ahelet wrote:

The Hxc is old retro generation batch converter type floppy emulator and is not comparable with this new generation batch conver […]
Show full quote

carlostex wrote:

ahelet wrote:

For the price that emulator costs, i would rather get the Hxc. If in the future you offer a good LCD display and support for at least 1000 floppies on one USB stick/SD Card and a reasonable price tag you could grab all of the retro computing market for yourselves.

The Hxc is old retro generation batch converter type floppy emulator and is not comparable with this new generation batch converter and configuration file free floppy emulator.
Here is no batch converter needed and no configuration file needed , Please do not confuse with Hxc.
Here is floppy emulator in 32 mhz and it working 30% faster than 40mhz batch converter type.

http://www.floppydrive.eu

Yes, but it's still more useful than most alternatives.

Having dozens of floppies stored is not that useful if you're unable to remember what was inside disk 35. There is where that LCD display is needed (also, that's the reason because standard SD HxC is better than HxC slim).

The file converter is very useful when you're using some formats. Do you support standard +3 disks (hint: the first sector is not 0)? Amiga floppies? What about protected Spectrum Games? I mean those nasty floppies that use "big" (i.e.: 4K) sectors? Or a disk image with 42 tracks? Unless your device supports most image formats (adf, dsk, edsk, ram image files), you'll need some file converter.

And last, but not least, using a 40 Mhz PIC instead a 32 Mhz one will not give you a device 30% faster. Your device will be talking to a FDC that runs at a fixed speed... maybe you'll process data faster inside the emulator, but the computer will read/write at the same speed.

If you're using a PC, that device may be a good choice (but remember: some games used some of the tricks explained before to avoid piracy). But if you need a floppy for older/non PC computers, there is nothing like "old generation" HxC.

ahelet wrote:

This is already much better, more convenient to the user = no batch converter needed.
But of course, you can continue to use the batch converter and do not forgot set correct parameters in your configuration file.

AS a PC user the only thing attractive in that floppy emulator for me, is the ability to use all the MFM formats without limitations. I don't care about the rest.

I can already write other formats with the chinese floppy emulator, the only problem is that i cannot format them back to other formats. But since the point of these floppy emulators is to backup up the stuff and to preserve the original floppies the chinese emulator does the job acceptably.

And i tell you more, the only thing the chinese emulator needs is a firmware upgrade, to support all MFM formats. This is why chinese economy takes over the world, they sell stuff that works OK for a low price.

For a more global retro need, like other types of retro computers, so far the Hxc is unbeatable. Period.

Zup wrote:

If you're using a PC, that device may be a good choice (but remember: some games used some of the tricks explained before to avoid piracy). But if you need a floppy for older/non PC computers, there is nothing like "old generation" HxC.

For the price tag and the number of floppies it supports at a time i don't think it's interesting at all.

Something like this would be interesting:

http://www.floppyemulator.com/products/flexidrivemv-usb/

The only problem is that these companies overprice this stuff like it's some technology wonder, the cost to manufacture one of these things is more like 15x lower.

Anyway back on topic of cheap floppy emulators for our DOS PCs 😀

Question: Are there Floppy to USB adapters? Basically whatever is inside USB Floppy drives. Because then someone could just connect this drive through USB on the desktop for easy loading.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Question: Are there Floppy to USB adapters? Basically whatever is inside USB Floppy drives. Because then someone could just connect this drive through USB on the desktop for easy loading.

Not that i am aware of. Maybe because there was never a need for such thing.

Our chinese emulators do the job, sort of, for all they need would be a more robust firmware to support the other MFM formats. Chuck(G) did try, but the flash is read protected. If there is someone that can write a firmware for this thing to support the other MFM formats we would not need anything else for our time machines. Or another competitive emulator appears...

Diverting a little from the discussion, I think that it would be great if somebody programs a virtual floppy disk... for DOS. I mean, something like the actual Virtual Floppy Disk software but for DOS. It would be as useful as Daemon Tools is for the Win32 gaming crowd out there. Now, if there was a VFD for DOS, maybe it would be much more useful and cheap than those USB or SD or CF to floppy emulators like the ones being discussed. And reliably too, because well, in my experience chinese-made devices don't last very much and aren't built of quality materials.

I wonder why somebody hasn't already made a software like this, it would be really great to have this option available.

Something like FakeCD but for floppies.

unfortunaetly the original video is removed.. anyone care to clue me in on which emulator it was that he referenced?

has anyone had good experience wiuth one of these from china/hongkong?
http://www.ebay.com/bhp/usb-floppy-emulator

There are only two types of USB floppy emulators AFAIK. It is either a Gotek (the cheap China ones), with either a three-digit or two-digit display, or the more expensive and advanced HxC floppy emulator. From the content of the thread I believe he is talking about a Gotek.

By the way, you can buy a special firmware (from the HxC maker) for the Gotek that is more full-featured than the stock one.

chrisNova777 wrote:

unfortunaetly the original video is removed.. anyone care to clue me in on which emulator it was that he referenced?

has anyone had good experience wiuth one of these from china/hongkong?
http://www.ebay.com/bhp/usb-floppy-emulator

Sorry about that, I've updated the video link. It was indeed the same model as in your eBay links. Around $20 with 3 digits.

nirvana175 wrote:

Diverting a little from the discussion, I think that it would be great if somebody programs a virtual floppy disk... for DOS. I mean, something like the actual Virtual Floppy Disk software but for DOS. It would be as useful as Daemon Tools is for the Win32 gaming crowd out there. Now, if there was a VFD for DOS, maybe it would be much more useful and cheap than those USB or SD or CF to floppy emulators like the ones being discussed. And reliably too, because well, in my experience chinese-made devices don't last very much and aren't built of quality materials.

I wonder why somebody hasn't already made a software like this, it would be really great to have this option available.

Something like FakeCD but for floppies.

Because isn't easy as it sounds. FakeCD and FakeFloppy existent emulation algorithms require E820 Bios Services to work correctly which even some Pentium machines don't have, so will be unuseful to revive our older retro machines, which are the target for floppy hardware emulators. And even if you could bypass the requeriment (after checking memdisk and grub4dos mailing lists i really dunno that would be possible without loading EMM386/HIMEM, which again, many games and programs don't like), then there's the problem that you need a TSR/driver to keep the emulation working, which one time more, many games and programs don't like. This emulation won't work for booter games, since the only way to boot many of these machines besides a fixed disk is a... floppy. These emulations require conventional and HMA memory, which in DOS is a precious asset and every KB counts to get programs and games running. This sort of emulation doesn't emulate all the caveats of the FDC controller, which is necessary for copy protections. And the list continues.

And BTW, such piece of software existed, is called TurboImage v1.01a, which sounds good, until you realize that it requires 2MB of XMS, and the virtual drive will not be recognized by every title. You can search for it in the simtel archive mirrors if you want to try, with the name TI101A.ZIP.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Anyway back on topic of cheap floppy emulators for our DOS PCs 😀

Question: Are there Floppy to USB adapters? Basically whatever is inside USB Floppy drives. Because then someone could just connect this drive through USB on the desktop for easy loading.

Something like this? http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/ … BFloppyemulator
Unfortunately, this drive doesn't support writting, only reads. But comes handy for booter games.

I'm at a bit of a loss when it comes to this Gotek Floppy Emulator. What do you do with installations which keep asking for a certain disk?

hyoenmadan wrote:

Because isn't easy as it sounds. FakeCD and FakeFloppy existent emulation algorithms require E820 Bios Services to work correctly which even some Pentium machines don't have, so will be unuseful to revive our older retro machines, which are the target for floppy hardware emulators. And even if you could bypass the requeriment (after checking memdisk and grub4dos mailing lists i really dunno that would be possible without loading EMM386/HIMEM, which again, many games and programs don't like), then there's the problem that you need a TSR/driver to keep the emulation working, which one time more, many games and programs don't like. This emulation won't work for booter games, since the only way to boot many of these machines besides a fixed disk is a... floppy.

Regarding floppy emulation in DOS, there is Flopper to support booters: http://www.oldskool.org/pc/flopper
Never tried it myself, but sounds good. Of course there will limitations, that's obvious.

carlostex wrote:

The only problem is that these companies overprice this stuff like it's some technology wonder, the cost to manufacture one of these things is more like 15x lower.

Components and assembly should indeed be quite cheap. The real cost here is development. After all floppy emulators are not sold in the same quantities as eg. smartphones.

rodimus80 wrote:

I'm at a bit of a loss when it comes to this Gotek Floppy Emulator. What do you do with installations which keep asking for a certain disk?

Check out my video in the first post of this thread!

You basically control the emulator with buttons at the front.

rodimus80 wrote:

I'm at a bit of a loss when it comes to this Gotek Floppy Emulator. What do you do with installations which keep asking for a certain disk?

You mean, it asks for "Disk 1" when that's already what you have loaded?

The Gotek only uses byte-images of floppy disks. Nothing that uses elaborate disk-based copy protection will work.

idspispopd wrote:

carlostex wrote:

The only problem is that these companies overprice this stuff like it's some technology wonder, the cost to manufacture one of these things is more like 15x lower.

Components and assembly should indeed be quite cheap. The real cost here is development. After all floppy emulators are not sold in the same quantities as eg. smartphones.

Yes. When you pay for a floppy hardware emulator basically you're paying for a microcomputer interface loaded with "a sort of magical firmware" that will do the job. 50 or 60% of the total cost of the device comes from firmware development.

Said that, developing a firmware to make the floppy emulator isn't a easy task, as the real device was very flexible and allowed its usage in many different ways and configurations, with each one needing special support. Actually there are only 2 leaders in the floppy emulation world.

EMUFDD: Real beast in the floppy emulation world. Basically an independent microcomputer, it supports loading image files from USB just like the HxC, with the option to load them even from a LAN server. Better tailored to replace floppy units from batch machinery applications, its tag price is very high, and they don't support selling to individuals.

HxC: The most flexible and known floppy emulation hardware device in the market. It doesn't even need a presentation, with many video reviews and tutorials about it in the web. Isn't necessary also tell why the real HxC isn't the same thing than a Gotek unit loaded with the HxC firmware. Better customization, more flexible parameters to make it compatible with almost every device which support the Shugart floppy interface, possibility to actually emulate 2 standard computer drives, A and B, which can be configured in a independent way, and many other exclusive features that will no make in the Gotek due Gotek's hardware limitations.

These devices are the kings because the flexibility that offers its respective firmware, combined with some extra electronics to support that flexibility in the interface with the respective host computer/device. You can possibly RE the electronic bits of the interface, but without the firmware, you have nothing. Both solutions are closed source ofc, but at least HxC is more flexible than EMUFDD in this aspect, as it offers also only the PIC with the firmware flashed and the respective license for a lower price than the full HxC, so you can assemble your own device at home if you have enough skills. Jeff also offers the firmware for Gotek, so you can taste some of the benefits from the HxC development for a lower price.

For Gotek-HxC I guess is a good deal if you only want basic support for your DOS retro rig (once the HxC firmware is loaded it also can work with Amiga and a few extra computer systems, so is still very flexible), taking in count that no one else ever attempted to make a similar development as an open source project.

SquallStrife wrote:

rodimus80 wrote:

I'm at a bit of a loss when it comes to this Gotek Floppy Emulator. What do you do with installations which keep asking for a certain disk?

You mean, it asks for "Disk 1" when that's already what you have loaded?

The Gotek only uses byte-images of floppy disks. Nothing that uses elaborate disk-based copy protection will work.

The disks in question are the 2 installation disks for the CT1600. Is there a way for me to run the installation without it asking for the disks?