Can a USB floppy emulator be used with a +3?

Your Spec-chum

Hi Spec-chums.

Don't know if this has been discussed before but I was wondering if one of these could be used on a +3?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3-5-1-44MB-USB-SSD-FLOPPY-DRIVE-EMULATOR-E100-0-Black-color-3-digits-Version-/231004353057?pt=UK_Computing_FloppyDiskDrives_SM&hash=item35c8eeb221

I was thinking to prepare one of these with +3 disk images on my pc first, then connect it to my +3 to replace my 3.5' drive I have connected to drive B.

rune

Are there any USB expansion cards available?

I think the host computer also needs to know about the USB drives have drivers loaded. So my gut feeling is that they wouldn't, but I'd be happy to be proved wrong.

XorA

There is a thread on this on CPC forums.

http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/amstrad-cpc-hardware/%273-5-inch-usb-ssd-floppy-drive-emulator-1-44mb%27-could-this-be-a-poor-man%27s-hxc/

Your Spec-chum

The device in question replace's a standard 3.5' floppy drive on PC's. It has the standard 4 pin power, and 34 pin ide connector. The USB socket on the front allows you to plug-in a USB pen drive which then acts as the disks. These are also used in other device's such as sound synth's.

Since I'm using a 3.5' floppy drive on my +3, I was wondering if I could use this instead once prepared on a PC with +3 disk images. I'm also aware of the HXC floppy emulators. But was wondering if this was a cheaper solution.

Your Spec-chum

XorA wrote: »

There is a thread on this on CPC forums.

http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/amstrad-cpc-hardware/%273-5-inch-usb-ssd-floppy-drive-emulator-1-44mb%27-could-this-be-a-poor-man%27s-hxc/

Thanks for the heads-up. Just reading now.

chinnyhill10

XorA wrote: »

There is a thread on this on CPC forums.

http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/amstrad-cpc-hardware/%273-5-inch-usb-ssd-floppy-drive-emulator-1-44mb%27-could-this-be-a-poor-man%27s-hxc/

I was going to say, the CPC users are all over that.

Personally I prefer the HxC. Works out of the box across multiple machines. Mine is shared between my +3 and 6128.

rune

XorA wrote: »

There is a thread on this on CPC forums.

http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/amstrad-cpc-hardware/%273-5-inch-usb-ssd-floppy-drive-emulator-1-44mb%27-could-this-be-a-poor-man%27s-hxc/

There's a nice link about reflashing it for use with an Amiga. Very interesting.

Your Spec-chum

Yep I see now it's not compatible 'out-of-the-box' due to the sector encoding scheme. I'm sure there will be firmware to flash them in the future, I see it's been done on the Amiga. Possible future project for me.

I'm aware of the HXC solutions being less hassle, ready to go, and can be used with many retro computers.

John Elliott

Your Spec-chum wrote: »

Yep I see now it's not compatible 'out-of-the-box' due to the sector encoding scheme.

+3DOS is a bit more flexible about sector numbering than AMSDOS. If the USB gadget can emulate a 720k floppy disc, then the PCW 720k format should work fine. Or PCW 180k format, for that matter, if it was 'expanded' to 360k like this:

4608 bytes: Track 0
4608 bytes: all 0xE5
4608 bytes: Track 1
4608 bytes: all 0xE5
etc.

But it wouldn't work with any sort of copy-protection scheme.

1024MAK

I have a floppy emulator. The one I have only supports a Microsoft HD 1.44MB format (as supplied).

I have never tried it on a Spectrum, but did try it on an Atari ST and on a real "IBM" "compatible" PC with real floppy interface. It would not work with DD 720k formats.


Mark

RobeeeJay

Here is a floppy emulator that is designed for the Amiga and ST:
http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/

Might be a worthwhile starting point, as they are both 720k formats.

Luzie

1024MAK wrote: »

I have a floppy emulator. The one I have only supports a Microsoft HD 1.44MB format (as supplied).

I have never tried it on a Spectrum, but did try it on an Atari ST and on a real "IBM" "compatible" PC with real floppy interface. It would not work with DD 720k formats.

Mark

There are some versions of this "Hardware Floppy Emulators". Some have a display, some of them have not.
Some can store up to 100 Floppies and newer ones up to 999 or 1000 Images.
Here?s a newer "updated version" one from ebay Germany:

www.ebay.de/itm/400449951147

There?s even a version which has NO Floppy (Shugart) Connector (only USB to PC) (here called: UFA1M44-100).
And some doesn?t support settings jumpers for Master-Slave-Floppy-IDs: SFR1M44-U100K (=Black Housing) instead of the grey one: SFR1M44-U100

The description only shows: Capacity: 1,44 2HD Cylinders: 80 Tracks / 18 Sectors per Track. 512 Data Bytes per Sector.
So no DD / Double Density Compatibility is listed.

I?ll have a try on a Beta-Disk-Interface v4 when my Floppy Emulator arrives...

Regards,

Bernhard aka Luzie