EII & SD HxC

[Futureman]

I'm looking forward to installing SD-HxC in my Emulator II (And if that goes good, my E1 and P2002)

I have not seen any 'step by step' install and operations post yet, so I'd love this to be just that.

I plan on using something like this

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280607830237&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

I'm not sure how nice that plastic will be to work with & I'm not too concerned about putting the SD  slot on the front, as I think I'll hardly need access to it, but when I do, I should be able to 'slide' open the whole tray to gain access to the complete SDHxC.

Obviously, the LCD & 3 buttons & LED's will be on the front.

Questions I have so far are (Esynth, I'm looking at you)

1 - How is the floppy interface connected? Did you need to invert the floppy cable? Or did pin 1 line up with the red stripe?

2 - What did you do with regard with the jumper settings (J3)  

3 - You mentioned in your Yahoo post that when using the HxC software to make disk images from the SD (Sound Designer) files, I'll need the EII OS file in this root directory, and that you were going to supply these for the various EII OS's.. any more news on that?

Kind regards
Mike

[esynthesist]

1 - How is the floppy interface connected? Did you need to invert the floppy cable? Or did pin 1 line up with the red stripe?

The cable must not be twisted/inverted, so it's the same as the original floppy drive ribbon cable. This is because the drives are both on the same "motor on" line.
So you can use a "plain untwisted" cable with red stripe = pin 1; it doesn't matter if you use HxC as Drive A replacement or Drive B replacement.

2 - What did you do with regard with the jumper settings (J3)

If the HxC replaces Drive A, set this jumper to ID0/DriveA; if it replaces Drive B set this jumper to ID1/DriveA
(The position of ID0, ID1 and DriveA is explained in the HxC manual)

3 - You mentioned in your Yahoo post that when using the HxC software to make disk images from the SD (Sound Designer) files, I'll need the EII OS file in this root directory, and that you were going to supply these for the various EII OS's.. any more news on that?

I will upload the files on my website within a few days. I don't assume E-Mu/Creative will do that anymore 

Perhaps I will write a step-by-step document in the near future, but I'm currently short in time...

[Futureman]

Sweet... Looking forward to those files.

I opened up my EII and sussed a few things out, but now for another few questions.

I'm interested in how you connected the drives up?

ie, originally, I was going to make up a new 34 way IDC cable straight from the motherboard to the HxC, but this would leave drive 2 out.

Did you leave drive 2 connected? If so, how did you go about it? I was thinking about making a long cable that goes from mother board (IDC) through Drive 2 connector (Not sure of name for this connector) then to HxC.
Assuming the drives don't have conflicting ID's, this should work fine?

Out of interest, If I left out both drives, and gave the HxC both ID's, would the EII see these both? Maybe this sort of question is for the HxC forum
--- But then again, I guess there is no real need for 2 virtual drives?

I don't mind writing up a step by step, but I'll wait till I've got it working 100% before I start that post.

Kind regards
Mike

[esynthesist]

OS Overlay files have been uploaded (http://www.emxp.net/Additional_downloads.htm)
These files can only be used for performance disks, not for library disks.

My current SD HxC installation is only a temporary one for testing purposes.
Drive A is HxC, Drive B is the original floppy drive B.
I reused the 34 pins floppy cable of the EII, and used a small Teac adapter board to convert the 5.25 connector of the cable to the 3.5 connector of the HxC. Since the two connectors of the original ribbon cable are very close to each other, this solution can not be used for a final installation.

Standard floppy cables with support for two drives, often delivered with both 3.5 and 5.25 connectors per drive, are typically too short for use in the Emulator II. They are also typically twisted, although this is not a big problem (jumper settings of the HxC must be changed accordingly in that case).

Anyway, for my final setup I will probably build a new (long) 34 pins cable with one 5.25 connector and one 3.5 connector, untwisted. However I didn't find a 5.25 connector yet 
A possible alternative is that I will reuse the original EII cable and make a small extension cable + adapter board between the cable's 5.25 connector and the SD HxC 3.5 34 pins connector.

Regarding the double drive option: the HxC supports two drives, but I'm not sure if this will work well on the EII because the EII sometimes wants to access the drives very quickly one after the other, while it seems that you have to switch from drive A to drive B on the HxC manually with the buttons...
 

[Futureman]

Cheers for that info.

I'm still confused, as I can't get the HxC software to convert... what am I missing? I bet it's something obvious.

I've got a CD that I bought from the Emulator Archive with lots (I'd assume are Sound designer) of files.

These files are all 475Kb big, but have no file extension.

I can't seem to bulk convert these to Hfe files for the SDHxC.

I can use the HxC software to "load a raw image" of this file (The ones from the CD) and it will then export this to an .Hfe file, but I don't see how the OS overlay comes into work there.

Cheers for your help.

Regards
Mike

[Futureman]

OK,

I can get this too work if I rename the files with a ".EII" extension.

As I have not installed my SDHxC interface yet, I'm not yet sure if this will work.

I should get some parts (IDC connectors etc soon) so I will be able to install and test with the EII soon.

Regards
Mike

[Elmbeatz]

OK,

I can get this too work if I rename the files with a ".EII" extension
...

I think that's it.

[Futureman]

Oh, I used "CKRename" to change all the extensions in bulk.. Great little program.

Regards
Mike

[Futureman]

Very Cool.

I just quickly opened up my E2, and did a test run with the HxC.

All worked perfectly.

I just connected the HxC and didn't worry about the floppy drives.. just wanted to see how well it worked, and it worked great.. It was cool to go browsing through the OMI disks and try some out.

The only thing I could not get to work was Saving a bank. (I didn't try formatting etc)
For example, I loaded up "Salinas" and tried to save it ontop of itself, but I got an "Drive not found" error and the HxC had locked up. Nothing seemed to unlock the HxC except for a power down.

Still early days, but it's all looking good.

Now I'm just waiting to the rest of my bits arrive to permanently mount the HxC inside the floppy bay.

Cheers
Mike

[Elmbeatz]

COOL!

Pleasy make some photos after mounting it. 

[esynthesist]

The only thing I could not get to work was Saving a bank. (I didn't try formatting etc)

Did you upgrade the firmware of your SD HxC to the latest version available on the HxC2001 site ?
(version 1.5.1.0)
Starting from firmware v1.5.0.0 saving banks worked fine on my Rev0 and Rev1 Emulator II with SD HxC installed.

[rokuez]

COOL!

Pleasy make some photos after mounting it. 

can't wait to see pics!!

[Futureman]

Sweet.

So, I got my drive bay drawer, and the face is a nice to work with aluminium. Which is great. I thought it would be a cheap plastic.

-I pulled it apart, and cut a hole for the LCD on the face.

(I did this by marking it out, then drilling a bunch of 6mm holes, then spending about 1/2 hour with 2 metal files)

-I have not cut a hole for the buttons yet, as I'm still deciding what switches to use, but I'm probably going to use some tact switches very similar to those used in the E2.
-I took out the top drive, and removed the cable connecting it to the bottom drive and the main board, then disassembled one of the connectors so I could make up a new cable
- I made up a new cable from the main board, to the bottom drive, then to the HxC interface -> 37 way IDE connector, then re-used floppy connector, then to 37 way IDE.
- I soldered 2 wires for the power to the HxC.. this is just +5v and ground & can be picked taken from plenty of spots on the E2.. I had a floppy power connector lying around, and used that.
- Powered up the E2.. everything looked good, and loaded up off the HxC.. tested the second real floppy drive -> perfect.
- I upgraded the HxC's firmware and tested saving -> Perfect!

Anyway, I'd post pics, but for some reason I get an error saying the upload folder is full contact admin ra ra ra
(These are small 7kb pictures)

[Futureman]

more to come..

[Futureman]

I'm normally a pretty quick worker in the DIY sort of things, but having our first child has slowed things down a touch.. Also, trying to finish off a few other projects.

I've got some buttons on the way and also another LCD display (I just don't like blue LCD's.. even though the E2 is blue,  they just look cheap and date horribly I feel)

I'll just put one LED on the front (a Red disk access one).. no need for power and SD card access LED's..

More pictures when finished.