Tempted by the HxC Floppy Emulator - quick advice?

[tjewell]

Hi all,

Well, I've got my Dragon 64 and a DOS cart, and am very tempted by this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SD-Floppy-Emu ... 309wt_1396

However, a few questions before I part with my £100 ...

1. I've never had a real drive plugged into my DOS cartridge, so I can't be sure if it works. I see the DOS rom okay, but I can't test beyond that. I read somewhere that these cartridges stop working over time and need calibrating. How would I do this? Bear in mind I'm not very technical, not at this level. How would I even know if this was needed (beyond the fact it didn't work)?

2. Where do I get the floppy cables from? are they standard?

3. Anyone come up with a nice solution to powering the emulator yet?

Many thanks in advance,

Tony

[zephyr]

The HxC Floppy Emulator has been discussed previously.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=255

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB__S8HuzOA

[tjewell]

Hi Zephyr, I was a good forum user and read that post before I posted, but it didn't actually answer my questions! It did mention the calibration issue, but I would love some more info on it (because I didn't really understand) - and there was a discussion on how to get power, in theory, but I was wondering if anyone had had success. And I still don't know about the cable!

Thanks! Tony.

[robcfg]

Hi Tjewell!

I got an HxC some time ago and I'm using it with a very old DragonDOS controller (the one actually pictured here in the archive), and I didn't have to calibrate anything even though the controller wasn't used for almost 20 years. Also, I think calibration is for physical drives because of the motors and belts, so it doesn't apply to the emulator. Correct me if I'm wrong.

The cable is a standard floppy cable with no twist. Usually PC floppy cables have a twist to distinguish between A and B drives, but, as you're going to use only one drive, you can use a standard PC floppy cable (the one with 3.5" and 5.25" connectors).

The power issue is quite simple to solve, any cheap 5v/12v external HDD power source with molex connector, like this one will do the trick.

And yes, for me the HxC works flawlessly with the Dragon.

[admin]

The calibration is only required if you need to change the WD2797 FDC - IE replacing one that has died...... Each WD2797 is ever so slightly different and there are (if I recall) two potential resistors on the circuit board that need to be adjusted to ensure the output waveforms match those expected by the floppy disk drives..... These will have been factory set for the installed WD2797.

To do the calibration you need the WD2797 datasheet (details the desired output) and an oscilloscope so you can view the wave form.... PRIME can provide more detailed instructions as we have only every had to do this once for the Dragon Alpha/Professional prototypes as they all had dead WD2797 FDCs in them.

If your DOS cart works, then everything else is standard...

[tjewell]

Thanks for your help eveyone!

Well, my HxC arrived today - I got the cased version from Lotharek, and it arrived just days after order (I had been warned it could take up to 8 weeks). I'll probably get a chance to mess with it over the weekend and I'll keep you all posted.

Tony.

[tjewell]

Just to keep you all posted - with the addition of a power supply and floppy cable from Maplins, my HxC is up and running. I'm amazed what a simple procedure that was - my only mistake was putting one of the ribbon cables on upside down. Now I'm off to download all the interesting looking disk images from the archive. Attached is a photo of the working system - with WIMP running in the background.

Thanks everyone for your help!

Tony.

Dragon 64 with an HxC floppy emulator

IMGP5697 (Custom).jpg (80.76 KiB) Viewed 4828 times

[drag0n]

Can you boot and run NitrOS9 from the HxC emulator?

[tjewell]

Yes, I have done that quite successfully - Nitros just thinks it has a normal floppy drive attached.

tj