The Sinclair QL Forum

Hi all,

After playing about with my ZX Spectrum's SD card interface I figured I'd try and get an SD card interface going with my QL.

I bought a couple of different floppy emulators and although the SD card is recognized, it fails to actually read/write data. I'm using a Miracle Trump card.

So, correct me if I'm wrong, I'm thinking that here isn't a floppy emulator that actually works. And with this dodgy bit of research in mind I went and contacted the designer of one of the emulators (Emudrive - http://www.floppydrive.eu ) and asked what they needed to adapt their firmware / image files to have the necessary protocols.

A bit of dialog later including me extracting the Trump QL floppy format (see below) via a DOS app the designer is hopeful they can send me some updated firmware / image files that will allow the QL to use it's regular floppy commands on the SD card. They key is that the modulation is MFM otherwise all this would have been a non starter.

Here's hoping.

Ian.
[QL newbie}

QL floppy analysis summary:
-----------------
Rotational speed: 299 RPM
Form factor: 3.5"
Track density: 135 tpi (high density)
Capacity: 819200 bytes (800k)
Data rate: 250 kbit/s
Modulation: MFM
Sector size: 512 bytes
First sector ID: 1
Sectors total: 1600
Sectors per track: 10
Cylinders: 80
Heads: 2
Interleave: 1:1
Minimum R/W GAP3: <not tested>
Format GAP3: 109 bytes (80 recommended)
Head skew: 0
Cylinder skew: 0

Recommended preset data for fdc.ini:
0x10,1,800,80,2,10,1600,1,512,2,0x2a,0x50,0xdf,1,0,0,0x40

The HxC floppy emulator definately works

http://torlus.com/floppy/forum/viewtopi ... fdae5b96ef

Its the only mass storage I have on my QL at the moment!

XorA wrote:The HxC floppy emulator definately works

http://torlus.com/floppy/forum/viewtopi ... fdae5b96ef

Its the only mass storage I have on my QL at the moment!

And I forgot to link RWAPs guide for if you have HxC software without my addon.

http://www.dilwyn.me.uk/docs/manuals/Si ... rticle.pdf

Hmmm, I have that interface (the one without the LCD) and so am trying it again just now. I thought I'd be able to download the image files somewhere but can't see them......so am assuming by running the windows app I can floppy dump and save the images out. Trying that now.

Ian.

Do you have an .HFE and .CFG that works?

Ian.

Here is a hfe file that should work, its a blank disk, and a copy of my .CFG, no idea if they are compatible between LCD/non-lcd versions.

G

And what QL sees flp2_ is the hfe I attached.

XorA wrote:Here is a hfe file that should work, its a blank disk, and a copy of my .CFG, no idea if they are compatible between LCD/non-lcd versions.

G

Thanks.

No matter what I do I get "not found" when I try to DIR FLP1_
Any special format requirements of the card.
I'm reading the manual.....but heck there's a lot to it!

Ian.

Also remember that Q-emuLator can be used to read from / write to raw disk images on the PC - you then just need to use the HxC Software to convert the raw disk image file to hfe format.

Have you tried naming the .hfe as startupa.hfe and ticking the config option to autoload that on boot?

All in the GUI settings thingy.

I used LCD to select on mine.

Also take care your cable is right way round, its safe to try both ways.