A Universal Floppy Disk Drive Emulator

You can found details about these floppy emulators into this pdf : SDCard_HxC_Floppy_Emulator.pdf

Rev C/F user manual: SDCard_HxC_Floppy_Emulator_User_Manual.pdf

Slim Rev A user manual: Slim_SD_HxC_Floppy_Emulator_User_Manual.pdf

Hardware/software specifications

- 40Mhz PIC18F4620 based. (Rev B, C & 3"1/2 rev F)
- 64Mhz PIC18F46K22 based. (3"1/2 Slim version)

Floppy interface: HE10 34 pins floppy connector

- Shugart compatible mode supported.
- PC compatible mode supported.
- Two floppy disk drives emulation. (Two floppy disk drive emulator in one !)

Power supply

- 5V +/- 10% standard power floppy connector input.
- 500mA max. (80mA in standby).
- Two floppy disk drives emulation. (Two floppy disk drive emulator in one !)

User Interface

- 3 LEDs ("Power LED","Floppy access LED"," SDCard access LED ").
- 3 buttons ("Next","Select/Eject","Previous").
- 1 audio transducer.
- 2*16 chars Alphanumerical LCD.
(Note : LCD and buttons can be put on an external front panel)
- On screen display software for Atari ST, Amstrad CPC and Amiga Computers

SDCard support

- SD Card up to 2GB.
- SDHC Card supported up to 32GB.

SDCard Filesystem

- FAT12/FAT16 & FAT32 supported. Subdirectory and long name file supported.
- Multi-Volumes/Images support:
-> More than 8000 HD (1.44MB) Floppy Images on a 32GB SDCard !
-> More than 16000 DD (720KB) Floppy Images on a 32GB SDCard !

Read / Write support

- Track mode based floppy emulator. (Full track pre-encoded in the HFE image file)
- Read support : Most of existing formats supported. (FM/MFM/GCR/Amiga/E-mu track...)
- Custom tracks supported.

- Write support : ISO MFM/DD 128/256/512/1024/2048/4096/8192Bytes sector write supported.

- Write support : ISO FM /SD 128/256/512/1024/2048/4096Bytes sector write supported.

- Any data mark supported : 0xFB, 0xF8, 0xF9, 0xFA

- Amiga Write support.

- E-mu (Emulator I / II / SP1200) Write support.

- Low level format support :
The host machine can format the image with the right disk setup exactly as with a real floppy disk ! No need to already have an image with the right format, just make it by formatting it !

Floppy bitrate supported

- 125/150/250Kbits/s (FM/SD floppies)
- 250/300Kbits/s (MFM/DD floppies)
- 500Kbits/s (HD floppies)
- (others special bitrates support available)

(Note : Variable bitrate not supported by this hardware. So protected floppy disk image (IPF and STX file format) support is only partial ! If you are looking for a device supporting IPF / STX please a have a look to the USB HxC Floppy Emulator device)

RPM

- 300 RPM, 360 RPM supported.
- (others special RPM available/supported).

Tracks / Side

- Up to 255 tracks per floppy.
- 1 or 2 sides.

Additionnal features

- Firmware update via the SD Card.

- Last Loaded Floppy Image autostart at power up.

- Fast floppy image loading (<<1second), no conversion time.

- Floppy Emulator ready at power up! Boot sequence possible right after the power up !

- SD Card Direct Access mode : Direct Floppy to SD bridging.

- Host control : The host machine can send commands to the emulator to change the current selected image.

- File image renaming embedded function.

- Supersized DOS Floppy emulation! : Up to 5 MB free per floppy image file !

- Data integrity/safety of the original system respected ! :
The original CRC/checksum fields are present into the HFE images ! No direct usage of not secured IMG/IMA/”ISO” images or direct flash media bridging without CRC in floppy emulation mode !

SD HxC Floppy Emulator Mechanical drawing (Rev B/C):

Firmware :

Please go to the download section to get the latest version.

Host control/File selector tool (Atari ST, Amstrad CPC, Amiga) :

With the HxC File selector the host computer can access directly to the SDCard to select files images and change the SDCard HxC Floppy Emulator settings.

The LCD screen and the buttons are becoming optional / useless. You can even remove the LCD screen to put the SD HxC Floppy Emulator inside the Amiga/Atari/CPC computer without case modification.

Atari ST, Amstrad CPC and Amiga versions of this tool are currently available.

Videos-demo of the HxC File Selector :

Note : Please go to the download section to get the latest version.

- Read only Floppy emulator (SD,DD,HD & ED mode)
( No Write Support ! Have a look to the SD Card version for the write support!)
- USB 1.1 device interface (based on the FTDI FT245.).
- MFM, FM and GCR compatible (can handle custom encoding).
- Bitrate between 63Kbits/s and 1MBits/s.(250 differents bitrates by step of 62.5ns).
- Variable bitrate, flakey bits and long tracks, custom tracks support (emulation of copy protected floppies).
- Can emulate floppies up to 128 tracks.
- "jumper free" design : Device configuration done by software.
- Flexible floppy interface: Shugart, IBM PC and Amiga compatible.

To see the list of computer tested with it, please go to this List

All necessary informations to build your own USB HxC Floppy Emulator are available here.

The main part of the USB HxC Floppy Emulator is a MAX EPM7128S CPLD from Altera with 128 Macrocell. This chip is connected to a 32KB SRAM memory buffer and a FT245 from FTDI for the USB communication.

Warning : Do not disconnect the floppy ribbon while the USB is connected ! This may damage the emulator and your equipements.

Always disconnect the USB cable before connect/disconnect the floppy ribbon.

There are two differents USB HxC Floppy Emulator PCBs :

- An "homebrew" version (Rev B). This is a one layer "Do It Yourself" PCB.

- A "Production" version (Rev C). This is a two layers PCB. I recommend this version since it have a better layout.

Regarding the features of the board there are no differences between these two boards.

You can downlead the Schematic / PCB Layout / BOM of the revision B & C board here !

If you don't want build it, this board is also available to purchase. Have a look to the sale points section.

This software act as the floppy server with the USB HxC Floppy Emulator.
This program also allows you to convert floppy file images for the SDCard based HxC Floppy Emulator.
Supports many input floppy image file formats: List of the supported floppy image formats.

Notes:

- Supported operating systems :

-> Windows 2000 / XP / Vista / Seven / 10.
-> Mac OS X.
-> Linux.

- The USB HxC Floppy Emulator support is based on the FTDI D2XX Direct Drivers.
If you have the USB HxC Floppy Emulator you must install this driver.

The lastest software sources codes can be donwloaded on the SourceForge project page :
https://sourceforge.net/projects/hxcfloppyemu/

Note : Please go to the download section to get the latest software version.

https://github.com/jfdelnero/

https://github.com/jfdelnero/

https://github.com/jfdelnero/