--- In catweasel@yahoogroups.com, "Andrew Lynch" It's nearing completion. It could be put on a PCI card.

<http://pacedev.net/forums/showthread.php?t=37
--
tim lindner <tlindner@...| 280|278|2008-11-03 18:34:40|Andrew Lynch|Re: PCI floppy drive controller: Is there such a thing?|

--- In catweasel@yahoogroups.com, "tim lindner" but are
those
do a
wd17xx.
Hi Tim! Thanks! An FPGA solution would be cool and probably
compatible with how the Catweasel is already designed. It is
basically an FPGA already, right? I am not sure but that is the
impression I got.

Another approach would be to use an "off the shelf" Super IO
controller like this one

http://www.datasheetarchive.com/pdf-datasheets/Datasheets-33/DSA-
642636.pdf

It is the same Super IO chip the P112 project uses on their board.
This chip appears to be ISA compliant but does not mention PCI.
There are other Super IO chips available for PCI. The PCI card would
not need all the features but just the FDC portion.

I am presently designing a Disk IO board (IDE & FDC) for the N8VEM
project. It is quite different than a PCI FDC but is broadly similar
in some ways. Instead of PCI the Disk IO board uses the ECB bus
(Z80) and instead of SMT uses through hole PCB technology only. The
components are all DIP and much lower technology than a PCI card
would be. A PCI FDC is way above my skill set but if someone had
experience in the topic it certainly would be useful.

Thanks and have a nice day!

Andrew Lynch

| 281|281|2008-11-04 23:24:34|Ken|How does one properly test a SID chip before using in a Catweasel MK|

Hi, I'm currently on a pilgrimage to find some SID chips for my
Catweasel.

I don't really have any interest in the sound side of the device, but
I do want the joystick and keyboard ports to work completely.

It seems the SID chip is relied upon for this in some way.

Can anyone point me toward some really good software that will test
the SID totally in a Commodore 64 before it goes anywhere near my
beloved multi million dollar Catweasel?

Also is there any possibility that future firmware updates for
Catweasel will allow for full Joystick / keyboard support without
needing to use these old highly unstable and hard to get SID chips?

.-.-.

| 282|281|2008-11-04 23:43:06|Tobias|Re: How does one properly test a SID chip before using in a Catwease|

On Dienstag 04 November 2008, Ken wrote:
the keyboard part is not affected by this, you only need a sid for

- paddles
- 2nd joystick button (on special joysticks that support it)
- 2nd mouse button
- c64 mouse

yes and no... the above listed things use one of the paddle input lines, and
paddle functionality is provided by the sid. without a sidchip there is no
paddle functionality (the catweasel doesnt have a/d converters).

unfortunately this is kinda hard to test - if you have paddles for the c64 you
can try using them with one of the games (eg arkanoid) that support them.
another possibility would be to try if a c64 mouse works

there already is support for using the 2nd mouse/joystick button without a
sid, but it only can work if those contain a proper pullup resistor at those
input lines, so the status of the line can be seen as a definitive "high"
and "low" - without it the catweasel (or any other device) can only see
a "low" when the button is pressed - and nothing definitive when the button
is not pressed (the switch will be "open" and the input line floating - which
will be interpreted as "low" too). there is not much the firmware could
change about it. however, you could add this pullup resistor to the
mouse/joystick you want to use - unfortunately very few already have them
(personally i found only one out of those i used for testing)

--
http://icomp.de/
http://c64upgra.de/

| 283|281|2008-11-05 14:34:03|Tobias|Re: How does one properly test a SID chip before using in a Catwease|

On Dienstag 04 November 2008, Tobias wrote:
ouch, ignore this. it's late - its really like this:

the SID is required for a) c64 paddles and b) the c64 1531 mouse. the SID is
NOT required for amiga mouse support, quite the opposite - IF a SID is
installed, then said pullup resistors must be added to the mouse button.

or in short: if you dont want or care about SID - don't worry, amiga mouse and
keyboard work without it.

--
http://icomp.de/
http://c64upgra.de/

| 284|284|2008-11-05 16:44:21|Ken Page|Re: How does one properly test a SID chip before using in a Catwease|

OK Cool.

OK MY main interest is as follows.

- Amiga Mouse.

- Both Amiga Joysticks.

- Both C64 Joysticks.

- Possibly C64 Mouse but this is less important.

Looks like my best bet is not to install SID's as this is likely to upset the Joystick ports anyhow.

Thanks for the info guys!

.-.-.

| 286|286|2008-11-08 14:36:07|Tobias|Catweasel Driver Update|

driver, imagetool and manual was updated:

http://www.siliconsonic.de/t/bin/CWMK42600.zip
http://siliconsonic.de/t/catweasel-usermanual.pdf

have fun!

--
http://icomp.de/
http://c64upgra.de/

| 287|285|2008-11-08 15:38:43|Andrew Lynch|Sorry about that...|

--- In catweasel@yahoogroups.com, Sfidhana Vendhan
The offending SPAMMER infiltrator has been removed.

Thank you and have a nice day!

Andrew Lynch

| 288|285|2008-11-08 15:44:54|Tobias|Re: Sorry about that...|

On Samstag 08 November 2008, Andrew Lynch wrote:

you could make it so new subscriptions must be approved, and then have posts
from new users moderated...that keeps the spam away quite effectively :)
(yeah i know, work for the moderators, it sucks :/)

--
http://icomp.de/
http://c64upgra.de/

| 289|286|2008-11-08 15:52:11|Ken Page|Catweasel Driver Update|

Hi,

Thanks for the update. Much appreciated.

I have tried it and it seems to read the Apple disks ok. But For some reason I can't get get the emulator to run the disks.

I would try a disk on my Apple clone but Catweasel has no Apple IIe write ability yet.

The emulator I am using is called `AppleWin`.

Has anyone else had any luck yet?

Here is what AppleWin says about the disk format. I will post this incase someone finds it useful..

Disk images can be in a number of different formats, depending on how they were created.

DOS Order Images:

DOS order disk images contain the data from each sector, stored in the same order that DOS 3.3 numbers sectors. If you run a DOS program on the Apple which reads in sectors one by one and then transfers them over a serial line to the PC, you will get a DOS order disk image.

Apple floppy disks contained 35 tracks with 16 sectors per track, for a total of 560 sectors. Each of these sectors contained 256 bytes of information, for a total of 143,360 bytes per disk. Therefore, DOS order disk images are always at least 143,360 bytes long. Sometimes on the Internet you will see a disk image that is 143,488 or 143,616 bytes long; this is probably a DOS order image with extra header information before or after the image. In most cases, AppleWin can automatically detect this and handle it.

ProDOS Order Images:

ProDOS order disk images are very similar to DOS order images, except that they contain the sectors in the order that ProDOS numbers them. If you compress a disk with Shrinkit on an Apple, then transfer it over a modem and uncompress it on the PC, you will get a ProDOS order disk image.

Since ProDOS order disk images contain the same information as DOS order disk images, simply in a different order, they are also about 143,360 bytes long. When you use a disk image of this size, AppleWin attempts to automatically detect whether it is in DOS order or ProDOS order by examining the contents of the disk. If the disk was formatted with a standard operating system such as DOS or ProDOS, AppleWin will successfully detect the format. Otherwise, it will revert to DOS order, which is by far the most common format. To force ProDOS order, give the file an extension of ".PO".

Nibble Images :

Nibble images contain all of the data on a disk; not just the data in sectors but also the sector headers and synchronization areas, all stored in the same encoded format that would be recorded on a real disk's surface. At 232,960 bytes, nibble images are bigger than other images, but they can be useful for making images of copy protected software.

.-.-.

| 290|286|2008-11-08 16:43:23|Steven Hirsch|Re: Catweasel Driver Update|

On Sat, 8 Nov 2008, Tobias wrote:

I've asked the question before, but still haven't received an answer: Can
any of the concepts (or software) here be applied to the little
"Anniversary" model Catweasel board? This is the one that attaches to the
IDE interface or clockport of an Amiga.

I would like to know if there's any way it could be used in a PC by
attachment to an IDE port.

--

| 291|286|2008-11-08 17:09:21|Tobias|Re: Catweasel Driver Update|

On Samstag 08 November 2008, Steven Hirsch wrote:
i can't tell for certain, but i think it'd be possible in theory - however,
that will not be officially supported.

--
http://icomp.de/
http://c64upgra.de/

| 292|285|2008-11-08 18:35:27|Andrew Lynch|Re: Sorry about that...|

--- In catweasel@yahoogroups.com, Tobias effectively :)
Hi Tobias! Yes that is right, however, the setting for moderator
approval of new members is an administrators priviledge setting. I
support whatever decision Petter makes regarding moderator approval
of new members.

I am willing to approve new members as they apply or to remove the
SPAMMER infiltrators as they sneak in and ply their ugly trade.
Either way is fine with me and I am quite happy to be able to at
least regulate the SPAMMER abusers in some fashion.

SPAMMERs are the lowest form of internet users, really they are
abusers not users, and I consider them essentially as vermin. They
are the bane of the internet and whatever can be done to reduce or
eliminate them is a good thing as far as I am concerned.

Thanks and have a nice day!

Andrew Lynch

| 294|294|2008-11-22 08:02:13|Ken|MicroBee (CP/M) Format disks with Catweasel. (& Apple IIe again pse)|

Hi Guys.

Iv'e been given a heap of Microbee disks to try and archive for the
retro world. Unfortunately Catweasel doesn't recognise them.

I have both 3.5" and 5.25" disks.

There is an emulator and the author has also suppled the information
on how the disks are accessed in a file.

Can I add to the catweasel config's myself to get it to understand
Microbee? Or do I have to get the authors to do an update?

See below for the Microbee format info.

The Microbee was an Australian designed and produced computer that ran
CP/M in the early days.

See: http://www.thepcmuseum.com/appliedtechnology/

(Also on another note, is Apple IIe write ability any closer for
Catweasel?).

--

http://microbee.no-ip.com (Emulator available at this site also).

libdskrc

[ds84]
description = Microbee DS DD 80T 3.5" (PJB)
sides = alt
cylinders = 80
heads = 2
sectors = 10
secbase = 1
secsize = 512
datarate = SD
rwgap = 12
fmtgap = 23
fm = N
multitrack = N
skipdeleted = Y

[ds82]
description = Microbee DS DD 80T 3.5" (Dreamdisk)
sides = alt
cylinders = 80
heads = 2
sectors = 10
secbase = 1
secsize = 512
datarate = SD
rwgap = 12
fmtgap = 23
fm = N
multitrack = N
skipdeleted = Y

[ds80]
description = Microbee DS DD 80T 3.5" (Modular)
sides = alt
cylinders = 80
heads = 2
sectors = 10
secbase = 21
secsize = 512
datarate = SD
rwgap = 12
fmtgap = 23
fm = N
multitrack = N
skipdeleted = Y

[ds801]
description = Microbee DS DD 80T 3.5" (Modular, No Side 1 issue!)
sides = alt
cylinders = 80
heads = 2
sectors = 10
secbase = 21
secsize = 512
datarate = SD
rwgap = 12
fmtgap = 23
fm = N
multitrack = N
skipdeleted = Y

[ds40]
description = Microbee DS DD 40T 5.25" (SBC)
sides = alt
cylinders = 40
heads = 2
sectors = 10
secbase = 1
secsize = 512
datarate = SD
rwgap = 12
fmtgap = 23
fm = N
multitrack = N
skipdeleted = Y

[ds401]
description = Microbee DS DD 40T 5.25" (SBC, No side 1 issue!)
sides = alt
cylinders = 40
heads = 2
sectors = 10
secbase = 1
secsize = 512
datarate = SD
rwgap = 12
fmtgap = 23
fm = N
multitrack = N
skipdeleted = Y

[ss80]
description = Microbee SS DD 80T 3.5" (CIAB)
cylinders = 80
heads = 1
sectors = 10
secbase = 1
secsize = 512
datarate = SD
rwgap = 12
fmtgap = 23
fm = N
multitrack = N
skipdeleted = Y

| 295|294|2008-11-23 10:53:18|Ken|Re: MicroBee (CP/M) Format disks with Catweasel. (& Apple IIe again |

I've just spoken with the guy that wrote the MicroBee emulator. He has
a very good knowledge of all the Microbee formats.

Is there a file or something that ImageTool looks at for the disk formats?

Could I get the guy to try updating an ImageTool config file to
include Microbee? He seems keen to help.

.-.-.

| 296|294|2008-11-23 14:29:08|Tobias|Re: MicroBee (CP/M) Format disks with Catweasel. (& Apple IIe again |

On Sonntag 23 November 2008, Ken wrote:
hy, i am the maintainer of the imagetool ...

i have put those formats on my todo list, and will add them for the next
release. unfortunately the imagetool does not support user defined formats
yet.

however, if you have access to linux, the "cwtool" by karsten scheibler can
read format info from a user supplied file, maybe try this one.

--
http://icomp.de/
http://c64upgra.de/

| 297|294|2008-11-24 08:14:20|Ken|Re: MicroBee (CP/M) Format disks with Catweasel. (& Apple IIe again |

OK, Thats Great thanks. uBee512 Author has kindly put together an even
more detailed information page on the MicroBee disk formats which I
will post here.

Also I note the word `Yet` used with regards to ImageTool `user
defined formats` (config files). Does this mean we can look forward to
this feature being added?

I think it would be very helpful in expanding what catweasel can read
and write if users can add to and experiment with the config.

It would mean we could test using our own disks that we come across
without the need to try and mail them back and forth.

I think it could also take a lot of the load off you as far as adding
more formats. Personally I'd really like to see this.

-- Here is further information for MicroBee support under Catweasel --

Stewart Kay. 24 November 2008

This document describes the physical layout of most of the common disk
formats used my the Microbee computer.

The Microbee uses a Western Digital WD2793 disk controller on later models
for formatting and accessing floppy disks.

Low level format
----------------
The low level format method employed on disks allows for reading/writing
sectors on normal PC floppy controllers.

There is a problem with the original formatted disks that causes a problem
to FDC controllers if not taken into account. The native format programs
used the value of 0 on both sides of the disk in the sector headers. This
issue is usually the 'show stopper' when trying to access Microbees
disks on
modern hardware.

The WD2793 controller ignored the Side value so was never a problem on the
Microbee hardware. The side issue is present on all native DS40 and DS80
disks. 3rd party formatting tools usually wrote the correct side
numbers for
both sides of the disk.

The side issue must be considered a possibility on ALL Microbee disks.

Sector numbers
--------------
Sector numbers are always numbered 1-10 on the reserved (system)
tracks and
this format is also normally used for the data tracks. The sectors are
written in sequential order, no skewing is done at the low level.

One of the formats (DS80) differs for the data area where sector numbers
21-30 are used. The reason for this was likely to have been a protection
measure to stop SS80 and DS80 disks becoming corrupted if the wrong
disk was
placed into the machine.

To make a disk image from a DS80 disk format requires that the reserved
track's sectors 1-10 and data sectors 21-30 to be taken into account.

Data skewing
------------
Skewing of the data tracks for all disks is used and was normally done by
the operating system in use. The typical skewing used is one of the
following:

SKEW1: 2, 5, 8, 1, 4, 7, 10, 3, 6, 9
SKEW2: 22, 25, 28, 21, 24, 27, 30, 23, 26, 29

Microbee Disk formats
=====================

DS40 (SBC)
----------
Size: 5.25"
Capacity: 400K
Cylinders: 40
Sect/track: 10
Sect/Size: 512 bytes
Density: Double (MFM)
Heads: 2
Res tracks: 2 (S0 T0 and S1 T0)
Res sectors: 1 - 10
Data sectors: 1 - 10
Data skew: SKEW1

SS80 (CIAB)
-----------
Size: 3.5"
Capacity: 400K
Cylinders: 80
Sect/track: 10
Sect/Size: 512 bytes
Density: Double (MFM)
Heads: 1
Res tracks: 2 (S0 T0 and S0 T1)
Res sectors: 1 - 10
Data sectors: 1 - 10
Data skew: SKEW1

DS80 (Modular)
--------------
Size: 3.5"
Capacity: 800K
Cylinders: 80
Sect/track: 10
Sect/Size: 512 bytes
Density: Double (MFM)
Heads: 2
Res tracks: 4 (S0 T0,T1 and S1 T0,T1)
Res sectors: 1 - 10
Data sectors: 21 - 30
Data skew: SKEW2

DS82 (Dreamdisk)
----------------
Size: 3.5"
Capacity: 800K
Cylinders: 80
Sect/track: 10
Sect/Size: 512 bytes
Density: Double (MFM)
Heads: 2
Res tracks: 2 (S0 T0 and S1 T0)
Res sectors: 1 - 10
Data sectors: 1 - 10
Data skew: SKEW1

DS84 (PJB)
----------
Size: 3.5"
Capacity: 800K
Cylinders: 80
Sect/track: 10
Sect/Size: 512 bytes
Density: Double (MFM)
Heads: 2
Res tracks: 2 (S0 T0 and S1 T0)
Res sectors: 1 - 10
Data sectors: 1 - 10
Data skew: SKEW1

-- Further discussion RE: Prefered image formats and naming --

The Microbee disks are just CP/M so there is nothing else in there to
identify itself. I know DOS disks and other systems can do this.

On the issue of image formats I wondered the same. We really need to
have plain raw images or CPC EMU compatible DSK or EDSK images. But
other types supported by LibDsk can be converted to raw or DSK using
LibDsk tools if we have too. I would have thought one would just tell
the Catweasel software what image format to output. DSK images are
very popular for the Amstrad and is a standard used by emulators.

For raw images I just created file extension of 'SS80' and DS80' etc.
and the uBee512 software then knows how to work with the images.
That's a separate issue though. They can create plain vanilla raw
images without any overheads can't they ?

---

| 298|298|2008-11-24 09:07:25|Ken|Possible Catweasel ImageTool enhancements?? User editable DiskFormat|

Hi guys, Here are a few idea's I have about enhancements to the
Catweasel ImigeTool software.

- Disk Formats config file (User editable).
- Pause Button.
- Clean Button.

Catweasel & ImageTool has to be the `be all` - `end all` of disk
recovery solutions on the face of the planet, but support for further
formats has been very slow in coming.

This I feel is mainly due to the full work load being on the shoulders
of one poor man.

Changing ImageTool to support a DiskFormats.conf (config file) would
allow a far larger section of the Catweasel community to expand the
formats available.

While recovering data, the disks used are often ravaged by time and
poor storage practices. Often cleaning of the drive mech is necessary
over and over again. Perhaps `Pause` & `Clean` buttons could be added
to ImageTool. This way part way through a read if necessary the
process could be paused and a disk cleaner inserted. The `Clean`
button could perhaps step the head back and forth a bit to help with
cleaning?

Thoughts? Idea's? Anyone?

.-.-.

| 299|299|2008-11-26 15:07:22|Ken|No B: on modern motherboards. Sollution??|

Hi, My current motherboard doesn't support B: in the CMOS. (Gigabyte
GA M56S-S3)

Catweasel can of course access it OK using ImageTool.

But I am wondering how I can get around the issue under Win XP?

I am currently working with some formats that ImageTool doesn't
support yet (microbee) so I am using dsklib tools in dos.

No where near as good. I really need ImageTool's fantastic recovery
ability. But I will have to wait for that.

Is there a way or utility to bump XP into seeing the B: drive?

Or a way to use the catweasel controller so XP can see B: drive?

.-.-.

| 300|299|2008-11-26 22:48:51|Andrew Lynch|Re: No B: on modern motherboards. Sollution??|

--- In catweasel@yahoogroups.com, "Ken" install the drives in it you need. I find those old Pentium II or P3
~500 MHz computers are ideal for Catweasel. Install Linux or MSDOS
and you're good to go. Win98 is OK too. WinNT/2K/XP/V don't like
floppy drives very much especially the older formats like 5.25"

Thanks and have a nice day!

Andrew Lynch

| 301|299|2008-11-27 15:29:11|Ken Page|Re: No B: on modern motherboards. Sollution??|

Hi, Thanks but running yet another PC here is not the solution I'm looking for. A solution that will work with the modern motherboard is what I am after.

I already have everything installed and running in my current desktop, I just need to get around this one issue.

I am also starting to think that for some reason the newer floppy drive controllers on the mother boards don't support a second drive? I note that in Linux there is no /dev/fd1 it would be interesting to confirm if this is so. If this is the case the only other way around it is to have a driver for Win XP that allows access through Catweasel.

.-.-.

| 302|299|2008-11-27 22:31:10|David Griffith|Re: No B: on modern motherboards. Sollution??|

On Thu, 27 Nov 2008, Ken Page wrote:

A casual look at the catweasel hardware and drivers suggests that it may
be possible to create a driver that presents a normal floppy interface to
the operating system. That is, if your motherboard doesn't have a floppy
header, you can use the catweasel to get /dev/fd0 and /dev/fd1 (or a: and
b:). Anyone here have any ideas on where to begin with this?

--
David Griffith
dgriffi@...

A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

| 303|299|2008-11-27 23:30:53|Tim Mann|Re: No B: on modern motherboards. Sollution??|

On Thu, 27 Nov 2008 23:29:04 +1000, "Ken Page" <vk4akp@... Yes, a lot of modern motherboards don't support a second floppy drive.
I built a computer a couple of years ago, and when it wouldn't support
a second floppy, I downloaded the motherboard schematic to try to see
what was going on. It turns out this motherboard uses a Super-IO chip
that has a limited number of I/O pins. The motherboard vendor has a
choice of what to use some of them for. On mine, the two pins that can
be used as the drive select and motor-on for the second floppy are used
for something else -- I forget what right now, maybe fan control.

--
Tim Mann tim@... http://tim-mann.org/

| 304|299|2008-11-28 04:29:31|r_graver|Re: No B: on modern motherboards. Sollution??|

--- In catweasel@yahoogroups.com, David Griffith desktop, I
drive
note
confirm if
have
may
interface to
floppy
a: and
Hi Everyone!

Jens just confirmed that he put my Catweasel MKIV in the mail to me
today.

After reading these posts I investigated my motherboard and I see that
mine only supports one floppy too. Its easy to check in the BIOS.

Can I assume that the Catweasel controller intercepts the floppy
cable's signals when writing to vintage floppies?

Wouldn't it only matter if the catweasel was idle and you wanted to
access that B: drive via windows or linux directly?

Shouldn't you still be able to use the catweasel drivers tools for
imaging floppies, and manipulating files on the B: drive since the
catweasel is in control, or does it still rely on some signaling from
the motherboard too?

Can somebody clarify this for me?

Thanks!

Richard Graver

| 305|299|2008-11-29 08:01:26|Ken Page|Re: No B: on modern motherboards. Sollution??|

Hi,

When using the Catweasel with it's supplied software such as ImageTool under Windoze, it will be able to use all connected drives. This is because Catweasel intercepts the drive cable. It is basically piggy in the middle.

The problems come in however when you want the original OS to use drive B: say for an emulator, or if the format you need to read is not yet supported by the catweasel software (ImageTool etc).

Many formats exist that catweasel currently can not read or write. Hopefully future releases of ImageTool will allow for a user editable formats config file which would help with this greatly.

A fix for accessing B: from the OS via Catweasel would be windows and linux drivers to allow the catweasel drive controller to become the floppy controller for the host OS.

Hope this is of some help in understanding.

Also congratulations on your getting a Catweasel MK4 Plus. You will love it. When the exchange rates return to reality I will be buying a second one myself.

~Ken~ vk4akp

.-.-.

| 306|299|2008-11-29 08:29:17|David Griffith|Re: No B: on modern motherboards. Sollution??|

On Sat, 29 Nov 2008, Ken Page wrote:

I wonder if having them manufactured in the US can help with that.

--
David Griffith
dgriffi@...

A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

| 307|299|2008-12-02 08:19:51|Ken|Re: No B: on modern motherboards. Sollution??|

Anything that gets the price down to something sane I'm all for.

I think AUD$100-$125 is a realistic price that one would be prepared
to pay. Add freigh and maybe up as far as AUD$150. Anything past that
and you really have a hard time affording or justifying a purchase.

Last I looked, the total cost to buy a catweasel and get it to
Australia ran out at close to AUD$230. :(

China or Taiwan manufacturing is more likely the cheapest answer.
.-.-.

| 308|299|2008-12-06 08:56:57|Ken|Re: No B: on modern motherboards. Sollution??|

Yes, it's a problem. But with a simple solution really for all us
Catweasel people.

Who do we have to beg, borrow, or bribe to get some drivers written?

Catweasel really needs more software developers on the job I think. :(

Such fantastic potential for so many years now. The hardware is great,
but the on going software development is just so slow unfortunately.
.-.-.

| 309|278|2008-12-06 09:01:29|Ken|Re: PCI floppy drive controller: Is there such a thing?|

Isn't Catweasel basically already a floppy drive controller?

Doesn't it just need some OS specific drivers written to take
advantage of the hardware?

.-.-.

| 310|294|2008-12-06 09:20:40|Ken|Re: MicroBee (CP/M) Format disks with Catweasel. (& Apple IIe again |

Hi again, Sorry to be a pain, any chance of getting a gestimate on the
projected release date of ImageTool with Microbee format support?

I have several hundred Microbee disks currently in storage and a lot
of anxious Bee retro buff's chomping at the bit. hehe.

Also if you are interested I believe the uBee512 author would be happy
to offer his help with imagetool in this regard.

.-.-.

| 311|268|2008-12-06 09:28:45|Ken|Re: Catweasel as sole floppy interface|

Thats good, we so badly need this support for Windows.

Is there any open source or information on the Catweasel hardware?
Like a developers pack etc that a person can get so they can try and
help develop for the Catweasel?

.-.-.

| 312|298|2008-12-06 09:33:56|Ken|Re: Possible Catweasel ImageTool enhancements?? User editable DiskFo|

Could also a Max retry value be setable as an option from the menu etc?

That way when one is doing batches of disks you could set a max retry
value and walk away from the machine, come back later in the day and
not be worried that the drive has retried some 10000 times and worn a
track clean through the media. :)

.-.-.

| 313|299|2008-12-06 09:52:08|Ken|Re: No B: on modern motherboards. Sollution??|

Also I have another idea. Someone mentioned to me that it was only the
lack of a drive select line for B: ??

And that maybe a switch could be added to flip the two drives in and
out to get access to the B: drive?

Is this true? And if so is this something that catweasel could do for
us? Maybe in software?
.-.-.

| 314|294|2008-12-06 15:22:50|Tobias|Re: MicroBee (CP/M) Format disks with Catweasel. (& Apple IIe again |

On Samstag 06 Dezember 2008, Ken wrote:
that's kinda hard to say, please understand that we are a very small company
and thus development time must be shared between different projects ...
however, we try to release updates atleast every 3 months.

--
http://icomp.de/
http://c64upgra.de/

| 315|268|2008-12-06 15:29:09|Tobias|Re: Catweasel as sole floppy interface|

On Samstag 06 Dezember 2008, Ken wrote:
yes ofcourse... the driver package includes all header files to use the
official drivers (for people who want to write their own transfer tools, or
add support to emulators for example) and a generic header file, including
documentation in comments, to use the catweasel directly (for people who want
to write drivers, dos software or similar). and last not least people who
want to write software that supports the catweasel may get in touch with jens
directly if they have any questions on the hardware (we already support a
bunch of such people, often also by supplying hardware for testing).

[and not to forget: there are also open source drivers for linux which, in
combination with the hardware documentation, serve quite well as a reference
too]

--
http://icomp.de/
http://c64upgra.de/

| 316|298|2008-12-06 15:31:12|Tobias|Re: Possible Catweasel ImageTool enhancements?? User editable DiskFo|

On Samstag 06 Dezember 2008, Ken wrote:
that sounds like something that is useful and also easy to implement,
so ... :)

--
http://icomp.de/
http://c64upgra.de/

| 318|286|2009-01-01 23:43:02|Yves|Catweasel Driver Update|

Hi,
I'm Yves, another CW MK4 enthusiastic owner, and a new member in this
group! :D

I've been doing lots of tests on Mac GCR disks with imagetool (Windows)
and cwtool (Linux).

Lately, I've been also imaging a lot of Apple IIc 5.25 floppy disks with
Imagetool (and saw that almost all of them are flippy disks -_-' ).
I had the same problem with AppleWin : although reading and imaging
looks ok (crc error sometimes, but second read pass seems to fix read
errors) I can't reliably run any single disk on this emu.
Same problem with 'cwtool', even when reading is 100% ok without any
retries. The resulting files are 143,360 bytes, as expected by
DOS/ProDOS image formats, but no still luck with AppleWin, which often
works ok with disk images available from virtualapple.org .

So here is the batch of painful questions ... :)
@Ken: did you manage to launch your 5.25" disk images with AppleWin or
any other emu?
@Tobias: Is there a coding order difference between Apple 2 5.25" disks
and Mac 800K DD disks?
@Tobias bonus question: Is Oric 3" and 5.25" support planned for next
release ? :)

@anyone in this group: Is there a way to contact Karsten Scheibler,
developper of the cwtool?

Thanks for any reply!
Yves

| 319|286|2009-01-01 23:55:54|Tobias|Re: Catweasel Driver Update|

On Donnerstag 01 Januar 2009, Yves wrote:

yes definetely. they both use a different lowlevel gcr encoding sheme and a
different highlevel sector layout aswell. no idea what the problem with
running them in the emu could be though.

yes, unfortunately i have only one 3.5" disk with oric data (i believe its
exactly the same format as 3" should be though) but i will see what i can
do :)

send him an email (it should be on his website somewhere) and wait... he is a
busy man however, so be very patient :) he will usually answer, but it may
take some time :)

--
http://icomp.de/
http://c64upgra.de/

| 320|320|2009-01-02 18:02:44|Ken Page|Re: Apple IIe images on AppleWIN.|

Hi Yves,

Unfortunately the few Apple IIe disks I had were too badly damaged. Many were shedding the media, some had grit in the covers, some bound when spun.

From memory I only managed to recover a couple that I could not get to read in the Apple emulator.

I have a DSE Cat computer here that I have never been able to test. If it works, once Catweasel supports Apple IIe Write ability I will try creating some disks that I will then copy on the real hardware and then try to read back in using Catweasel and run on the emulator.

Given that software dev for Catweasel tends to be slow, I have started looking into something called a Cyclone 20.

It is an open source project that uses an Arm development board and one simple floppy connector that you solder in.

Software development for it is going at a blinding speed even though it's only a couple of people currently working on it.

The device works on the USB port so you don't have to worry about PCI or floppy controllers disappearing on future motherboards.

If you Google the project you will find a thread on it in an Amiga forum and some YouTube video as well.

You might want to look into it also.

.-.-.

did you manage to launch your 5.25" disk images with AppleWin or
other emu?

| 321|321|2009-02-04 17:37:03|Ken|Any news on updates?|

Hi Guys, Is there any news on updates for the Catweasel?

Apple IIe 5.25" Write ability?

MicroBee disk support?

Anything to allow Windows access to B: when the motherboard doesn't
support B: (All modern mother boards now suffer this)..

.-.-.

| 322|286|2009-02-04 17:46:42|Ken|Catweasel Driver Update|

Hi, Sorry for the late reply (Re-Reply). I did actually post a reply
but it obviously didn't make it to the forum.

OK. No I wasn't able to do anything with my Apple Disks. I think they
are all too badly damaged. Many had grit inside the covers.

I had more but made the mistake of lending them to a friend who
promised he would definatly not loose them.

When I asked for them back he said, their gone get over it.
So I learned the hard way. Never again.

Anyhow. Welcome aboard!.

I hope you can program, because we desperately need someone to start
writing updates for all the Catweasel software! hehe. :(

I can't wait to try my Apple clone one of these decades. ;)
.-.-.

| 323|323|2009-02-05 05:20:59|rich_aplin|Alternative open (home-made) hardware to catweasel|

Hiya,
Not wishing to spam the group with another project, but I've developed
a USB-based open-source FDC that has similar functionality to CW using
a readily available board ($75 or less) and a dozen easy wires to
solder. It's just passed the "Yay, it definitely works" stage, and in
the longer term as an open-src project can always benefit from coding
help.

Here's a long rambling thread about it, there's also a google doc and
a rudimentary code release.
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=40959

Anyway, I appreciate you're CW owners already, just fyi.

Cheers,
Rich Aplin.

| 324|323|2009-02-05 15:46:32|Ken Page|Alternative open (home-made) hardware to catweasel|

Hi, Yes I already posted here about the Cyclone 20 some months ago. Funny though I looked for the post the other day and couldn't find it. ??? Humm. ;)

Looking forward to getting a Cyclone 20 once it can do all the formats I need.

- Apple IIe

- MicroBee

- C64 (1541)

- BBC Micro

- System 80 / TRS-80

- I've probably forgotten some, but that's a good start.

Good one on making it an open source project. This is definatly the big downfall with catweasel, updates are just far too slow.

~Ken

.-.-.

| 325|323|2009-02-05 19:31:02|Tobias|Re: Alternative open (home-made) hardware to catweasel|

On Donnerstag 05 Februar 2009, Ken Page wrote:
there has been an opensource tool for the catweasel for a long time now....
which got, guess what, exactly one external contribution in 5 years or so.
(the linux tool that is, the windows one never got a contribution at all)

i personally wouldnt hold my breath =P

--
http://icomp.de/
http://c64upgra.de/

| 326|323|2009-02-06 20:58:04|Dr Tune|Re: Alternative open (home-made) hardware to catweasel|

Heya,
Heh sure I know what you mean ;-) Well, one can but try, and if I'm doing the project for my own amusement then there's no loss if it doesn't "stick".
The art with open source projects is clearly in providing fertile and well-tilled soil for others to plant their seeds.

I guess we'll see how it goes.
There will always be a market for a "proper" commercially supported product such as Catweasel I'm sure; I was amazed to discover that some people have difficulty soldering 12 pieces of wire. ;-)

Cheers!
Rich.

| 332|294|2009-07-01 14:31:18|Ken|Re: MicroBee (CP/M) Format disks with Catweasel. (& Apple IIe again |

Hi, It's been about 7 months so though I would check if there has been any news of progress with this?

I still have an Apple IIe clone here that I would love to use my Catweasel to make some disks so I can test and use it.

Also many MicroBee disks to archive and distribute.

TNX,
Ken
.-.-.

| 333|294|2009-07-01 18:15:57|Jonathan Gevaryahu|Re: MicroBee (CP/M) Format disks with Catweasel. (& Apple IIe again |

Ken wrote:
been any news of progress with this?
Catweasel to make some disks so I can test and use it.
Ken,
What format does the microbee use for floppy disks? I have a reasonable
understanding of the cwtool configuration file format and can probably
whip something up which can at least READ (but probably not WRITE) the
disks.
Does it use an NEC765 or a compatible chip for floppy access, or does it
use a custom interface like the apple2 and c64 do?
Does it use MFM, FM, or some sort of GCR or other encoding for data?
How many sectors per track does it use? does it vary by track number?
How many bytes per sector? does this vary by track number or sector
number as well?
How many tracks per inch are the diskettes? 48 or 96?
Does it use one or both disk sides, or can it do either way?
If it uses both disk sides, are the sides interleaved (as on ibm pc
disks), or does one side come logically 'after' the other one (as on
some other disks)?

If you can answer some or all of these questions, I can probably make a
cwtool profile to read the disks.
Or, if you lend me a disk, I can probably figure it out by trial and
error from that.
(I'm also making a post on the microbee forums so I can access the files
and hopefully figure out the format from there)

Have a good day!

--
Jonathan Gevaryahu AKA Lord Nightmare
jgevaryahu@...
jgevaryahu@...

Insert movie times and more without leaving HotmailÂ®. See how.

| 334|294|2009-07-01 19:18:51|Tobias|Re: MicroBee (CP/M) Format disks with Catweasel. (& Apple IIe again |

On Mittwoch 01 Juli 2009, Ken wrote:
first of all, sorry for the delay and seemingly lack of support lately ... i
have been working quite a bit on the driver (fixing the last known bug with
powersaving for example) and the imagetool, where i had to do some major
changes to be able to support more formats even more accurately. and i am
also preparing to read foreign format definitions (from libdsk or so).
however, since a lot of new stuff was introduced in the process, many formats
have to be fixed (around 100) and tested, which takes a lot of time. this is
unfortunate, but it will pay off :) i have also a (almost, needs testing)
working windows port of tim manns cw2dmk, prepared a raw-imager which people
can use to send raw images of unknown formats, a scanner that shows various
details about the disk layout and some more goodies.

i really hope to get a release out soon, but since sometimes even fixing tiny
bugs requires regression testing of atleast some dozen disks/formats it is
very hard to estimate a definite timeframe.

i have apple2e write support and (as far as i could do from the specs without
disks) microbee format support included now. if you like to test the
work-in-progress driver and imagetool, contact me off list.

--
http://icomp.de/
http://c64upgra.de/

| 335|294|2009-07-02 05:20:27|Tim Mann|Re: MicroBee (CP/M) Format disks with Catweasel. (& Apple IIe again |

On Wed, 1 Jul 2009 18:57:27 +0200, Tobias <tobias@... That's cool. Please send me a copy of the source code when you get so far!

--
Tim Mann tim@... http://tim-mann.org/

| 336|336|2009-07-22 12:36:09|ollyatwork|Catweasel Mk4 Plus under Linux?|

Hi All,

I have bought myself a shiny new Catweasel Mk4+ and I'm trying to use it under Linux, specifically OpenSUSE 10.3 which has kernel 2.6.22.5, with the hardsid-catweasel-0.06 driver which was made some time ago for the original Mk4 cards.

I have changed pci_module_init to pci_register_driver and SA_SHIRQ to IRQF_SHARED to make it build with the newer kernel, and installed it with modprobe - so far so good.

However, hsid_probe never gets called so the card is never initialised. Do you know if this driver should work with the newer Mk4+? Are the PCI vendor/device IDs likely to be incorrect?

Many thanks in advance for any advice!
--
Oliver Stephenson

| 337|336|2009-07-23 11:20:39|ollyatwork|Re: Catweasel Mk4 Plus under Linux?|

Hi all,

Just to keep you posted on progress... I got a reply from Jens Schoenfeld confirming that the PCI IDs for the Mk4+ are identical to the Mk4, so I gave up on the hardsid-catweasel driver and have moved on to the catweaselsid driver (http://freshmeat.net/projects/catweaselsid/) instead. After some hacking I've managed to make it build, install and detect the card and the SID that I have installed. Bonus!

However, I still haven't managed to get any sound out of it. GoatTracker just gives silence (although it does seem to be able to open the SID correctly), and the driver's own sid player gives lots of invalid opcode / cpu halted type messages and produces clicks and pops.

So, still no further forward really... I did have to hack out some init_input_dev calls to make it build, tonight I will try replacing them with input_allocate_device and see if that makes any difference but I'm not hopeful.

Anyone else got a working Catweasel / GoatTracker setup under a recent Linux kernel?

Thanks,
--
Olly

| 338|336|2009-07-24 18:18:15|Yves|Re: Catweasel Mk4 Plus under Linux?|

Hi,

I did some porting from hardsid-catweasel driver code to more modern build environment. I now have a working box with two sids, providing /dev/hardsid linked to /dev/sid.

Here is the patch I created and sent to the author.
I reenabled numsid=2, driver also works fine with only one sid.

Enjoy,

Yves.

diff -ur hardsid-catweasel/driver/hardsid.c hardsid-catweasel-20090506/driver/hardsid.c
--- hardsid-catweasel/driver/hardsid.c 2006-11-22 09:27:37.000000000 +0100
+++ hardsid-catweasel-20090506/driver/hardsid.c 2009-04-26 10:58:09.000000000 +0200
@@ -65,11 +65,21 @@
#define PCI_DEVICE_ID_INDIVIDUAL_CWMK 0x0001
#define PCI_SUBSYSTEM_VENDOR_ID_INDIVIDUAL_CWMK4 0x5213
#define PCI_SUBSYSTEM_DEVICE_ID_INDIVIDUAL_CWMK4 0x0002
+#define PCI_SUBSYSTEM_DEVICE_ID_INDIVIDUAL_CWMK4_2 0x0003

static __initdata struct pci_device_id id_table[] = {
- { PCI_VENDOR_ID_INDIVIDUAL, PCI_DEVICE_ID_INDIVIDUAL_CWMK,
- PCI_SUBSYSTEM_VENDOR_ID_INDIVIDUAL_CWMK4,
- PCI_SUBSYSTEM_DEVICE_ID_INDIVIDUAL_CWMK4, 0, 0, 0 },
+ {
+ .vendor = PCI_VENDOR_ID_INDIVIDUAL,
+ .device = PCI_DEVICE_ID_INDIVIDUAL_CWMK,
+ .subvendor = PCI_SUBSYSTEM_VENDOR_ID_INDIVIDUAL_CWMK4,
+ .subdevice = PCI_SUBSYSTEM_DEVICE_ID_INDIVIDUAL_CWMK4,
+ },
+ {
+ .vendor = PCI_VENDOR_ID_INDIVIDUAL,
+ .device = PCI_DEVICE_ID_INDIVIDUAL_CWMK,
+ .subvendor = PCI_SUBSYSTEM_VENDOR_ID_INDIVIDUAL_CWMK4,
+ .subdevice = PCI_SUBSYSTEM_DEVICE_ID_INDIVIDUAL_CWMK4_2,
+ },
{ 0, }
};

@@ -297,7 +307,7 @@
delay_drift = 0;
spin_unlock(&hsid_delay_update);

- if (0 && sid_numSIDs == 2) {
+ if ( sid_numSIDs == 2) {
/* this implements stream write to both chips (with same stream) */

/* We try to use 5 clock delays when possible, but if the stream
@@ -821,7 +831,7 @@

{
// should be card structure passed to interrupt
- int ret = request_irq(pcidev- + int ret = request_irq(pcidev- HSID_NAME, sid_data[0]);
if (ret)
return ret;
@@ -915,7 +925,7 @@
}

register_reboot_notifier(&hsid_notifier);
- ret = pci_module_init(&hsid_driver);
+ ret = pci_register_driver(&hsid_driver);
#ifdef CONFIG_PROC_FS
create_proc_read_entry (HSID_NAME, 0, 0, hsid_read_proc, NULL);
#endif

| 339|336|2009-07-24 18:27:15|Yves|Re: Catweasel Mk4 Plus under Linux?|

Explanation from patch:

The reason why the probing doesn't work is that the subsystem may vary between 0x0002 and 0x0003. This is a Catweasel PCI Bridge bug, according to the Catweasel FD driver from Karsten at unusedino.de

Also: since VENDOR_ID AND PRODUCT_ID match an ISDN card from Tiger technologies, you must be perfectly sure your kernel does NOT load the Tiger driver in any way. You can see it in the dmesg.
You need to blacklist the corresponding module (man lsmod, cat /proc/devices, man modprobe and so on).

Hope This helps,

Yves.

-

| 341|340|2009-07-26 14:09:48|Ken Page|WANTED: People To Work From Home. Must Have Computer|

Wow! Amazing, But can I convert these Cyber $$'s into actual software development time on the Catweasel project instead please? ;)

~Ken~

.-.-.

| 342|336|2009-07-26 14:35:29|Ken Page|Re: Catweasel Mk4 Plus under Linux?|

I'll be interested to see how you go with this.

I have my Catweasel MK4+ in a dual boot machine here and plan to re-install the latest Sabayon (Advanced Gentoo) Linux at some point in the future to try with it.

So far I have found Sabayon to be very good with most things. We are using it here on one of our servers and have added some really diverse peripherals with much ease.

~ Ken - vk4akp ~

http://shazam.zapto.org

.-.-.

| 343|340|2009-07-26 14:37:21|Andrew Lynch|WANTED: People To Work From Home. Must Have Computer|

--- In catweasel@yahoogroups.com, "Ken Page" Not to worry, as soon as I detect a spammer they are removed from the list and their messages deleted. Hopefully we can keep this group and its archive clean of spammer filth so it will be useful.

Thanks!

Andrew Lynch

| 344|344|2009-09-15 14:09:33|Steven Hirsch|Need some context, please?|

All,

I have read the cwhardware header file about 5 times and am still sitting
here scratching my head. There's a lot of low-level detail there
(thanks!), but what's lacking is the 10,000ft. view: What is the basic
methodology for reading and writing a track? I get that there's a way to
read flux transitions into controller memory and can see how you might
then transfer them to the host computer. What then? How does one "play"
FDC and pull actual sectors of data from the stream?

Writing is a complete mystery. There's some verbiage about timer values
interspersed with "pulses", but I see no explanation or even hint of the
overall flow. How is the track image constructed? What's the basic
theory of operation?

Finally, there's a brief mention of the need to "upload firmware", but
zero detail. Is this documented anywhere?

For the record: I'm no beginner in this field. I have a CS background
and many, many years of experience in hardware interfacing and firmware
development. However, there's just a little too much missing from the
header to give me a direction. I don't need detailed handholding, but
would very much appreciate a hand-waving explanation.

It's not my intent to be critical of the author, BTW. I can see
that a lot of work went into it. I'll even volunteer to re-word or
enhance it on the basis of any insights I'm able to accquire.

Thanks in advance for any help or insights!

Steve

--

| 345|344|2009-09-16 02:06:16|Tobias|Re: Need some context, please?|

On Dienstag 15 September 2009, Steven Hirsch wrote:
well, the catweasel does not provide any functionality to decode the data, so
that is pretty much out of the scope of its hardware documentation :=)

again, thats out of the scope of the hardware documentation :) reading and
writing works pretty much the same - but all you can do is reading or writing
a stream of flux transitions.

this is the only thing missing in the header file ... you may look at the
linux driver for example. however, normally there is no need to upload the
firmware, because the driver will do that for you.

infact, little work went into it... only enough to make it work for me when
trying to understand the driver =P much of the header file is a direct
cut'n'paste of the original "inside catweasel" document from jens =) as said
above, it is explicitly ment to include all hardware info, and NOT any
further info on how to deal with highlevel data. however i am well aware that
it is not complete even in this regard, so if you have something to add or to
fix, just send it over and i will happily include it :)

anyway, here is some brief info:

first of all it would be good to know what type of software you want to
write - in particular wether that actually requires you to write a driver
(and if not, you dont have to deal with the info in the hardware header at
all). if yes, have a look at the various linux driver packages, they should
tell how you initialize the pci bridge, upload the firmware, and then work
with the hardware registers.

if all you want is writing user-mode software, then have a look at the other
header files (or the respective files of the linux drivers if you are using
linux).

the basic operation of reading/writing to disk is like this (simplified r/w of
a mfm disk):

first writing (this is actually easier than reading):

- read one "cooked" track from your disk image into a buffer
- encode the track to "cooked" mfm format, meaning adding proper sync bytes,
sector headers, checksums etc
- transform the result into a stream of raw mfm bits
- transform the result into actual timer values for the catweasel by mapping
mfm patterns to their respective timer values
- write the result to disk (for this there is a ioctl in the driver)

reading pretty much goes the reverse:

- read a track from disk (for this there is a ioctl in the driver)
- map timer values to raw mfm patterns (there are several methods to do this,
simple thresholds beeing the easiest)
- read through the stream of mfm bits, detect sync patterns, and extract
the "cooked" mfm bytes
- decode mfm bytes to normal "cooked" track data
- write out the data to your disk image

for examples on this process you can look at tim manns "cw2dmk" or
the "cwtool" and "cwfloppy" utils for linux.

before starting, i recommend getting familiar with fm/mfm encoding in general,
and with the datasheet of the floppy controller chip you want to "play"...
this will make understanding the above programs a lot easier :) also before
starting to write something in some specific obscure format, you should
probably try to write a regular pc disk first.

--
http://icomp.de/
http://c64upgra.de/

| 346|344|2009-09-16 02:51:51|Steven Hirsch|Re: Need some context, please?|

On Wed, 16 Sep 2009, Tobias wrote:

Ok, understood :-).

I'm familiar with how FDC chips do this in a general sense. So I follow
to this point.

This is where one plays games with inserting transitions to prevent an
excessive number of zeros, right?

Ok, the light just went on. The image consists of nothing more than a
sequence of timer values at this point, correct? And it's simply
understood that a transition is written when each timer expires? I see it
now, but it could _really_ use an explanation in just those terms
somewhere in the docs. Perhaps I'm just dense, but this point was
anything but obvious.

So, here again the result of the track read is a sequence of timer values?

Not following your wording. Could you give me a quick practical example?

Hopefully you can now see where I was (and in places still am) getting
twisted around trying to understand things!

I will try to write up a "Theory of Operation" for the Catweasel once I
get clear on the last few points. Would be very, very helpful to newbies
that want to beat on the hardware and/or do new things with it!

Steve

--

| 347|344|2009-09-16 05:56:45|Tobias|Re: Need some context, please?|

On Mittwoch 16 September 2009, Steven Hirsch wrote:

ok, if you are, you will have little problems understanding the rest.

yes, check here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_Frequency_Modulation for
example.

yes

exactly :) you basically (for mfm) end up with 3 patterns, 10 100 and 1000,
which you then map to 3 timer values (like 5,10,15)

yes

when reading, you wont get exact values (like the 5,10,15 above), but the
values will vary. so you will have to quantize the timer values, for example
by matching them agains thresholdst (eg 7,12,17). another approach is to
implement sort of "pll" logic that will give you the proper bitpattern for a
given timer value.

sure, go ahead :)

--
http://icomp.de/
http://c64upgra.de/

| 349|349|2009-10-18 19:02:15|Steven Hirsch|Windows driver (mis)behavior|

I don't use my cw under Windows very frequently, but had reason to the
other day. I'm seeing some very odd behavior! Imagetool is getting the
diskette drives backwards. It believes that Unit 0 is my 5.25" drive and
that Unit 1 is the 3.5" drive. In fact, it is the opposite, with the 3.5"
drive being drive A and the 5.25" being drive B. What it believes is Unit
1 actually physically selects drive A and vice-versa.

Further, with the CW drivers loaded, I'm unable to use the conventional
Win XP drivers to access the diskettes. If I try to format a disk in,
e.g. drive A:, it generally returns an error indicating that it cannot
access the drive. About 2 in 5 times, it will succeed past this point,
only to fail about half-way through a format operation with a "not ready"
error. Under no circumstances am I able to read an MS-DOS diskette using
the Windows filesystem - it accesses the drive and hangs with no response
and the motor running. Only a reboot will clear things.

What can I do to eliminate this obvious contention between the CW drivers
and WinXP itself? FWIW, this does not happen under Linux with cwtool.
There, everything plays nicely and I can r/w diskettes using either
method.

Steve

--

| 350|349|2009-10-18 23:18:08|Tim Mann|Re: Windows driver (mis)behavior|

It can see how the catweasel drivers and windows might not agree on the
drive numbering.

If the cable you are using to connect from the motherboard to the white
socket on the catweasel has plugs for two drives, with a twist between
them (that is, one plug on one end and two plugs near the other end
with a twist between the latter two), switch to using the other plug.
That will swap Windows's idea of the drive numbering but leave the
Catweasel's idea the same.

If your cable has only one plug at each end and has a twist between
them, find one that has no twist (or two twists) between the two
connectors you will use. Or vice versa, if your cable has no twists or
two twists between the connectors you are using, switch to one with one
twist.

I don't have a suggestion about the apparent contention for you, but
maybe someone else does. I actually never got the pass-through working
well enough with my catweasel to use it, but I put that down to having a
pre-production catweasel and/or problems with cable length and/or
termination on the drives I was using. For me it didn't work reliably
even with Linux booted and no catweasel driver loaded.

--Tim

| 351|349|2009-10-19 00:36:37|Steven Hirsch|Re: Windows driver (mis)behavior|

On Sun, 18 Oct 2009, Tim Mann wrote:

Definitely good things to try, Tim. However, even if it fixes Windows, it
doesn't explain why the Linux cwtool driver is correctly addressing the
drives right now.

The configuration file for windows looks correct, but I'm wondering if
there are some spurious registry settings causing the problem.

Steve

--

| 352|349|2009-10-19 02:04:38|Tim Mann|Re: Windows driver (mis)behavior|

On Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:36:34 -0400 (EDT), Steven Hirsch <snhirsch@... As someone who's written CW software, I always had some confusion about
which drive was supposed to be which. Probably the author of cwtool
just picked the opposite convention from what the Windows CW driver picked.

--
Tim Mann tim@... http://tim-mann.org/

| 353|349|2009-10-19 18:05:49|Tobias|Re: Windows driver (mis)behavior|

On Sonntag 18 Oktober 2009, Steven Hirsch wrote:
the drive letter the imagetool shows has nothing to do with the physical
drive, its just there as a reminder, and can be freely changed in the
configuration. this is because there is no reliable way to find out
programatically which catweasel drive belongs to which windows drive letter.

the drivers should switch between internal and catweasel drives automatically,
this might *not* work however while an application is running that uses the
catweasel (because it might have locked the drives).

--
http://icomp.de/
http://c64upgra.de/

| 354|349|2009-10-19 23:54:06|Steven Hirsch|Re: Windows driver (mis)behavior|

On Mon, 19 Oct 2009, Tobias wrote:

Ok, I understand. Thanks!

I wish it were that easy. There was nothing else running on the machine
at the time. Seems like it's happening at the driver level and that
something is periodically putting the catweasel on the bus.

Steve

--

| 355|349|2009-10-20 00:12:17|Tobias|Re: Windows driver (mis)behavior|

On Montag 19 Oktober 2009, Steven Hirsch wrote:

what the driver does is the following:

- at boot time the passtrough port is active, meaning the bios can access the
drive (try booting DOS from a disk, that should work)
- during initialization the drives will be probed (depending on the actual
drives you might notice the LEDs light for a small time, and the drive
seeking). for this the passtrhough will be disabled.
- now the driver is in "automatic passthrough" mode, which means that whenever
the pc controller tries to access the drive the passtrough will get enabled.
- in reality now explorer.exe starts, which will by itself probe all drives,
which in turn causes the driver to enable the passtrough

check if the first works for you... if not, then it must be either the cables
or the catweasel hardware itself.

if booting works then you know the passthrough itself works, and further
problems are most likely related to the driver. however there have been no
reports whatsoever which would indicate a problem in this part of the driver,
i'd be surprised if it isnt anything else :)

--
http://icomp.de/
http://c64upgra.de/

| 356|356|2009-11-16 15:38:17|Tobias|driver and imagetool updated!|

yay,

i have put the tedious boring code cleanup and 64bit porting on hold for a
while and packaged the changes to (mostly) the image tool that piled up... a
bunch of user requested things were added, so you might want to have a look
and test :)

-
--
http://icomp.de/
http://c64upgra.de/

| 359|356|2009-12-01 04:14:06|Ken Page|driver and imagetool updated!|

Nice to see some more development. :)

And some really important things too.

+ User definable formats.

+ RAW mode for analysis of new formats.

- Broken Write for formats is a bit of a worry. (Hope there is not a long wait on this).

- Did the pause button get added to this release so one can clean the heads etc part way through a recovery?

- No MicroBee support?

However glad to see some progress.

If I can see a stable release with these new very worth while features I am planning on buying a second Catweasel MK4+ in the near future while the dollar is still strong.

Cyclone 20 seems to have stalled some time ago. So not currently viable. :(

~Ken - vk4akp

Sj of the RCC

http://shazam.zapto.org

.-.-.

| 360|356|2009-12-01 04:18:04|Ken Page|driver and imagetool updated!|

Just installed the new driver and imagetools.

Seems to run a lot smother with the 5.25" drive.

Here is what I have found so far. (Some possible Bugs, some $ wish list / reminders, # some maybe I don't understand?) ;)

- Imagetool crashes on Detect with BBC micro & Unknown disks.

- Could not find MicroBee formats in the list of supported formats. $

- No 80 track support for BBC micro disks. $

- Could not read BBC micro disks.

- No Pause & Clean buttons during a read to allow for drive cleaning on stubborn recoveries. $

- Could not read past the first 2 tracks of a 360K IBM format disk.

(2, Track number in header doesn't match current Track)

Yet other times it will read 2/3 the way through fine before getting the same error.

- Could not write an Apple IIe disk.

- Could not write a C64 disk.

- Could not find the user defined profile feature for creating new disk formats. (In ImageTools) ? #

- Could not find RAW read feature. (In Image Tools). ? #

I managed to read Apple IIe and Amiga 880K disks OK. However I haven't tested what was read yet.

Much thanks for all the dev work.

~Ken - vk4akp

Sj of the RCC

http://shazam.zapto.org

.-.-.

| 361|356|2009-12-01 05:53:45|Tobias|Re: driver and imagetool updated!|

On Mittwoch 18 November 2009, Ken Page wrote:

its not as bad as it sounds :) infact, many formats should write better than
before already (with proper sector spacing etc). but since a lot of changes
have been made that in theory affect all formats, they could all break due to
some stupid mistake or something - only testing them all (or atleast a lot)
can tell :)

i have not added it to the internal list, because i dont have any microbee
disks. the libdskrc on the beta page contains definitions for some microbee
formats, simple put it into the same dir as the imagetool :) (i have no idea
if they work though, feel free to test :))

good to know :)

ah damn, i thought i fixed that =P ok :)

yeah well, thats why i added the user defined formats... i will only add those
formats to the internal list that i have disks of, else it becomes completely
unmaintainable (its already a mess with all the formats... =P)

i somehow missed that request... i'll add it, no problem :)

mmh this sounds strange, you might want to play with the drive timing tweak
values (you must edit the ini file directly atm for this) and increase some
of them a bit.

what kind of drive are you using for this? writing 40 track DD formats will
not work well (or even fail completely) on 80 track HD drives unfortunately.
on a 360k dd drive it should work though :)

look at the beta page, the imagetool can load user defined formats
from "fdparm" and "libdskrc". simply put them into the same directory as the
imagetool, and then run the imagetool. i have linked the files i am using for
testing on the beta page aswell, they contain pretty much every format i
could find in this particular fileformat (feel free to send more) :)

please be aware of that this is a very new and probably not very well working
feature, i havent tested it much at all (and many settings probably dont work
as intended yet).

this is not ready yet, i am preparing a commandline tool (cw_raw) for this,
you can find a preview in the tools tarball on the beta page.

--
http://icomp.de/
http://c64upgra.de/

| 362|356|2009-12-05 00:49:41|Ken|driver and imagetool updated!|

Hi,

OK Thanks for the info re MicroBee support etc.

- Will give that a go adding the libdskcr file.
- Will look forward to the `Pause / Clean' button on future releases. (Thanks).
- RE: 40trk c64 & Apple IIe disks. Yes it is a 1.2MB HD 5.25" drive mech, however in previous releases it had no issues with writing the c64 format. I had done this many times.
- Would love to see CW_RAW available as a radio button or similar under Image tool as well if possible please.

Looking forward to future updates.

TNX.
~Ken~
.-.-.

| 363|363|2009-12-05 01:38:38|Ken|MIcroBee CIAB (Chook in a Book test disk)|

Just tried to detect and read a MicroBee CIAB 3.5" SS DD 80T Disk.

On detect 9/10 through the scan you get a `Error Reading Disk' Try again / Abort.

When trying to read the disk after selecting the correct format you just get a complete page of Red fail blocks with a double stepping noise on each track. Second pass does the same thing but a bit faster.

As a simple side test selecting a MSdos format shows green blocks on the same disk.

So the new User(Libdskrc) option isn't working so far, but it does come up in the menu.

Also for your own tests as mentioned previously a Microbee disk can be created on a normal PC using the software located at

http://shazam.zapto.org/retro/microbee/catweasel/

Just following the simple making_disks.txt directions.

Then you will have a disk locally there to test with.

~Ken~
.-.-.

| 364|363|2009-12-05 01:44:51|Tobias|Re: MIcroBee CIAB (Chook in a Book test disk)|

On Samstag 05 Dezember 2009, Ken wrote:
i know that, but i generally want real disks which are created on the actual
machine ... because very often tools as this one dont use exactly the same
parameters as the original formatting routines, so using them as a reference
is not a good idea :)

--
http://icomp.de/
http://c64upgra.de/

| 365|365|2009-12-05 02:20:28|Ken|Apple IIe test using 5.25" 80TRK HD drive.|

Tried to write a Apple IIe disks today.

Blanked the disk first using the ImageTool erase feature.

On the first track I get a full red line (track) and.
Error writing disk seek error.

Clicked continue and I get Green & yellow blocks.

Second pass it writes again the first track but this time mostly successful.

As it continues to pass over the bad tracks it eventually gets it right with some interesting and strange results on the way.

Eventually after many passes it has written the disk OK.

I then tried to verify the disk.

After about 4 passes it finally says all blocks are green.

First pass showed mainly green with some black, yellow and one red block.

Tried the same process again. This time with out erasing the disk first.

This time did not get the error writing disk on the first track.

However took 14 passes to finally get all the data written green.

Verifying this time took 12 passes.

I then tried to read the disk. This took only 4 passes. But the last 2 passes were very quick and only over one last block.

Hope this info helps.

~Ken~
.-.-.

| 366|366|2009-12-05 03:02:08|Ken|C64 format tests using 5.25" 80TRK HD Drive|

Has trouble writing to certain blocks as specially.

After 13 passes all green except.

0:5:0, 0:7:0, 0:9:0, 0:11:0, 0:13:0, 0:16:0
5, Header Missing.

0:6:0, 0:8:0, 0:10:0, 0:12:0, 0:15:0
2, Track number in header doesn't match current track.

Verifying was a dismal failure.

Could read a few complete tracks as green, but first block always red.
Rest of disk red after many passes.

Erased disk using ImageTool erase feature.

Tried to write disk again.

First track. Error writing disk seek error. e000001e.

Same results Catweasel has trouble writing the first block on tracks 5 through 16 (14 green).

Left it to retry for 13 passes. Same results.

Tried to verify.

Tracks 0 through to 21.
First block RED - 5, Header Missing.
Rest of track.
2, Track number in header doesn't match current track.

Tracks 22-34. GREEN, Verified OK.

Then tried a read.
Similar results to verify.

~Ken~
.-.-.

| 367|367|2009-12-05 03:11:08|Ken|BBC Micro format on 5.25" HD Drive.|

Tried to write.

First block of every track.
RED 5, Header missing.

Rest of tracks 0, 2, 4, ,& 6
GREY 0, OK. ???

Rest of Disk Green 0, OK.

~Ken~
.-.-.

| 368|368|2009-12-07 06:23:12|Ken|Stops recognising drive until complete power down and reboot.|

OK. Just found a really bad problem with the new software.

After a little while the ImageTool comes up with the following error.

Error Writing Disk, Seek Error.
Code: e0000010

After this the drive can not be used.

Rebooting the machine does not help. The drive is missing.

You have to then power down the machine totally and the drive comes back.

After this the same problem happens again after a few passes.

.-.-.

| 378|378|2011-03-10 21:12:53|uyhju|8" drives with Catweasel|

I've connected a Shugart SA-851 drive to my Catweasel using a DBit FDAFAP adapter. Imagetool 3.2 (under Windows 2K) doesn't detect the drive (the "Drive" dropdown is empty). When I use Tim Mann's cw2dmk tool under MS-DOS 6, the head loads and I can read tracks, but I get 5 retries on each track and about 4 bad sectors for each good one. So things are kind of working, but not really

I've hooked a 3.5" drive to the Catweasel, which is detected by (and gives me perfect reads) with both Imagetool and cw2dmk, so I believe the Catweasel is working. I've also tried more than one SA-851 (I have three SA-851s, in two different drive cabinets using two different 50-pin cables) and seen the exact same results. I suppose it's possible that all three drives, and/or both cables, are bad, but it seems unlikely to me.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

| 379|378|2011-03-10 22:29:58|Steven Hirsch|Re: 8" drives with Catweasel|

Attachments :

On Thu, 10 Mar 2011, uyhju wrote:

Try pulling the termination resistor from the drive. I have a setup
similar to yours (DBit and all) and have discovered that the CW interface
hardware has difficulty sourcing enought current to drive the 150-ohm
termination reliably.

I don't think newer drives use values that low, and I've seen some that
don't even appear to have termination.

Also, the on-drive jumpering can be tricky. There are a myriad of options
on the SA-851, and to make matters worse there are a number of board
revisions that have things in different places.

Finally, you did clean the heads on the drive didn't you? They tend to
grow mold and crud if stored for a while. On these large mechanisms you
should be able to use some isopropyl alcohol and a long wood-handled
cotton swab. Be gentle!

Just one diskette that's losing its oxide due to binder breakdown can
totally sludge up a drive, BTW.

Steve

--

| 386|386|2011-10-31 20:18:43|hwarin|Catweasel MK 4 & Apple 2 disks|

Hi, all

I have been able to setup recently an interesting vintage configuration (Amiga 1000 + Sidecar + TrackStar 128) that operates perfectly and I'm now trying to create Apple2 disks found on the net (.DSK images) using the Catweasel with absolutely no success.

Until now, my Catweasel works perfectly with a P4 under XPSP3 using a 5 1/4 floppy disk to read/write 1541/1571 disks, even fliped ones.

The catweasel had been able to read the protected (apple formated) tracks of the trackstar disk but I absolutely can't write any apple disk. Does anyone have an idea ? Is there a chance to write apple 2 disks using Catweasel ? What would be the tricks ?

Thanks in advance.

Regard - HervÃ© WARIN

| 387|386|2011-11-01 03:37:13|Tobias|Re: Catweasel MK 4 & Apple 2 disks|

On Monday 31 October 2011, you wrote:
did you try the image tool from http://beta.icomp.de ? i have to admit i only
ever tested if apple2 disks written with it can be read with the imagetool
itself, since i dont have an apple2 here :)

--
http://beta.icomp.de http://icomp.de http://c64upgra.de

| 388|386|2011-11-01 14:02:28|Ken|Re: Catweasel MK 4 & Apple 2 disks|

Frankly Catweasel has always been a nightmare.

The hardware and principal is sound, however the software development has always been a dead end.

Your best bet is to grab something called a Kryoflux.
It is a USB device that does the same thing except it works and software development for it continues at a regular and productive rate.

Catweasel really needs the software development side to become open source if it is to go anywhere. The original developers have just never had the time or man power to make it work properly unfortunately.

Good luck with your archiving!.

~Ken~
.-.-.

| 389|386|2011-11-01 15:06:49|Steven Hirsch|Re: Catweasel MK 4 & Apple 2 disks|

Attachments :

On Tue, 1 Nov 2011, Ken wrote:

Does Kryoflux support block-based images in the sense that one can access
data directly? Or, is it simply copying flux transitions?

Agreed 100%! It's impossible to understand why Jens has not open-sourced
the code. IMHO, CW is heading for extinction unless this occurs. And
even then it may be too late.

--

| 390|386|2011-11-01 15:31:27|Mark McDougall|Re: Catweasel MK 4 & Apple 2 disks|

On 2/11/2011 12:06 AM, Steven Hirsch wrote:

I've *never* understood his business strategy. The C-One is another
case-in-point. It seems he'd rather see products stagnate and die than
support an open-source effort.

And don't get me started on the lack of advertising/information available.
It's like you need to know the secret handshake to even learn of a product's
existence!?!

It boggles my mind...

Regards,

--
| Mark McDougall | "Electrical Engineers do it
| <http://members.iinet.net.au/~msmcdoug| 391|386|2011-11-01 18:40:37|Tobias|Re: Catweasel MK 4 & Apple 2 disks|

On Tuesday 01 November 2011, you wrote:

you ARE aware of arjuna (which is open source), or the stuff at the beta site
(which is open source) ?

what exactly would you want to do with the imagetool if it'd be open source?

what info exactly are you missing?

to be honest, most of the times when i see people repeating this mantra, its
people who would not contribute anything anyway. and those who would never had
problems getting the info.

--
http://beta.icomp.de http://icomp.de http://c64upgra.de

| 392|386|2011-11-01 19:20:26|Steven Hirsch|Re: Catweasel MK 4 & Apple 2 disks|

On Tue, 1 Nov 2011, Tobias wrote:

No, I'd not heard of Arjuna. Took a bit of digging to find the site. At
a quick read of docs, it looks like what I have been wanting for a while.
Windows-only unfortunately, but since it's based on QT, a Linux port
shouldn't be out of the question.

Thanks for making me aware of that!

The things at the Beta site - granted. I was speaking about the GUI
front-end tool primarily.

Fix problems - port to Linux, you name it.

You are entitled to your opinions, of course.

--

| 393|386|2011-11-02 07:25:50|Tobias|Re: Catweasel MK 4 & Apple 2 disks|

On Tuesday 01 November 2011, you wrote:
if you really want to start working on it - contact me offlist before. i have
updated it to use "latest" (well it has been a while ago, so not latest
anymore =D) QT, and it also compiles under linux (i did not fix the driver
stuff yet though). never managed (or was motivated enough) to complete it, but
it might help and save some work :)

if there are problems, you might want to report them =P i have already
prepared it for linux (minus the driver backend), not sure when i will pick it
up again though, likely not before chameleon is out of beta i guess.

| 398|386|2012-02-20 23:47:34|hwarin|Re: Catweasel MK 4 & Apple 2 disks|

Hi,

I will try shortly and update you - [was quite busy those days (months !)]

Any advice to upgrade from "regular" version to "beta" version ?

Regard - HervÃ©

| 400|386|2012-02-21 20:12:12|Tobias|Re: Catweasel MK 4 & Apple 2 disks|

On Monday 20 February 2012, you wrote:
nothing specific, check the pdf for some hints... mostly when you are updating
from a rather old version of the driver (which had buggy internal version
info) then you will have to uninstall _and delete_ the driver manually to
prevent windows from mixing old and new driver components.

| 401|401|2012-11-06 19:55:35|F.|Wanted: Catweasel ISA|

If anyone has got a spare one catching dust, i could give it some use :)

regards
Javier

| 402|402|2013-04-10 08:34:30|codonodoc|Any way to sample disk format with really slooooow bit transition ra|

I have developed some programs in the past to read odd floppy formats by banging on the catweasel registers directly, no driver in between. Great.

But now I want to read a large collection of disks from a Compucolor II computer from 1976 or so. This used an ingenious approach to their disk controller -- it was inexpensive, but at the price of low storage capacity.

They took the serial port controller chip that was already in the machine for RS-232 and programmed it to operate at 76800 baud (9600 * 8) by using what was supposed to be a test-only mode of operation. Each byte takes ten bit times: a start bit, 8 data bits, one stop bit, at about 130 uS per byte. Sectors are identified by having a gap with no transitions of around 10 byte times (1.3 ms), then a sector of 128 bytes encoded as (0x55, track byte, sector byte, 16b crc) (0xFF, 0xFF, 0xFF dummy bytes) (0x5A, 128 data bytes, 16b crc). To make it work, the 8080 CPU had to have interrupts disabled, and of course no serial port operations could happen at the same time because the hardware was multiplexed to read/write the floppy.

To the best of my understanding, the catweasel simply cannot decode this format because its 8b counter will saturate, even at the lowest sample rate.

Can anyone think of a clever way to get it to work? If not, I guess I'll have to spend a couple months of free weekends breadboarding something to do the job, but I'd rather not.

Thanks

| 403|402|2013-04-10 17:57:02|Krause David|Re: Any way to sample disk format with really slooooow bit transitio|

Hi codonodoc,

have you checked the rotation of the drive? Some of thoose early low-cost-solutions rotate with only 50 rpm to sort the data right in time. Given that, everything should fit with a usual 14 MHz RAW-data dump if you read with 360 rpm (supposed it's 5.25"-drive).

David

| 404|402|2013-04-10 19:04:04|codonodoc|Re: Any way to sample disk format with really slooooow bit transitio|

The drive runs at 300 rpm, so there are 15360 bits to be read in 200 ms. If the gap between sectors is 1.3 ms, a 14 MHz sample rate requires a 15b counter.

In fact, there can be an even larger gap between sector 9 and sector 0. Although the gap is nominally 10 character times, there is roughly 100 character time gap between the last and first sector. I'm not sure why things aren't more evenly spaced, but some of it was to account for variation in drive speed, but no enough to account for all of that extra time. Anyway, that gap is over 10 ms, and even a 16b counter might not be enough.

What I really need is a way to reduce the sampling rate significantly. Not knowing the design, does it use a crystal oscillator, and could I replace it with a much lower one and still have things work?

| 405|402|2013-04-10 21:05:24|Krause David|Re: Any way to sample disk format with really slooooow bit transitio|

Hmmm I don't know if it is allowed to say that here, but the Kryoflux samples with 24MHz to 32Bit resolution, from what it reads at the forum! So everything should be in the streamfile, wich is well documented...

David

| 406|402|2013-04-10 21:26:35|Krause David|Re: Any way to sample disk format with really slooooow bit transitio|

There's an interesting Info about this problem and how the solved it with the Kryflux on http://www.softpres.org/wip:2009-10-13

Acording to that the Kryoflux can sample at least 600ms without a flux-change bevor the timer overflows!

Hmm, should be enough for your VLD-disk (VLD = Verry Low Density ;-)

David

| 407|407|2013-06-13 02:01:28|rached|two catweasels to install|

i use the bothe im my 2 pegasos,s 1 tthe fliper card works now but the version 4 i still need to install

| 422|421|2015-02-09 19:58:08|Al Kossow|Re: I Love You!|

Is anyone reading this list any more?
This is getting annoying

| 423|421|2015-02-09 20:15:47|Lyle Bickley|Re: I Love You!|

On Mon, 09 Feb 2015 09:58:01 -0800
"Al Kossow aek@... [catweasel]" <catweasel@yahoogroups.com wrote:

I, unfortunately, also have been reading this list and getting annoyed.

The good news is that I've been sending all the SPAM to KNUJON and
SPAMCOP - so at least yahoo is getting notified of the spamming...

Lyle
--
Bickley Consulting West Inc.
http://bickleywest.com

"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

| 425|421|2015-02-09 22:48:25|snhirsch5|Re: I Love You!|

My Bayes filter has been throwing all the spam into /dev/null, so I never even knew it was happening. I read this list to the extent that on-topic posts appear :-)

| 426|421|2015-02-10 00:15:34|Mark McDougall|Re: I Love You!|

I just wrote a pm to the admin of this group, should be easy to kick the spammer off with admin-rights as he entered the groups some days ago and is changing names by the hour. I hope Petter is still there to free us from this...

Regards, David

| 436|436|2015-02-11 19:28:11|david.krause63|Mail from admin of this group...|

I wrote a pm to the admin of this group. I got an answer today with the information that his yahoo-account was deactivated some years ago and that the group is unmoderated since that time! So there is no chance to avoid spamming in the future...

So, we are on a ship without a captain now, having no idea where it will go to! Shall we leave it? Shall we create a new group?

Is there anybody interested in a new group with a defined moderation?

Regards, David

| 437|436|2015-02-11 20:14:45|Lyle Bickley|Re: Mail from admin of this group...|

On 11 Feb 2015 09:28:11 -0800
"david.krause@... [catweasel]" <catweasel@yahoogroups.com wrote:

IIRC, the last updates to catweasel products were several years ago.
I suspect that most folks who used to use catweasel are now using
Kryoflux. The last real post to this site was in June 2013.

I suggest we just abandon [catweasel] - unless someone wants to pick up
moderation of an essentially "dead" list ;)

Lyle

--
Bickley Consulting West Inc.
http://bickleywest.com

"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

| 438|436|2015-02-11 22:35:51|david.krause63|Re: Mail from admin of this group...|

You're spot on Lyle. I went to kryoflux about a year ago and forgot about this forum completely, since the spam did arrive. So I will wait for some days and if there's no further response I will call it a day...

David

| 439|436|2015-02-12 00:04:57|Mark McDougall|Re: Mail from admin of this group...|

On 2/11/2015 2:04 PM, Mark McDougall msmcdoug@... [catweasel]
wrote:
As long as we have useful traffic (to some extent) what would one do at
this point to image the media 3 1/2", 5 1/4" and 8" floppies? Also would
like a path back to create media as the person interested has a lot of
DEC hardware he wants to test and would probably need 8" floppies back.

He is capable of creating his own imaging setup at this point, but I
told him of Catweasel and Kryoflux Just not sure about costs and tradeoffs.

Hope that is a good question for here as it is a bit off just a
Catweasel question.

thanks
Jim

| 443|436|2015-02-12 09:37:19|david.krause63|Re: Mail from admin of this group...|

As said before very often, the main problem with the catweasel is the lack of developers support! With the kryoflux you get an active forum with more than 500 users and much support from the developers side. The software runs quite fine on win, mac and linux and you are able to read even (to some extend) copy protected disks! The write back feature is still in progress and not stagnating. The next big step will be user-scripts giving the opportunity to add more weird formats...

... so we have to face the facts!

Regards, David

| 450|450|2015-02-13 19:43:58|hwarin|dead group ?|

Hi, friends

Yes, the group appears to be dead ... About myself, I've not went to any other tool than Catweasel despite the lack of support. I'm still needing time to time to write floppies in weird format for wich I have no alternative solution yet.

Abandon of the ship is not a solution - I don't know if it's feasable to recover the admin...

May be someone will be volunteer for the job ?

Tous vos emails en 1 clic avec l'application SFR Mail sur iPhone et Android - En savoir plus.

| 456|450|2015-02-14 15:30:51|david.krause63|Re: dead group ?|

After reading this I guess It will be hard to find anybody at all!

John Resig - Google Groups is Dead


			John Resig - Google Groups is Dead As far as Iâ€™m concerned, Google Groups is dead. For the jQuery project weâ€™ve run all of our community discussions through Google Group mailing lists for the past ...
			View on ejohn.org	Preview by Yahoo

Regards, David

| 466|450|2015-02-16 07:34:18|Jonathan Gevaryahu|Re: dead group ?|

Maybe start a group called 'floppy disk imaging' or 'floppy imaging tools' or something similar?
This is getting ridiculous.

--  Jonathan Gevaryahu AKA Lord Nightmare jgevaryahu@... jgevaryahu@...

| 499|499|2015-03-26 00:25:37|Michael Lohmeyer|Re: Moderator Poll|

Jim, and the Catweasel group,

I am happy to be a backup moderator (or the primary if needed).Â As I said before, I already moderate a few Yahoo groups, including approving people that want to join the group so as to keep spammers out, so it's a task I am able and willing to handle for a long time even if I lose interest in the purpose of the group (and in fact, I don't really do anything with my Catweasel board anymore - but that's my point - it's an important enough group that I will happily moderate it as long as needed).Â

But more importantly, whoever you give access to as a moderator, you should probably make sure that one person is selected to be the new primary moderator so that we don't clobber each other.Â So I defer to your or the group's wisdom and desires on this.Â My aim is to serve, not to control.Â

Regards,
Michael

___________________________________________________________________
Michael Lohmeyer
mike@...

On 3/25/15 2:17 PM, Jim Stephens jws@... [catweasel] wrote:

| 500|499|2015-03-27 18:15:38|david.krause63|Re: Moderator Poll|

It looks as if this group gets silent again. After the cleaning of the spams, only the message history still shows that there was an all time peak of activity in February!

Regards, David

| 501|501|2015-03-28 17:01:06|Janne Peräaho|SID sounds gone|

Hello,

I have a Catweasel MK4 and I've used it for reading Amiga disks. Now I
noticed that the card's SID sounds are gone.

I have two SID chips (6581 and 8580) installed and I've checked that
both SIDs work and that the Catweasel's jumpers are set correctly.

I can hear a very faint sound from the left stereo channel coming from
the 1st SID chip and equally faint sound from the right stereo channel
coming from the 2nd SID chip but that's all.

I've also checked that the computer's sound card works: CD audio plays
loud and clear through the same connector which I'm using for the
Catweasel's SID sounds.

What could be wrong?

--
Janne PerÃ¤aho

| 502|501|2015-03-28 19:47:49|david.krause63|Re: SID sounds gone|

Hi Janne,

the MK4 has a DC/DC-converter for the 12V-suply to separate the audio-part from the digital-part and avoid noise on the audio-line. Therefor GND from the catweasels audio-output has to be connected with the soundcards-GND via the cable. If it is not connected thru the cable you will have no sound from the catweasel even if the same cable runs fine with the inbuilt CD or DVD (because they already are connected to GND by themself)!

So check if the GND of the catweasels audio output is connected to the computers chassis while the cable is in place...

Regards, David

| 503|501|2015-03-30 02:16:32|Janne Peräaho|Re: SID sounds gone|

28.3.2015, 19.47, David wrote:
Hi,

I'm using the audio cable which was supplied with the MK4, or so I
think. It has a ground line which connects Catweasel's audio GND pin to
the sound card's GND pin. I checked the cable with a multimeter and all
3 lines (L, R, and GND) were OK.

I tried connecting Catweasel's audio GND pin to the computer chassis,
but it didn't help.

I have an MK3, too. I installed it to the same PCI slot where MK4 was
and connected its audio cable to the same sound card port which I used
with the MK4 and got good and strong SID sounds.

It looks like the PCI slot and sound card are working and operating
system's sound settings are all right.

...

I just noticed that there are 4 lines in the MK3's audio cable: L, R,
and two GND lines. Would that make any difference?

--
Janne

| 504|501|2015-03-31 09:31:29|david.krause63|Re: SID sounds gone|

As far as I remember (I no longer own a Mark IV myself) there should be an 8pin chip nearby the audio-connector. It's the audio output driver (2 x opamps on single chip). There must be 12V DC attached to it with plus to pin 8 and minus to pin 4. If not, the DC/DC-converter is out of order!

Regards, David

| 505|501|2015-04-01 07:35:19|Janne Peräaho|Re: SID sounds gone|

31.3.2015, 10.31, David wrote:
I think I found it: GS 34063S. I was able to get a reading and it was
only 3V.

If the chip was bigger and not surrounded by tiny components, I might be
able to replace it myself, but as it is it's too delicate work for me :(

The good thing is that now I know why the sounds are extremely weak.
Thanks for the help!

--
Janne

| 506|506|2015-05-28 18:22:05|jwstephens_2000|Group membership rejections|

I have gotten three requests from potential members which are named such as

catweasel@catweasel.

I also own a catweasel ISA and MK4 in my retro-PC&'s. I want to write AppleII-Disks for my Apple //e Card in my LC475 macintosh.   Greetings from Germany Stefan

| 508|507|2016-01-09 02:58:08|hwarin|Re: Welcome Stefan to the catweasel discussion group|

Hi Stefan ...

Welcome to this group and happy new year for all ...

I hope that you'll find someone to help you .... (never been able to write disks in Apple][ format from my PCI catweasel card for my TrackStar emulator - Too bad ! =| 509|507|2016-01-09 16:17:42|Tobias|Re: Welcome Stefan to the catweasel discussion group|

On Friday 08 January 2016, 16:58:07 hwarin@... [catweasel]
<catweasel@yahoogroups.com the latest imagetool supports it... and also the cwtools for linux iirc

--
http://www.icomp.de http://wiki.icomp.de

| 510|507|2016-01-13 03:17:31|drzeissler|Re: Welcome Stefan to the catweasel discussion group|

Hi tobias, thx for your reply.

I installed Win2k and the ISA-CW (Address 320) and the Imagetool both from 2009 and afaik the actual ones.

I configured my drives (1.44 MB 3,5 and 360KB 5,25). I changed the Image-Format to Apple2 and put a blank 5,25DD floppy in it. The "DSK" Image was written to the floppy (all green) but the Floppy does not work in the real machine. I did that with different DSK-Images but the result was the same.

Now I will test to write a floppy with ADTpro via serial connection.

Because the serial connection is not so fast and flexible as the catweasel I would like to use the catweasel.

Do you have any idea what went wrong with the catweasel ? Do you need the config, some screenshots ?

Thx

Doc

| 511|507|2016-01-13 03:29:43|Tobias|Re: Welcome Stefan to the catweasel discussion group|

On Tuesday 12 January 2016, 17:17:31 stefan.missler@... [catweasel]
<catweasel@yahoogroups.com I
sorry, cant tell much more.... it has been a loooooong time since i last used
the catweasel (or the imagetool for that matter)

the only thing i remember is that when i implemented the apple2 stuff, i used
an actual apple2 disk for testing, ie to make sure reading works. then i wrote
back the image to another disk and used the imagetool to read it back again to
make sure writing is also ok. i dont have an actual apple2, so i couldnt test
if the disks would actually work on it (and i never got any feedback about it
back then either, so the only thing i could do is assume it works - or noone
is using that feature)

i'd make sure first that reading a disk produces a proper image for you - i
don't actually recall what the exact format it saves to was either, perhaps
its different from what you are trying to write?

--
http://www.icomp.de http://wiki.icomp.de

| 512|507|2016-01-13 03:33:35|drzeissler|Re: Welcome Stefan to the catweasel discussion group|

Hi tobias. So I will transfer a Disk via serial-connection and if that disk works,

I will make an Image with the catweasel and write it back on an other disk

and then I will check if the newly created disk from the image of the catweasel

works on the real machine.

Doc

| 513|507|2016-01-24 19:53:10|drzeissler|Re: Welcome Stefan to the catweasel discussion group|

I did not get the right cable yet to transform a Diskimage directly to the Apple2e-Card of the LC475, but I got two working Apple2-Disks from someone at "Verein zum Erhalt klassischer Computer". These two Disks work just fine one the Apple2e. I copied them with CW-Isa and Win2k with the latest drivers and Imagetool.

All I can say is that the copies works just fine one the Apple2e !!!

So why do Diskimages from the Internet do not work if written with the Catweasel ?

Is there something special or do I need a special Image-format? Currently I have "Dsk"-Images because I can't find any other.

Greetings from Germany

Doc

| 514|507|2016-01-24 20:01:50|Tobias|Re: Welcome Stefan to the catweasel discussion group|

On Sunday 24 January 2016, 09:53:09 stefan.missler@... [catweasel]
<catweasel@yahoogroups.com the imagetool expects plain binary sector images (like d64s or adfs are) - if
that dsk image format has some kind of header, or consists of more than plain
sector data, then it will not work.

if you could point me to some documentation of that dsk format, then i can
probably tell you what to do to write them using the imagetool :)

--
http://www.icomp.de http://wiki.icomp.de

| 515|507|2016-01-24 21:36:54|drzeissler|Re: Welcome Stefan to the catweasel discussion group|

http://fileformats.archiveteam.org/wiki/DSK_(Apple_II)

Greetings

Doc

| 516|507|2016-01-25 19:01:23|drzeissler|Re: Welcome Stefan to the catweasel discussion group|

Hi Tobias, if the informations are correct, the Apple2-DSK Images are exactly what the CA-ISA needs. No header just plain data. So way do copies from original disks word, bot no written back DSK-image?

Can I do something that you are able to figure out, what the problem is?

Thx

Doc

| 517|507|2016-01-25 19:04:45|Tobias|Re: Welcome Stefan to the catweasel discussion group|

On Monday 25 January 2016, 09:01:23 stefan.missler@... [catweasel]
<catweasel@yahoogroups.com you are correct.... and sorry, i have no idea. do these dsk images have the
same size as the images created by the imagetool?

--
http://www.icomp.de http://wiki.icomp.de

| 518|507|2016-01-25 19:13:11|drzeissler|Re: Welcome Stefan to the catweasel discussion group|

Attachments :

dos_3.3.dsk

Hi Tonias, yes, they have the same Size.

The Apple2-Dos33 is copy with the Imagetool3 of a working Apple2Disk.

I wrote it back to a blank floppy and it works.

The other one is a DSK-Image from the Internet, that does not work if written back with the Imagetool and the CW.

Doc

| 519|507|2016-01-25 19:40:29|Steven Hirsch|Re: Welcome Stefan to the catweasel discussion group|

Attachments :

On Mon, 25 Jan 2016, stefan.missler@... [catweasel] wrote:

It is possible that the non-functional image has the wrong sector skew.
Apple DOS 3.3 and ProDOS used different skew values. There's an informal
convention that a ".dsk" suffix is so-called "DOS order" and a ".po"
suffix is "ProDOS order". However, I have seen many images that do not
follow this standard. In the sense I'm using it here, skew (as opposed to
interleave) is a logical notion that the CW software cannot infer on its
own.

I haven't used Imagetool in quite a while, so I do not recall if there's
an option for image type. If so, try the other setting. If not, there
are utilities that can re-shuffle the sectors.

--

| 520|402|2016-06-04 09:54:07|david.krause63|Re: Any way to sample disk format with really slooooow bit transitio|

Just an update to my statement: It will not work with the kryoflux as long as you use a standard drive!

The drives AGC (automatic gain control built into the drive itself) doesn't allow such long times between flux changes. It will simply raise the gain between the flux changes. This brings up the noise floor to a level that will be detected as additional flux changes by the kryoflux.

So the release-time of the AGC of modern DD or HD drives hast to be modified to read such diskettes!

Regards, David

| 521|521|2016-06-12 05:51:12|jwstephens_2000|Welcome to new member|

Welcome to Brian who is looking to purchase a unit.