If your MacBook isn’t an M1 chip type, bootcamp Windows onto it and use that for flashfloppy?

If it IS M1 (Apple silicon) get a trial of VMware Fusion 13, and run Windows as a VM.

paradigital wrote on 2022-12-28, 15:45:

If your MacBook isn’t an M1 chip type, bootcamp Windows onto it and use that for flashfloppy?

If it IS M1 (Apple silicon) get a trial of VMware Fusion 13, and run Windows as a VM.

Oh good idea, I might try that. Would it theoretically be possible though to make a USB drive from macos that works with the Gotek? Should it be possible to just copy img files to the root of the USB drive and have it work? If it's somewhat of a manual process, that would be ok too. For now though, I am not even sure if these disk image files I am downloading from winworldpc are the correct format for the Gotek.

I’ve never tried manually creating the folder/file structure on my GoTek, I’ve always used FlashFloppy, and unfortunately my PC with it installed is in storage, so I can’t test it out for you.

I can however state that I’ve got a good 10-15 images from WinWorldPC on my Gotek and they all work just fine.

Hi there! This is perhaps old news, but I had some trouble with my first Gotek, too.

Gotek fails floppy drive test

After that, I flashed the Gotek with Flash Floppy and had no trouble anymore since.

FlashFloppy, an open source firmware for Gotek drives

The flashing procedure wasn't complicated, just a bit cumbersome (back then).

Namely, both reseting the Gotek and establishing a serial connection simultaneously.
- I simply was to lazy to solder a push button. 😂

Newer Goteks may use a different PCB/FPGA and perhaps can be flashed easier, not sure.

Good luck! 🙂🤞

paradigital wrote on 2022-12-28, 17:15:

I’ve never tried manually creating the folder/file structure on my GoTek, I’ve always used FlashFloppy, and unfortunately my PC with it installed is in storage, so I can’t test it out for you.

Do you know if there are folders? Or just files? I've only tried putting files in the root of the drive.

paradigital wrote on 2022-12-28, 17:15:

I can however state that I’ve got a good 10-15 images from WinWorldPC on my Gotek and they all work just fine.

This is really good information. One big unknown to cross off the list!

Jo22 wrote on 2022-12-28, 17:39:

Hi there! This is perhaps old news, but I had some trouble with my first Gotek, too. […]
Show full quote

Hi there! This is perhaps old news, but I had some trouble with my first Gotek, too.

Gotek fails floppy drive test

After that, I flashed the Gotek with Flash Floppy and had no trouble anymore since.

FlashFloppy, an open source firmware for Gotek drives

The flashing procedure wasn't complicated, just a bit cumbersome (back then).

Namely, both reseting the Gotek and establishing a serial connection simultaneously.
- I simply was to lazy to solder a push button. 😂

Newer Goteks may use a different PCB/FPGA and perhaps can be flashed easier, not sure.

Good luck! 🙂🤞

Oh yeah I've seen those ports in my search for answers 😁 It seems like first order of business should be to find a way to flash Flash Floppy onto my Gotek. It does have the newer chip (the Artery). It's good to know I can use serial communication too. Maybe I can use an FTDI for this?

wkjagt wrote on 2022-12-28, 19:00:

Oh yeah I've seen those ports in my search for answers 😁 It seems like first order of business should be to find a way to flash Flash Floppy onto my Gotek. It does have the newer chip (the Artery). It's good to know I can use serial communication too. Maybe I can use an FTDI for this?

Hi there! Yes, should do, I think. I had a PL2303 however, I think. That CH340 should do, too.

You know, there was that FTDI affair in the past..
Certain FTDI driver releases were detecting clones and changed USB ID so that the clones got bricked.
Unfortunately, there is/was no official way to buy FTDI chips for individuals,
so many chips on market were clones without anyone really knowing how to tell them apart.
Anyway, that's an old story and a bit off-topic, it just kame to mind. 😅

On Flash Floppy site, there might be hints how to flash the new FPGAs, too.
But my memory is a bit sketchy about it. 😅

Edit: Mac OS X can read FAT12 floppy images out of box, too.
I simply changed file extension from *.IMA or *.IMG to *.DMG and it worked.
Anyway, associating *.IMA files in Mac OS X with the image utility should work, too.

I just learned something new. If you hold both buttons on the Gotek when powering up (with a USB drive inserted), it formats the drive. You can see it count up to 999. From what I've read, it creates 1000 partitions. However, when I plug the drive into my Mac, or even the Windows 98 PC I'm testing all this on, only one partition (called `FDISK000` shows up, and it's 1.44mb in size. I can write a file to that one partition from my Mac and read it from drive A: on the Win98 PC. So all this again shows that at least the Gotek is functional, which is good news. I just wish I had access to all the partitions. Well, actually I wish it didn't use 1000 partitions, but at least it would work somewhat and I could write a script to automate the handling of all those partitions. But hey, at least I went from the thing not working to being able to use it to replace ONE floppy disk 😁

EDIT: I also learned something else. When the weirdly partitioned USB drive is in the Gotek, I can switch between all the "floppies" with the two buttons, and read from / write to all of them from the PC I am testing it in. This is somewhat useful I guess? But not at all what I want, but proves the next step: the Gotek can access all 1000 floppies.

wkjagt wrote on 2022-12-29, 16:57:

I just learned something new. If you hold both buttons on the Gotek when powering up (with a USB drive inserted), it formats the drive. You can see it count up to 999. From what I've read, it creates 1000 partitions. However, when I plug the drive into my Mac, or even the Windows 98 PC I'm testing all this on, only one partition (called `FDISK000` shows up, and it's 1.44mb in size. I can write a file to that one partition from my Mac and read it from drive A: on the Win98 PC. So all this again shows that at least the Gotek is functional, which is good news. I just wish I had access to all the partitions. Well, actually I wish it didn't use 1000 partitions, but at least it would work somewhat and I could write a script to automate the handling of all those partitions. But hey, at least I went from the thing not working to being able to use it to replace ONE floppy disk 😁

That’s how the GoTek works as a floppy emulator. If you press the increment button on the front once you are in windows, you can change to partition 001, 002, 003, etc.

paradigital wrote on 2022-12-29, 17:04:

That’s how the GoTek works as a floppy emulator. If you press the increment button on the front once you are in windows, you can change to partition 001, 002, 003, etc.

Oh ok, I guess it's a different mode, where you never have to transfer files to the USB drive from somewhere else?

Well, it's how the normal firmware works (there's a Windows program to allow you to easily backup the single disk images to files and back), consider that the Gotek was invented for electronic musical instruments many of which use non-FAT12 disks and that your OS automounting the first "partition" (actually a "superfloppy" non-partition, the virtual disks are just stored sequentially) is not intended!

That's probably a big part of why these aftermarket firmwares exist 😀

I managed to flash Flash Floppy onto the Gotek from my Mac following the same procedure as what works for Linux, described here: https://github.com/keirf/flashfloppy/discussi … comment-3901428. The only difference being that I installed dfu-util using brew and not apt-get because I'm on a Mac. I've only powered the Gotek from a separate power supply to see if it shows F-F (and it does!) but haven't tested further yet. It's close to dinner time here, so gotta go cook for the family 😁

It all works now!!! Formatted my USB drive as FAT32 (required by Flash Floppy), put some images on it and it just works! Lesson learned: always just go with Flash Floppy.

wkjagt wrote on 2022-12-30, 00:31:

It all works now!!! Formatted my USB drive as FAT32 (required by Flash Floppy), put some images on it and it just works! Lesson learned: always just go with Flash Floppy.

Now connect the buzzer so flashfloppy can emulate floppy sounds. 😉

Jura Tastatura wrote on 2022-12-31, 14:08:

wkjagt wrote on 2022-12-30, 00:31:

It all works now!!! Formatted my USB drive as FAT32 (required by Flash Floppy), put some images on it and it just works! Lesson learned: always just go with Flash Floppy.

Now connect the buzzer so flashfloppy can emulate floppy sounds. 😉

Haha yeah, I saw that somewhere 😁 And there's the other mods too, like OLED display. But I kinda like the aesthetics of the 7 segments display on the 286, especially next to the display that shows the clock speed.

But before any mods, my next step is to figure out how to create images for it. My first try is to take a copy of an existing disk image that I downloaded and is a known working one. Then mount that on my Mac and use it as a 1.44 drive that I can copy things onto. See if that works.

Hi there. WinImage on Windows is a popular tool for editing floppy images.

Sorting.. You can use a FAT sorter utility for this purpose.

Windows
https://www.y-m-e.net/2010/08/fat-sorter-nun- … ie-reihenfolge/

Mac OS X and *nix
https://fatsort.sourceforge.io/

PS: I've installed a buzzer back then.
It's a nice aural indicator for floppy drive activity.

Oh FAT sort looks interesting! I configured Flash Floppy to sort by filename with a specific naming convention. They call it indexed mode: https://github.com/keirf/FlashFloppy/wiki/Ini … up#indexed-mode

I'll also look at fat sort though, it might be more convenient, thanks for the suggestion!