HxC Floppy Disk Drive Emulator
The HxC Floppy Drive Emulator is a Universal
Floppy Disk Emulator, developed by Jean-François Del Nero
(Jeff). It began life as a way to emulate the 3.5" disk drives on
Atari ST and Commodore Amiga computers and has developed into a
solution that can replace floppy disk drives in a wide range of
computers, music samplers and a range of industrial machines -
in fact, just about anything that has a floppy drive interface.
There are two main kinds of HxC :-
-
A
USB version which allows connection of the floppy disk
drive interface of the target hardware to a PC via a USB
cable.
-
An
SD Card version which emulates floppy disk drives with
disk images stored on an SD card
Full details of the HxC Emulator can be found on
either
I have already purchased an HxC Emulator for use
with my Memotech computers,
an expanded description and pictures of the different HxC form
factors can be found on my Memotech
FDX disk
upgrade page. The photo above is of the type "F", this
has a form factor the same as standard 3.5" floppy drive,
external devices are also available as well as a "headless"
model with no user interface - the user interacts with the drive
using a custom software interface which is available for, Atari,
Amiga and Amstrad CPC computers.
The HxC is a very good and flexible deign, well
suited to use with a range of hardware, however, as the table
above shows, it is significantly more expensive than the Gotek
emulator.
Gotek Floppy Disk Emulator
Background
The Gotek Floppy Disk Emulator is
designed to replace floppy drives of various formats in devices
using PC compatible floppy drives. The hardware is quite simple,
consisting of a single PCB, at the heart of which is a 72MHz
ARM Cortex M3 based
STM32 MCU which
translates image file data into floppy disk track & sector
format in real time.
Development
Gotek only write firmware to support PC formats,
but it is possible to re-flash the MCU with replacement
firmware, currently, the only "available" option is for the
Amiga - Gotek emulators re-flashed with Amiga compatible
firmware are being sold by quite a few vendors on ebay. These
devices have been very popular with Amiga owners and I was
recommended to get one of these to replace/supplement the FDD in
my Amiga A1200.
Provenance
I was all set to buy from one of these ebay
vendors when I came across the origin of this great piece of
programming - it was created by Hervé Messinger,
without reverse engineering or otherwise copying the Gotek
firmware, Hervé created his own firmware that can emulate the
custom, non-PC compatible, disk format of the Amiga range. Hervé
has generously made the binary (but not the source) of the
firmware available for free download on his blog "Transform
the Gotek Floppy Emulator into an Amiga Floppy emulator",
but has placed an entirely reasonable condition on it that "software
provided on this page can’t be sold directly or indirectly into
a pre-flashed device".
This presents us with something of a moral
dilemma, leaving aside the unscrupulous ebay box shifters who
are out to make a quick profit, a few Amiga users have
re-flashed Gotek drives with Hervé's firmware and made them
available to other Amiga owners, making a small charge for the
service. There is no doubt that some Amiga owners would not be
happy to undertake this fairly simple procedure (fully described
on Hervé's blog) and although providing this service could be
viewed as a purely altruistic act, it is expressly forbidden in
Hervé's blog.
Current Status
There is an extensive trail of comments on the
blog that makes it obvious that Hervé has become a bit
disillusioned by the sale of drives with his firmware on them,
to such an extent that development of the firmware has, if not
totally stopped, at least stalled.
Hervé was not charging for the firmware and made
it available as a free download, OK, although maybe he should
have included some sort of license with it, it is clear that
people are profiting from his good work and, as a result, the
firmware has not been updated since 30/03/2014 - though it is
still available for download. Whilst the current version of the
firmware appears to be stable, it's still a beta version and has
probably been further developed since the last release. It is
unfortunate, but understandable, that we are unlikely to see
enhanced firmware until Hervé creates a new licensing model that
he is happy with - assuming that he even wants to.
Impact
What does this mean in practice ? Well, I guess
it comes down to an individual's personal choice, although the
drives are available for purchase with the re-flashed firmware,
I have decided that for me, I prefer to adhere to the constraint
placed on Hervé's blog and purchase a standard Gotek and
re-flash it myself. I would encourage others to do the same. As
well as giving you that nice fuzzy feeling you get when doing
something that you know to be right, you will also save money -
the cost of a standard Gotek on ebay (I paid £12.95 including
P&P, with another £1.50 for a USB to serial converters) is about
half of what I have seen the cheapest of the pre-flashed drives
sold for.
Next :
Interfacing to the Amiga
