigating.
The seller mentioned using a HxC-flashed Gotek, but most Goteks for (re)sale have Flash Floppy installed, I guess because it is open source, however it only supported the HFE image format, which means an inconvenient conversion step, and HxC offers native Apple II disk formats instead. At present Jeff very kindly provides a few free HxC installation to private individuals, so I am literally free to give it a go. Reading the HxC website I found that Flash Floppy Goteks can be converted to HxC with just a USB stick, so I bought a FF Gotek, and got started.
As a newcomer to microcontroller products and Gotek, I found the website a little hard to navigate; loads of useful information, but no clear path for my journey from A (Flash Floppy Gotek) to B (HxC Gotek) but with help from Jeff I got there in the end, so I though I would submit this little HOWTO in the hope that others in the same situation find it useful.
So, I have a Flash Floppy Gotek (in my case with OLED and rotary controller) connected to my Apple IIe, and a spare USB stick. Where do I go from here>
First thing I need to do is replace the Flash Floppy firmware with the HxC bootloader. Flash Floppy automatically updates the firmware if you insert a USB stick which contains an update file image, this should be named FF_Gotek-*.upd or flashfloppy-*.upd depending on Gotek microcontroller, usually you will get a pair of these files and you can put both on the USB stick.
To get a copy of the HxC bootloader update I sent a blank email (no subject, no content): to activation at hxc2001.com and received within a few minutes and email with some explanatory information (read it!) and an attached zip archive containing the necessary firmware update files, and a README file.
Following the instructions, I copied the two *.upd files and the EXCHANGE.BIN file onto the USB stick, and inserted in into the (unpowered) Gotek. I then pressed and held both Gotek buttons whilst switching on the Apple. After a couple of seconds I released the buttons, and then removed the USB at the appropriate time.
I then inserted the USB stick in my computer, and sent another email to activation at hxc2001.com again with no subject, but with the EXCHANGE.BIN field copied from the USB stick. After a very few minutes I received an automated response with a new EXCHANGE.BIN file which I copied onto the USB, alongside the f*.upd files. Again following the README instructions, I inserted the USB stick into the Gotek and it finished the installation process.
From the start the text on the OLED had been upside down, but I flipped the Gotek to read it, and tried to remember where I had read a solution to the problem. I tracked it down to using the firmware customisation page: https://hxc2001.com/docs/gotek-floppy-e ... ation.html . On this page I checked through all the options, and for my case left everything untouched apart from 'Upside down screen' and 'Apple II emulation mode' (both ticked). Firmware generated, downloaded from email and copied to the USB stick; after deleting all existing *.upd files. I followed the firmware update page https://hxc2001.com/docs/gotek-floppy-e ... pdate.html and soon had the display orientation corrected.
After that, I copied some *.DSK images onto the USB stick, and was able to select and boot them. Wrote saved and loaded a BASIC hello world program, and I am a very happy bunny!
Thanks Jeff, and all the people who have contributed to the HxC, Flash Floppy and Gotek community!