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Need help with pinout to Gotek for Apple II

VERAULT

VERAULT

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Joined
Jan 30, 2012
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Location
Connecticut, USA
So I followed this pinout to make a cable to connect my HXC modified gotek to an apple II: https://hxc2001.com/docs/gotek-floppy-emulator-hxc-firmware/pages/apple.html

I was a bit confused about the VSS so I ended up doing this:
VSS
Apple 20 pin header Pin1 to Gotek Pin 21
Apple 20 pin header Pin3 to Gotek Pin 23
Apple 20 pin header Pin7 to Gotek Pin 33
Apple 20 pin header Pin5 to Gotek Pin 27 AND Gotek Power input ground pin (closest to 5v input pin)

I finished building the cable. The gotek comes on but cannot see the usb stick. I tried the usb stick in my pc and its fried 🤬. I checked the power coming in to the gotek power input via the cable I made and its gets 12V instead of 5v.

What am I missing here? Can someone please help me out on this? Unless I made a glaring mistake I followed the pinout on the website. I left a couple posts on the HXC website but noone had replied.


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I solved it.. I went over this thing 3 times and found issues. (because I was tired and frustrated... two very good reasons to walk away from something and I didnt).

The 5v was supposed to come from Apple 20 pin header Pin1 to Gotek Pin 11 but I had it hooked up to pin 15 (12V)!!!

So I remedied that messup..... IT was getting the right voltage but still wasnt reading my USB stick..

REMOVE THE JA JUMPER!!!

And its now working. I tell you we have made leaps and bounds in the past 5 years on disk imaging and emulation. A gotek, a kryoflux/Greaseweazle.. You can do just about anything now!

Strange thing though, the HXC website says you can use .PO disk images (but you need to convert them to .HFE format using the HXC software). It wont allow me to convert .PO files so Im not sure about that. .DSK files convert fine and thats what I have been using.
 
Last edited:
HoJoPo said:
Ciderpress should be able to convert .po (ProDOS order) to .dsk (raw disk order). https://a2ciderpress.com/index.htm
Click to expand...
So I tried the Ciderpress route out. Turns out the file format wasnt the issue. I guess the current firmware is only support 5.25" disk images although it doesnt clearly state that anywhere.

The HXC software is able to open any 5.25" PO disk images as well as NIB and DO disk images and convert them to HFE and the disk emulator can use them. It cant seem to do any 720/800KB disk images of any type and it doesnt seem to handle WOZ images either. Hopefully they can add that support down the road. I am happy with just 5.25" disk images for now, its a good start.
 
800k 3.5 inch floppy support would be a different emulation software than the 5.25 inch Disk ][ interface, it would be Smartport for the Unidisk 3.5 (Liron controller) or the native 800k 3.5 drive like the IIgs and //c+ use.
 
HoJoPo said:
800k 3.5 inch floppy support would be a different emulation software than the 5.25 inch Disk ][ interface, it would be Smartport for the Unidisk 3.5 (Liron controller) or the native 800k 3.5 drive like the IIgs and //c+ use.
Click to expand...
I was wondering about that. Would it be possible to work with say a SOFT SP card installed adding smartport ROM support to the system? Again the HXC site makes no mention of it other than they are still developing it.
 
My main GoTek is actually in a roland synth/sequencer (MT-100) as a replacement for the god awful QuickDisk floppies.
 
In those situations it makes the most sense. I am glad development with these cheap things is still happening. I guess giving them a few years to get better wasn't a bad plan after all. Especially since the Floppy disk market is dried up.
 
I cant say why I get no replies on the HXC forum. Been a member since 2018 when I built my first modded gotek but I dont post much. Maybe I am moderated since I have under 10 posts. Anyway I was looking at this post in French a member sent. IF you translate it you can see there is alot of bad info in regards to apple disk types.( like stating only the IIgs uses 800kb disks etc) I wonder if thats what is holding up the progress on supported disk image types: https://torlus.com/floppy/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=4361&sid=571e1e8bb9e2e1412ef1cd3daeaa3984
 
Someone just made a video. Hopefully it will garner new interest. Not keen on his claiming to be the first to do this though when the project was released almost a year ago.
 
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