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a few DECmate II questions

a quick update: i remembered that i bought a greaseweazle a little while back, so i've been trying to use it with my RX50. problem: if i power the RX50 via the DECmate, it functions normally but the greaseweazle always returns "GetFluxStatus: No Index", regardless of what cables I use, which orientation, etc. if i power it via external molex PSU, the motors just spin until i pull the plug. so i really have two ways of getting this system up and running, i'm just having trouble getting either one working. i'll keep plugging away at it in between work stuff, appreciate any guidance :)

edit: according to HxC the IMG file that i am getting through my conversion is valid, but still will not boot. any thoughts? my ff.cfg and img.cfg are below.

Screenshot 2023-01-10 at 11.24.40 AM.png
Code: 
$ cat /mnt/ff.cfg
host = dec
image-on-startup = init
 
$ cat /mnt/img.cfg
[img]
cyls = 80
heads = 1
secs = 10
interleave = 2
bps = 512
id = 1
#rpm = 360
rpm = 300
rate = 250
mode = mfm
iam = no
 
Last edited:
hush said:
the conversion's where i'm getting stuck, unfortunately, but i've been plugging away at it for a bit trying to get it working.
Click to expand...
Some in this thread using IMD tools though going to real floppies.
https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/decmate-iii-floppy-disk-images.1217232/page-2

Also converted files here. The interleaving complicates things. See the readme. I'm not sure which version will work and if you will end up with correct interleave for good performance.

http://www.dbit.com/pub/pdp8/images/sector/
 
djg said:
Some in this thread using IMD tools though going to real floppies.
https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/decmate-iii-floppy-disk-images.1217232/page-2

Also converted files here. The interleaving complicates things. See the readme. I'm not sure which version will work and if you will end up with correct interleave for good performance.

http://www.dbit.com/pub/pdp8/images/sector/
Click to expand...
i did give those images a try, but they refused to boot as well. would a bad interleave value cause this, or should i start suspecting my gotek or floppy cable?
 
hush said:
i did give those images a try, but they refused to boot as well. would a bad interleave value cause this, or should i start suspecting my gotek or floppy cable?
Click to expand...
Posted wrong level.
http://www.dbit.com/pub/pdp8/images/

I would think one of the block or sector images should work.

I only have a HxC floppy emulator. Not sure if testing with it will get you any useful info to help you.
 
I have a GoTek but it does not have the FlashFloppy firmware on it. So it's kinda useless to me right not. I do not know how to make real floppies for
this machine, but I have a Decmate II also with a floppy drive. I have an old Gateway 2000 with a 1.2 5.25 floppy that I had hoped to use some day
to make real floppies. It is very dirty and needs a good cleaning before I would even try to use it. Hopefully you get this figured out.
 
i suspect my gotek may be acting up, none of the images that i am giving it will boot, so i am back to the greaseweazle as i may have better luck. i was able to get things cabled up in a way that makes the RX50 happy, but i'm once again having trouble with image formats. the GW's supported image types are here: https://github.com/keirf/Greaseweazle/wiki/Supported-Image-Types

the author of the GW and FF projects also provides a utility for converting and analyzing disk images at https://github.com/keirf/Disk-Utilities, i am using that as well. since the tool supports IMD input and IMG (purportedly "IBM MFM Raw Sector" format) output, i converted the teledisk image to IMD and then to IMG, and tried writing it to the RX50. however, i am prompted for a conversion:

Code: 
hush@shinwa ~ % gw write --drive 0 os278wc.img                            
** FATAL ERROR:
Sector image requires compatible format conversion
Compatible formats:
  acorn.dfs.ss
  acorn.dfs.ds
  acorn.adfs.160
  acorn.adfs.320
  acorn.adfs.640
  acorn.adfs.800
  acorn.adfs.1600
  atari.90
  atarist.360
  atarist.400
  atarist.440
  atarist.720
  atarist.800
  atarist.880
  commodore.1581
  akai.800
  akai.1600
  ensoniq.800
  ensoniq.1600
  ibm.180
  ibm.360
  ibm.720
  ibm.800
  ibm.1200
  ibm.1440
  ibm.1680
  ibm.dmf
  ibm.2880
  pc98.2d
  pc98.2dd
  pc98.2hd
  pc98.2hs
  sega.sf7000

since it seems to not like the sector image i gave it, and DSK is in the list of supported formats, i gave it the block image from the dbit archive as well. unfortunately...

Code: 
hush@shinwa ~ % disk-analyse OS278WC.DSK os278wc.img        
disk-analyse: OS278WC.DSK: Bad disk image
disk-analyse: Failed to probe input file: OS278WC.DSK

progress, but i'm still stuck on image formats. i must be misunderstanding something because it seems others have been able to get this working, but i'm not sure what they ended up feeding in.
 
some progress, converting TD0 -> IMD -> SCP seems to give me a writable image, but GW is still unhappy:

Code: 
hush@shinwa ~ % gw write --drive 0 os278wc.scp
Writing c=0-81:h=0-1
T0.0: Writing Track (Flux: 200.0ms period, 220.0 ms total, Terminate at index)
** FATAL ERROR:
Track0 signal absent after seek to cylinder 0
hush@shinwa ~ % gw read --drive 0 a.scp
Reading c=0-81:h=0-1 revs=3
Command Failed: Seek: Track 0 not found

the RX50 makes a sound, but it's just one long whirr no matter what operation i give it. is that expected, or is it possible my RX50 is gone?
 
unfortunately i only have the one RX50, so it looks like i'm back to gotek.
 
I played with my HxC. I think you can buy HxC firmware for Gotek if you can't get what you have working. I converted the sector image and it booted. I also converted the td0 file and it booted. The block file did not. Attached are my conversion parameters. Did waste some time because I pulled the cable slightly out of the motherboard socket plugging in my emulator. Wasn't happy until I pushed it back in.
 

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djg said:
I played with my HxC. I think you can buy HxC firmware for Gotek if you can't get what you have working. I converted the sector image and it booted. I also converted the td0 file and it booted. The block file did not. Attached are my conversion parameters. Did waste some time because I pulled the cable slightly out of the motherboard socket plugging in my emulator. Wasn't happy until I pushed it back in.
Click to expand...
you are a lifesaver, thank you so much for testing that for me! i flashed my gotek over to HxC and it was able to boot the sector image just fine, now i'm in OS/278! now to figure out floppy storage, since this DMII doesn't have a disk controller :)
 
djg said:
I played with my HxC. I think you can buy HxC firmware for Gotek if you can't get what you have working. I converted the sector image and it booted. I also converted the td0 file and it booted. The block file did not. Attached are my conversion parameters. Did waste some time because I pulled the cable slightly out of the motherboard socket plugging in my emulator. Wasn't happy until I pushed it back in.
Click to expand...
I am curious if that means that flashfloppy does not support the RX50 as advertised?
I would prefer an open source solution rather than a closed source one like HxC.
 
thunter0512 said:
I am curious if that means that flashfloppy does not support the RX50 as advertised?
I would prefer an open source solution rather than a closed source one like HxC.
Click to expand...
it should, and i'm going to try and work this out with the FF developer to see if it's something on their end. it's late here but i'll open a github issue in the morning.
 
quick update, i bought another pair of goteks as i was in need of them and flashed one over to the latest pre-release flashfloppy firmware to try and replicate this, and the HFE disk i exported from HxC per djg's instructions booted on the first try, so i am unsure what i was doing wrong originally. i suspect this would also work on the latest stable firmware as well but i have not tested, if RX50s don't work on 4.7a, give 3.38 a shot.
 
i'm trying to get settled into my OS/278 system, namely by formatting the second gotek i have installed for use as additional storage, but i can't seem to figure out how. i've determined that my drives live at RX50 and RX51 respectively, DIR RX50: shows me the contents of my system disk, DIR RX51: gives me "error reading input directory". neither the ZERO nor FORMAT commands seem to apply to an RX50, at least not based on my understanding, and it seems that OS/278 and OS/78 are different enough that the information i do have mentioning BUILD/BUILDX does not apply. has any OS/278 documentation been archived?
 
I had thought that OS/278 was basically a version of OS/8 with the non-CCL interface nerfed.

Based on that (mis?)understanding, I'd have tried "ZERO RX51:".

Vince
 
vrs42 said:
I had thought that OS/278 was basically a version of OS/8 with the non-CCL interface nerfed.

Based on that (mis?)understanding, I'd have tried "ZERO RX51:".

Vince
Click to expand...
that was my thinking as well, but i just get "output error". if i try the READ command which reads bad blocks on the device, it flags every block as bad.

my set up is fairly simple, i created an empty RX50 floppy image in HxC using djg's parameters and exported it to the gotek i'm using for extra storage, so in *theory* RX51 should have a blank floppy. the first gotek (system) is jumpered S0, second (data) is jumpered S1.
 
That sounds like hardware, but then you are well out of my depth.

What I'd do next is to try to set up RX51: as identically as possible at the hardware level, including a copy of the image I'm booting from. Then a DIR of RX51: should look just like the DIR of RX50:, and no writing should be required. Once that worked, I'd see where I stood.

Vince
 
I 2nd Vince's suggestion. That's the first thing I would try is to make an exact copy of RX50 as RX51 and see where it goes.
 
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