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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2980 |
Looking for exotic disk drives, non-1541 clones
Hi,
i am looking for third-party C-64 5.25" serial bus disk drives that are exceptionally incompatible with existing fast loaders due to their not being 1541 clones. They come with very different ROM code, register and memory layout, peripheral ICs and even processors.
Specifically, these are
MSD SD-1 and SD-2
Digilog FD 2064 and 2064/2
Tecmate NPH-501C with a firmware reporting as "Century Planning Corp. CX-500"
If you have these or other such devices i am not aware of, please tell.
Willing to trade, but remote code testing and debug sessions are welcome, too.
Thanks! |
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Hoild
Registered: Apr 2005
Posts: 29 |
Quote: If those are clones, they should be rather compatible. Any say on that? :)
The BlueChip RFC501 was perfect with every fastloader so far.
Its clone, the BondWell, has died Teh Cap Death, dunno if the exploded power buffer cap totally killed it or still repairable.
Regarding the BlueChip RFC512, the 1571 clone, I am not sure, never bothered about using it with a C64 or 128, just storing it, BUT I recall it has a setup of interface chips (CIA/VIA) different from a real 1571. Will check it later. |
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2980 |
Turns out the firmware of HCL's Digilog FD 2064 is identical to the original 1541's ROM contents, while the FD 2064 dump i have here is an entirely different beast.
I vaguely remember i once read that there were some copyright issues with ROMs in 1541 clones, so could it be that HCL's drive is actually an OLDER, more compatible version, and that later revisions came with different firmware AND hardware changes that went along with it, reducing compatibility a lot?
Anybody know more? :) |
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HCL
Registered: Feb 2003
Posts: 728 |
Oh, interesting! As i said i always felt my drive is *quite* compatible, even though not 100%. ..and the reason why SAX don't work must be that the HW architecture is different.. Perhaps my SAX stores (A or X) instead of (A and X) :P. |
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2980 |
Quote: Oh, interesting! As i said i always felt my drive is *quite* compatible, even though not 100%. ..and the reason why SAX don't work must be that the HW architecture is different.. Perhaps my SAX stores (A or X) instead of (A and X) :P.
H Macaroni's Digilog snapshots suggest a Synertek SY6502 controller (http://www.classiccmp.org/cini/pdf/SYM/SYM1_REF05.pdf) rather than our trusted MOS 6502.
I didn't know that some 6502 variants without 16-bit, power saving or other extensions do not support SAX, which i regarded as one of the few safe illegals. But then i didn't know of the SY6502 before this thread either. Must be a reason those opcodes're called illegal. :) |
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The MeatBall
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 367 |
Quote: TheRyk: No, haven't. Thanks for the tip.
Thunder.Bird: SFD-1001 is supported under certain conditions (via KERNAL fallback, and test tool needs IEEE-488 interface mapped to $8000, iirc). Tested in VICE but not the real thing yet.
WVL: At the moment, mainly academic. I won't waste much time on supporting those drives before the important ones (1551...) work fine.
Groepaz: Stop this bloat talk already. You know perfectly well that it can be configured down to a whopping resident 256 bytes in the minimal setup. And nobody cares how big the installer with the drive code is, really.
HCL: Yeah, we talked about it already. Good i never used SAX on the serial bus registers. :) Bad a few new ideas of mine rely on that.
Magervalp: Yes, i was thinking of emulation, too. The MSDs are the most interesting drives, with that Rockwell R6511q controller.
Groepaz: And yes, you have a point there.
H Macaroni: Thanks! Tell me when you've found it. The ROM dump i have here suggests that they have saved a VIA by using some discrete logic chips, but the thing didn't come with schematics by any chance? (Some hi-res pics of the insides would rock, though.) :)
Kill: I have a SFD-1001 and a IEEE interface (not sure it's mapped to $8000 tho), only issues is that it disables the IEC bus so how do I actually get the loader over on a SFD disk... |
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2980 |
Quoting The MeatBallonly issues is that it disables the IEC bus
Which IEEE488 interface is that? Does it have DIP switches? Are you sure you cannot use serial and parallel devices at the same time? |
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MagerValp
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1078 |
Quote: Quoting The MeatBallonly issues is that it disables the IEC bus
Which IEEE488 interface is that? Does it have DIP switches? Are you sure you cannot use serial and parallel devices at the same time?
The official C= interface does that. You can get around it by replacing the ROM, I think Uz made a patched one. |
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The MeatBall
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 367 |
Quote: Quoting The MeatBallonly issues is that it disables the IEC bus
Which IEEE488 interface is that? Does it have DIP switches? Are you sure you cannot use serial and parallel devices at the same time?
It's called C64 - IEEE by MSD, Inc.
Claims to be transparent and has a cartridge pass-thru, but I've not been able to use a cart with the interface, nor IEC devices. |
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Krill
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 2980 |
Hum, then ZoomFloppy with IEEE-488 interface is currently the only option i see to get data onto an SFD disk. |
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Exile
Registered: Dec 2002
Posts: 58 |
Willing to test the following
- Blue chip
- blue chip 128
- enhancer
- oceanic 501c
- dec (1541 clone)
- MSD 2
- probably some other i don't remember
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