"XF351" (from Zaxon) users thread

[+Larry]

21 hours ago, CharlieChaplin said:

 

Try these:

 

Note: In MyDOS, in order to get/use XF highspeed, you have to do two renames. 1) rename *.AR1 (ultraspeed driver) to *.AUT, then 2) rename XFHIGH.AUT to *.AR1. Finally boot the disk again and see/hear if it uses highspeed or not.

 

Yes, it is faster, but doesn't sound like 2X.  I think this has to be combined with a different format to get 2X.  But I'm not sure about that -- it's been too long...  I'm still experimenting...

 

And a little later... I think that this drive will not allow "fast formatting."  I've tried several formatters, and all I get is an immediate Error 139.

 

If I'm correct, then disks would have to be fast formatted on another drive, but this drive will not read/boot disks from my other 3-1/2" drives.  I think I'm out of luck with 2X.

 

 

[LessNick]

3 hours ago, w1k said:

COPY720 is great, i made video

Very interesting, what kind of board is this? Doesn't look like the original assembly from Zaxon.

 

By the way, I found an earlier version of copymate that runs on 64k.

Copymate 4.4.atr

[Peri Noid]

 

3 hours ago, Larry said:

Yes, it is faster, but doesn't sound like 2X.

In general, it's good to have an OS with Hias high-speed SIO support. 

[Dinadan67]

5 hours ago, Larry said:

And here's a question about XF High Speed SIO -- is any special formatting (interleave) required to use XF HiSpd on this drive?  Or is the normal interleave adequate to use high speed?

You are correct, to use the XF High Speed SIO you need to format the disk with the right sector skew, here is a link to an explanation. I use SpartaDOS X from my Side2-Cartrige, support for XF High Speed SIO is buildin. To format a disk for 720k + high speed i used the following settings:

[Dinadan67]

The speed difference ist significant. I put the same 524kb file on two disks, one formatted with "Normal" sector skew, the other with "HSpeed". Then i measured the time to copy the file back to the CF card of my Side2. With normal sector skew it took 5m53s,  with HSpeed only 3m57s.

 

 

[+CharlieChaplin]

2 hours ago, LessNick said:

Very interesting, what kind of board is this? Doesn't look like the original assembly from Zaxon.

 

By the way, I found an earlier version of copymate that runs on 64k.

Copymate 4.4.atr 90.02 kB · 0 downloads

 

Well,

this copy program reads + writes 90k, 180k and 360k (SSSD, SSDD and DSDD 40 tracks). It does NOT work with 130k nor with 720k. Think it also supports ultraspeed, but not XF highspeed.

 

[+Larry]

43 minutes ago, Dinadan67 said:

The speed difference ist significant. I put the same 524kb file on two disks, one formatted with "Normal" sector skew, the other with "HSpeed". Then i measured the time to copy the file back to the CF card of my Side2. With normal sector skew it took 5m53s,  with HSpeed only 3m57s.

 

 

That's an excellent suggestion.  I'll try my SDX cartridge tomorrow.  But to be clear, you were able to format the high speed skew to the disk in the XF351 (and not in another drive)?

[Dinadan67]

Yes, i used my new XF351 from Zaxon.

[w1k]

11 hours ago, LessNick said:

Very interesting, what kind of board is this? Doesn't look like the original assembly from Zaxon.

 

By the way, I found an earlier version of copymate that runs on 64k.

Copymate 4.4.atr 90.02 kB · 4 downloads

its from guy called x_angel

[LessNick]

11 hours ago, CharlieChaplin said:

It does NOT work with 130k nor with 720k

Great, actually no

Apparently I will never tire of repeating that I am extremely surprised by the logic of many authors of that time.

Honestly, I don’t understand what prevented soft from asking about the disk geometry and copying based on this params?

Anyway, it doesn't matter, if you want to get something, do it yourself

[LessNick]

2 hours ago, w1k said:

its from guy called x_angel

Hmm,... does he have a website or a forum page somewhere? Is this a commercial thing or is the schematic available?

Many of my friends would like to assemble their own floppy disk drive for Atari, but it is not easy to find a schematic, much less a ready-made board, in the public domain.

As far as I remember, there were a number of corrections both in the circuit itself and in the firmware and it would be great to get it in one archive.

 

[w1k]

5 minutes ago, LessNick said:

Hmm,... does he have a website or a forum page somewhere? Is this a commercial thing or is the schematic available?

Many of my friends would like to assemble their own floppy disk drive for Atari, but it is not easy to find a schematic, much less a ready-made board, in the public domain.

As far as I remember, there were a number of corrections both in the circuit itself and in the firmware and it would be great to get it in one archive.

 

here:

http://ataripcb.pl/

[Dinadan67]

I did further testing with my modded XF551, which has a 3.5" drive + Hyper-FX rom. This drive supports Ultraspeed, to take advantage you must format the disk with "Ultraspeed"-Skew.  The 524kb-File took only 2m48s to copy. Interestingly it could read the disk formatted and written by the XF351.  Due to the HSpeed sector skew copying the file with Ultraspeed was not faster than on the XF351. Conversely, disks formatted and written with my XF551 unfortunately do not work with the XF351. Perhaps this is a problem with the slimline HD-drive Zaxon uses on the XF351.

[drac030]

3 hours ago, Dinadan67 said:

Interestingly it could read the disk formatted and written by the XF351.  (...) Conversely, disks formatted and written with my XF551 unfortunately do not work with the XF351. Perhaps this is a problem with the slimline HD-drive Zaxon uses on the XF351.

Perhaps, but perhaps not. I remember experiments we once did in 90s on data interchange between ZX Spectrum with the Timex FDD3000 floppy drive and Atari with CA-2001 floppy drive. Atari was able to read and write floppies formatted by the FDD3000 with no problems. The FDD3000, on the other hand, was not able to even read floppies formatted by Atari. The reason was the rotation speed: on Atari it is 288 rpm, on FDD3000 - 300 rpm. An Atari floppy rotating at 300 rpm was "too fast" for the floppy controller in the ZX Spectrum drive. When the rotation was being slowed down mechanically (using fingers), the FDD3000 was suddenly able to read the disk.

 

XF551 rotation speed is 300 rpm, but this is compensated by clocking the floppy controller at 8.3333 MHz instead of 8.000 MHz. If the XF351 uses a standard floppy mechanism rotating at 300 rpm *and* is clocking the floppy controller at 8.000 MHz, then no wonder that it works in only one direction.

[+Larry]

Thanks, @Dinadan67!  The SpartaDos X formatter worked fine.  And the drive is clearly faster now with the combination of the HS (ram) driver and the HS format.

 

About the disk incompatibility...  That was essentially what I found, also -- the XF351 would not read disks from my (3.5") XF551 drives using the HyperXF rom or CSS rom.  But in my case, the HyperXF will not read the XF351 disks, so the incompatibility is both ways.  I wonder if that could be compensated for in the in the included rom?  If this is a new slim-line mech, they read and supposedly write to old 720K and 1.44M disks, so I don't think it would be something like track placement. (?)

 

I'm in the process of finding a suitable high-speed driver.  I don't normally use SDX, so I have to find something else -- my Black Box doesn't appear to support the XF HS protocol.  I will try Hias', and perhaps the IDE+2 will support it?

 

I also wonder if there has been much discussion of this drive on AtariOnline.PL?  I've submitted an application to join, but I don't know how much I'll be able to learn using Google Translate.

[+Larry]

I'm running timing benchmarks on the XF351 using a Hyper+ XF drive.  It's looking like my XF351 has some issues -- it has difficulty reading back disks it has just written.  Seems to do OK on the outer tracks, but when it gets to the middle of the disk, it frequently fails to read sectors it had just written.  Sometimes retries are successful, and sometimes not. 

 

Here are some timings, and I'll add more as I do further testing.  In these tests I am copying 2300 DD sectors between drives using MyDos (which does not use expanded ram).

 

1. Hyper+ XF --> XF351  HS ram driver with HS format (on XF351):  8:42

2. XF351 --> Hyper+ XF  Regular XL driver with HS Format (on XF351):  Failed Reading  (Note this was the disk just written in test #1)

3. XF351 --> Hyper+ XF  HS ram driver with HS Format (on XF351): Failed Reading (Note this was the disk just written in test #1)

4. Hyper+ XF --> XF351  HS ram driver with std Format (on XF351): 10:11

5. XF351 --> Hyper+ XF  HS ram driver with std Format (on XF351): 11:34  (Completed the test with multiple retries.)

 

 

[+kheller2]

Why not try the mech from the 3.5" 551 in the 351 to see if it can read its own disks.  Unless this is the slimline version...  there are adapters.

 

[+Larry]

Yes, I'm probably going to need to do something.  My first step will be to contact Zaxon and see if he will share any info about the mech.  If you look on Amazon at the slimline USB 3.5" drives, the  usually 8-12% 1-star reviews.  I do have spare (old stock) regular 3.5" drives, including a few Sony (branded) drives.  Those were my favorites.  But I have my doubts about them fitting in this case.  The case probably is the most appealing part of this drive, so I hate to butcher it.  I also don't know if I can figure out the wiring if it has non-standard connections.  In the meantime, it's cute to look at!

 

I've had limited success with high-speed drivers.  The best luck I've had is with the SDX HS driver.  Can someone recommend a sector copier that will run under SDX?  I normally use MyDos (since about '85).

 

[LessNick]

To be honest, I don't quite understand what we're talking about, but it seems like we've already figured out that the rotation speed is different: 288rpm vs 300rpm for the XF351

[+Larry]

It should be able to read a disk that it has just written.  But mine won't do that reliably, at least in DD .

[_The Doctor__]

what power supplies are you using across the system?

The high density drives can read double density but the double density drives can not read High Density drives.

The media and coercivity are different. The write width is also different.

The drives should be able to read their own writing however. Power supply issues have been known to add interference that prevents some drives and systems from working as they should though.

Edited July 25 by _The Doctor__

[+Larry]

Disks are all good quality DS/DD disks.  I gave up on trying HD, although the boot disk supplied with the drive was a TDK HD.  I still have boxed DD new ones.  PS is 2 amp switching (not a USB supply). Same as supplied with the drive.  But thanks for the tip, I'll try another one just to rule that out.

[_The Doctor__]

A high density drive even when formatting and writing a disk in lower densities does not change the width or strength or the write, this in turn is not readable by older lower density drives (though there may be some success it is short lived with error). It is about the physical drive in and of itself. Compatibility only really was to read the older disks with no care about the other way around. For that reason I have stayed away from most combination multi-drives.

[+kheller2]

6 hours ago, LessNick said:

To be honest, I don't quite understand what we're talking about, but it seems like we've already figured out that the rotation speed is different: 288rpm vs 300rpm for the XF351

Zaxon's other boards are overclocked just like the XF551. So this shouldn't be THE problem.

[+kheller2]

6 hours ago, Larry said:

 

I've had limited success with high-speed drivers.  The best luck I've had is with the SDX HS driver.  Can someone recommend a sector copier that will run under SDX?  I normally use MyDos (since about '85).

 

 

scopy or hdsc