rocky007 Posted March 2, 2011 Share Posted March 2, 2011 I'm trying to find a way to connect the original PEB disk drive to a PC, ( to use with omniflop ). Unfortunally, it's not working. The disk drive looks reconized and receive the "order" from PC ( motor start, etc..) , but impossible to read or write something. Somebody have idea ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+adamantyr Posted March 2, 2011 Share Posted March 2, 2011 I'm trying to find a way to connect the original PEB disk drive to a PC, ( to use with omniflop ). Unfortunally, it's not working. The disk drive looks reconized and receive the "order" from PC ( motor start, etc..) , but impossible to read or write something. Somebody have idea ? Those old drives probably won't work with modern motherboards, or the Windows OS. You'd need something at least 10-15 years old and running DOS to have a shot at it. Adamantyr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthew180 Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 Not going to happen. The old drives spin at 300RPM vs. the 360RPM of modern (anything about about 1987) 3.5" and 5.25" drives. Welcome to the land of "floppy drive hell". I have two IBM 5150 (Original XT) computers that use the same full-height floppy. Like Adam said, you really have to get some really old hardware and dedicate it to the task. That or someone needs to make a real piece of hardware to run the old drives, and plugs in to a USB port or something. I have spent a lot of time finding 3.5" and 5.25" drives that either run at 300RPM, or have jumper blocks so you can configure them to run at 300RPM. But that is to use those drives with my real 99/4A. I did have a 386SX (it finally died) that I could run that V9T9 emulator on and format, read, and write my 99/4A disks. It was awkward and a pain in the butt though. Using MagicFM and a serial port has been much easier for transferring files to / from a PC. That or a CF7, or burn an EPROM for a cart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marc.hull Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 I'm trying to find a way to connect the original PEB disk drive to a PC, ( to use with omniflop ). Unfortunally, it's not working. The disk drive looks reconized and receive the "order" from PC ( motor start, etc..) , but impossible to read or write something. Somebody have idea ? Put it on a Windows 98 machine that has known FM support and use TI99-PC. It will work provided you only try and copy SSSD (90K) disks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 I've used an ancient Compaq 386 with an original IBM 360K drive in it to do TI99-PC 5.25 disk read/writes in the past. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 (edited) I am pretty sure I got this from another post in this forum: FC5025 USB 5.25" Floppy Controller - shop.deviceside.com http://shop.deviceside.com/prod/FC5025 Looks really damn neat. And this: KryoFlux - USB Floppy Controller http://kryoflux.com/ EDIT: I want to note that I have not tried either of these, but they look promising. KryoFlux supposedly does (or will have) write support. I do not believe the FC5025 has write support. Edited March 3, 2011 by OLD CS1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+adamantyr Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 Any version of Windows would have to pre-date Windows XP as well. The problem being that a lot of the low-level routines for floppy drive access are no longer mutable at that stage. Given that floppy technology hadn't changed in a long time, it's not surprising they locked that off. I got a Pentium 200 MMX running DOS 6.11 which seems to work, at least as far as reading the TI disks. I haven't tried writing them, though, I suspect it wouldn't work because of the RPM speed differences. Adamantyr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocky007 Posted March 3, 2011 Author Share Posted March 3, 2011 (edited) for now, i just tryed to format a simply disk under Win Xp using the TI floppy drive. The drive start correctly, motor spinned, head moving correctly also, just don't write/read nothing. So, RPM could be a good explaination. The FC5025 & KryoFlux are amazing... i didn't knew about these devices, but it's very interesting. Unfortunally, FC5025 & Kryoflux arn't compatible with all floppy drive and only FC5025 handles TI format. So i suppose they won't support also the TI99 floppy drive. Anyway, it's not a big problem, my old PC 5"1/4 drive don't work anymore, and i can't find easyly here a working floppy drive... so, i will search on ebay and wait Edited March 3, 2011 by rocky007 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mäsäxi Posted March 3, 2011 Share Posted March 3, 2011 With MSX experience, it is weird and strange (and sad) indeed to read about your problems with floppy drives. When my first PC was in working condition, I used it´s 3,5" drive to save MSX games and utilities to 3,5" diskette and then put diskette straight to MSX floppy drive and programs worked without any problems (minus some problems with few games). After that PC died, my laptop of course didn´t have floppy drive, so I bought brand new 3,5" USB floppy drive in 2008 or 2009, inserted diskette in it, inserted drive´s cable into my laptop, and then just saved MSX files to diskette or loaded something from diskette into PC. And that´s it. No problems! Must say that Microsoft stuff has some REAL use, even nowadays. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fiath Posted March 6, 2011 Share Posted March 6, 2011 Unfortunally, FC5025 & Kryoflux arn't compatible with all floppy drive and only FC5025 handles TI format. So i suppose they won't support also the TI99 floppy drive. Anyway, it's not a big problem, my old PC 5"1/4 drive don't work anymore, and i can't find easyly here a working floppy drive... so, i will search on ebay and wait KryoFlux does indeed support the TI format. It even can do "hard to read" sectors. See this thread: http://forum.kryoflux.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=112 Your right it doesn't support all floppy drives though. We made the decision to focus getting the most commonly available drives working really well, that being Shugart-compatible PC drives. If the TI drives is Shugart compatible (?), it would hopefully work. There are some TI people in our forums (same link as above), so might be worth asking in there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fiath Posted March 6, 2011 Share Posted March 6, 2011 (edited) Might also be worth mentioning that KryoFlux allows you to read disks written on a 300 RPM drive in a more commonly available 360 RPM drive... Edited March 6, 2011 by fiath Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
humeur Posted March 6, 2011 Share Posted March 6, 2011 floppy drive speed can be changed, on certain model jean Louis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 floppy drive speed can be changed, on certain model jean Louis I have a couple of TEAC drives which have this ability. I am patiently awaiting the next run of KryoFlux boards, and especially software with WRITE capability; any idea when this will happen? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
humeur Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 floppy drive speed can be changed, on certain model jean Louis I have a couple of TEAC drives which have this ability. I am patiently awaiting the next run of KryoFlux boards, and especially software with WRITE capability; any idea when this will happen? you want to change the speed of your drives ?? jean louis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocky007 Posted March 7, 2011 Author Share Posted March 7, 2011 Unfortunally, FC5025 & Kryoflux arn't compatible with all floppy drive and only FC5025 handles TI format. So i suppose they won't support also the TI99 floppy drive. Anyway, it's not a big problem, my old PC 5"1/4 drive don't work anymore, and i can't find easyly here a working floppy drive... so, i will search on ebay and wait KryoFlux does indeed support the TI format. It even can do "hard to read" sectors. See this thread: http://forum.kryoflux.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=112 Your right it doesn't support all floppy drives though. We made the decision to focus getting the most commonly available drives working really well, that being Shugart-compatible PC drives. If the TI drives is Shugart compatible (?), it would hopefully work. There are some TI people in our forums (same link as above), so might be worth asking in there. if i understood well, it's possible to make a raw image of the image...but after need to convert it in usual emulator format ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marc.hull Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 I'm trying to find a way to connect the original PEB disk drive to a PC, ( to use with omniflop ). Being unfamiliar with Omni-Flop I am assuming it lets you bypass all the restriction in place post WIN-98 ? Does it somehow replace the BIOS (which seems to be the bug-a-boo in using newer MoBo's for older floppy access) when writing to floppies ? I have seen some peripheral discussion on Omni-Flop but nothing in depth.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
humeur Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 Omni flop with Xp work fine. Jean Louis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ti99iuc Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 In my Experience with Mr. bagnaresi's utility TI99-PC (omniflop) i use on a Core 2 duo with 2Gb Ram and XP, for floppy 3.5". I had some problems with Seven. On this PC the 5.25" drive wouldn't work becouse bios not-compatible, i tried a lot of 5.25 floppy dirve but no one work. The same floppy drive that on Core 2 duo do not work, on a Pentium 4 1500Mhz with 512Mb Ram, works fine. on Pentium 4 with XP i have a floppy drive 5.25", and i tried all that other drive i had and all work fine. This is the list of the 5.25 drive that i tried and work fine: Teac 14733730-80, DMFSEC05A, DMFSEC05B. i've not calibrate any speed, i only used as was. Just the cable is not the same of the ti99 but a classic floppy drive cable for pc. Becouse all two bios o the computers can recognizes both formats of floppy. so that I can use either the 5.25 "drive" and both the 3.5 "drive at the same time, respectively Drive A and Drive B. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marc.hull Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 Omni flop with Xp work fine. Jean Louis In that case..... If I may make a suggestion. Instead of trying to use a 5.25" floppy try some 3.5" drives. They do not have to be 720K or 360K (if there is such a thing) drives. HD drives will work just fine provided you use DD disks or HD disks with the hole taped over. The later I have found to be some what unreliable over time. Mitsumi D359M3D's are what I use in the PC, TI and Geneve and provided I am using DD disks I never have issues. Like I stated earlier, HD disks can be problematic on the PC side and for some reason are prone to data loss on the TI side. The best part is these drives are some what common and relatively cheap and the floppies are still to be had (HD ones still in the store around here.) Of course this does not help if you have 5.25" disks that you need to upload to a PC. Not sure if Omni-Flop is a stand alone disk writer or works in conjunction with something else like TI99-PC. Can you help or provide a link to discussion ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fiath Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 I have a couple of TEAC drives which have this ability. I am patiently awaiting the next run of KryoFlux boards, and especially software with WRITE capability; any idea when this will happen? The next run should be complete in April hopefully. Our manufacturers are very busy at the moment though, so that might slip into May. You don't need to change the drive speed with a KryoFlux btw. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fiath Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 if i understood well, it's possible to make a raw image of the image...but after need to convert it in usual emulator format ? You can do, but the usual emulator formats of course won't be able to hold any copy protection. We are developing a standard format for that (the one we have is more of a hardware protocol), but it will need to be supported by other tools (e.g. emulators), or, if they are games, you can send the raw files to the Software Preservation Society who can create IPF files that are more suitable for emulators. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 I'm not sure what all this talk is about "emulator formats"... Classic99 runs standard TI files formats... if it runs on your machine, it runs on Classic99 with NO conversions... As far as DSK files, you can make up the DSK files using a free program called TI99-Dir. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted March 7, 2011 Share Posted March 7, 2011 I have a couple of TEAC drives which have this ability. I am patiently awaiting the next run of KryoFlux boards, and especially software with WRITE capability; any idea when this will happen? The next run should be complete in April hopefully. Our manufacturers are very busy at the moment though, so that might slip into May. You don't need to change the drive speed with a KryoFlux btw. Good to hear. How can we be notified when the next run is available, and do you know about how much one will cost? Yeah, I read about the 360/300 rpm reading ability, which is a huge bonus. I have a couple of TEAC dual 3.5/5.25 drives I am looking forward to putting to use. I have been unable to get the drives to work properly on the TI, and am about ready to throw in the towel. It will be nice to have a single, unified method for reading old disks, instead of the various hodge-podges I have in place now -- though 1541 and a modified Amiga 1020 work pretty well for creating D64 images, and I can read 1581 disks on the Amiga with a couple of different filesystems. But I have nothing easy for TI stuff, just yet. And with me about to fire up my Atari 800XL in the next 12 months, I am going to need more more more more more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tursi Posted March 8, 2011 Share Posted March 8, 2011 You can do, but the usual emulator formats of course won't be able to hold any copy protection. We are developing a standard format for that (the one we have is more of a hardware protocol), but it will need to be supported by other tools (e.g. emulators), or, if they are games, you can send the raw files to the Software Preservation Society who can create IPF files that are more suitable for emulators. This is not a concern in the TI-99/4A world. There are about two pieces of software that need any formatting information beyond the actual sector data, and they're long since broken. If it was a concern, anyway, the PC99 format is defined to contain all that information already (even though it tends not to in practice). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocky007 Posted March 8, 2011 Author Share Posted March 8, 2011 I'm not sure what all this talk is about "emulator formats"... Classic99 runs standard TI files formats... if it runs on your machine, it runs on Classic99 with NO conversions... As far as DSK files, you can make up the DSK files using a free program called TI99-Dir. a raw image won't be read under classic 99. it's a image of the disk, in brute. I suppose classic99 use a header on DSK image. So probably need to add this header to the raw image to be read correctly under emulator Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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