General Questions about the x68000

[n8bit]

So I am just getting into the x68000, bought a couple different models of yahoo auctions japan to make music with/play games with and have a few questions. 

What is "See through color" and "TV control" on the back of my ACE HD?

What types of SCSI devices do they support externally/internally?  CD roms?  Zip Drives?

What is the largest SCSI HD I can put in my ACE HD or my Compact?

Is there a piece of software that can transfer x68000 disk images to disk on a real x68000? 

How do you format a disk on the x68000? 

thanks, keep the scene alive for such an awesome machine!

[eidis]

 Hi n8bit and welcome to our forum !

 See-through-color RCA socket is used by Color Image Unit to create overlays on video signal feeds:
http://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=cz-6vt1:color_image_unit

There is a built in TV tuner in some X68000 monitors. The TV control socket allows X68000 for wired remote control over the TV monitor.

Check out this page for very detailed X68000 technical specifications:
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.duensser.com%2Fpc_x68000spec.htm

The external SCSI connector is compatible with standard SCSI pinouts and the most popular supported external devices are Hard Drives, MO drives and CD ROM drives. X68000 users regard MO drives as unreliable.

As for the internal part, there are two options. Old, small, expensive, extremely loud and GOD knows in what condition SASI or SCSI hard drive or the preferred SCSI to IDE adapter. Every X68000 can be equipped with SCSI hard drive. The earlier SASI models will need SxSI driver installed in SRAM in order to boot from them.

Check out this page for reference:
http://nfggames.com/games/x68k/

The guide for installing hard drive:
http://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=x68000:hard_drive_on_sasi_machine

The Human OS can access data up to 1GB. IMHO this is more than enough. If you need more, there is software called Goverhd which let's you break the 1GB barrier.

You can transfer images on real X68000 with MKIMG. Check out this thread for a tutorial:
http://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=3913.0

You can format a floppy with Human OS built in tool called format.x

Best of luck!
Eidis

P.S. How much did you pay for shipping X68000 from Japan to your place ?

[n8bit]

thanks a lot, this is a good amount of info!

you seem to be the god of knowledge on this forum!

I paid too damn much, almost 200 dollars, but the two units were fairly cheap.  I bought one just because it had the Midi Card in it.

I have to build some cables to connect them to my monitor.

I have a scandoubler too, so I wont have any problems with the 15k 31k blah blah.  I am an atari/amiga user also so I have quite a bit of electronics knowledge. 

I have a standard SCSI external zip drive, can I put my disk images on that from my mac, and plug it straight into my compact and be able to access those directories or would it need to be formatted?

is there any english manual for human and the commands, their syntax etc?

sorry for all the questions, but you gotta start somewhere!

[eidis]

 Hi,

It seems that it is possible to use external Zip and Jazz drive but the media has to be formatted like MO:
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ja&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fhomepage2.nifty.com%2Fm_kamada%2Fdocs%2Fexchange.htm

This resource might come in handy:
http://nfggames.com/X68000/Mirrors/x68pub/x68tools/DISK/MO/index.html

www.translate.google.com is your friend

If you have an Amiga and know how to use CLI then you should know most of the important commands by now. Human OS is very much like MS-DOS. It is so intuitive that I was able to use it on first try. IMHO the most handy commands are:

CD
DIR
COPY
FORMAT
MKDIR
DEL
SUBST (the best)
MEM
VER
SWITCH (very important. aka BIOS setup)

You can use these reference manuals with a grain of salt:
http://www.sophos.com/support/knowledgebase/article/13195.html

http://www.lsi.upc.edu/~robert/teaching/foninf/doshelp.html

Softreset is achieved with CTRL + OPT.1 + DEL

Questions are always good so keep it up

Best regards,
Eidis

[n8bit]

Cool, that is a good list of commands. 

I have a pc with a SCSI card built into it.  I am assuming, that I can take a SCSI hard disk, format it on the x68000 with appropriate softwares, and then plug the thing into my pc, and use DiskExplorer to copy files to the drive? 

I have a scsi CD rom also, could I just burn stuff to a disk, connect the scsi drive to the x68000 and copy stuff from that CD rom to my hard disk on the x68000?

Unfortunately, my Amiga knowledge is very limited when it comes to CLI.  I didn't goof around with the OS that much, just various pieces of software. 

I'm going to make a video cable today and see if these two actually work. 

[eidis]

 I have not tried to connect a SCSI HDD to my X68000 so take my advice with a grain of salt because there could be some minor complications. First of all you will need a SCSI drive with 8bit bus and IDC50 connector. You might also need to build a parity faker circuit. If you are still thinking about SCSI HDD check out the below mentioned links and decide for yourself if it is a good idea or not. In any case please post your results and help spread the knowledge.

Quote: There were also difficulties associated with the standard gaining universal acceptance, due to the fact that many manufacturers implemented different subsets of its features. The standard did not call for all devices to implement support for the same commands, so there was no guarantee that any given device would work with any other!

http://www.gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=x68000:internal_hard_drive

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/scsi/std/scsi1.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCSI

http://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=3088.msg20692#msg20692

http://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=3088.0;attach=264;image

Regarding DiskExplorer. Unfortunately it is only capable of read only mode when handling physical hardware. You might consider using Active @Disk Image v4.0.4 or newer to create or restore raw disk image and edit it with DiskExplorer.

You can transfer data from CD-ROM to HDD with "cdrom" command and it works well with CD-R and CD-RW media. Execute it without brackets. It can be found in my HDD image file BIN directory and you can get it from here:  

http://nfggames.com/X68000/Games/X68000v2.zip

I have good news for you. The command prompt commands which you will learn can be used on Amiga as well.

Keep the scene alive,
Eidis

[n8bit]

kinda a dumb question(s),

1) I have 2 ACE HDs, can I put standard 50 pin SCSI hard disks in them? 
I can make parity generators, did it for my atari, so i'm not too worried about that. 

2) Do they have to be under 1 gig in size, or can I get larger drives and just lose the extra space that they have?

3) Once I have the drives, should I format them with the protocol you have listed on gamesx or can I just restore them by plugging them into my windows machine and using the supplied disk image?

4) How do I edit (add/subtract files) and restore the disk image you have provided? 


5) How do I restore the disk image you have provided?

I just realized my compact cannot take an internal SCSI drive, so I am going to get an external enclosure.  I do not have a 5 inch floppy drive, only 3.5 inch ones, but would like to use the compact as my primary machine. 

I did discover that one of the ACE HDs has the 1 meg ram expansion in it! 

[eidis]

1) As I wrote before, you will need a SCSI drive with 8bit bus. At this very moment it will be trial and error and if you succeed, we will have a new entry in the wiki

2) I am using a 2GB CF card with a partition which is smaller than 1GB in my ACE HD so I guess that it is safe to use a larger HDD. Please note that you will absolutely need SxSI installed in your ACE's SRAM in order for the HDD to be detected and booted from. Upon each reset there is a splash screen which shows what devices are connected to the SASI bus and at what ID. If your HDD will show up then you're good to go.

3) All you need to do is restore my image to your HDD, connect the hard drive to your X68000, install SxSI to SRAM and it should work. If not then you might need a parity faker circuit or might have an unsupported hard drive. Please note that Compact does not need SxSI driver installation.

4) http://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=x68000:sxsi_disk_image_with_games_and_lots_of_mdx_files

5) Active @Disk Image v4.0.4 or newer

As for the Compact, check out this awesome guide by Caius http://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=4458.0

If I recall correctly, you will need Omniflop and a floppy drive with 3mode support to be able to transfer images correctly to 3.5" floppies.

2MB is mandatory if you want to use the hard drive, otherwise lot's of software will complain about not having enough memory.

If at some point you will want to switch to CF, google for AEC-7720U and buy it. It is well worth it.

Keep the scene alive!
Eidis

P.S. Replace and check for leaked capacitors in all your X68000 before it's too late. The PSU, floppy drives and main motherboard is a must.

[caius]

 

As for the Compact, check out this awesome guide by Caius http://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=4458.0

If I recall correctly, you will need Omniflop and a floppy drive with 3mode support to be able to transfer images correctly to 3.5" floppies.

Hi Eidis, I'm still alive, sadly now I don't have free time to dedicate to this hobby, so I will appear not so often in this wondeful forum.Thank you for quoting me about possibility of installing a SCSI drive ( a Compact Flash in this case) on a X68000 CompactXVI models.
Yes, it was a challenge to add an internal HD on my compact but it was was very funny!
I recommend to n8bit to use a Yamaha  V769970 SCSI to IDE converter as it will work for sure, I cannot guarantee the success with other converters.
Regarding the correct procedure to write back disk images correctly to 3.5" floppies first of all you need a 3mode floppy drive, I recommend usb models, personally I have A Sony Vaio  model PCGA-UFD5, very cheap as you can see:

http://www.amazon.com/Sony-PCGA-UFD5-VAIO-Floppy-Drive/dp/B00006HNH0

Sadly Omniflop doesn't work with USB floppy drives so first you have to format correctly the 3.5 HD floppy with this DOS command:

FORMAT A: /A:1024 /T:77 /N:8 /U

or this one if previous doesn't work:

format a: /fs:fat /v: /a:1024 /t:77 /n:8 /y

in this case A: is the letter assignment of the floppy drive so it can change to B: or C: and so on depending on you devices configuration

After you have formatted the 3.5 floppy disk, you can write back the disk images using DiskImage 13b Utility:

http://www.wupload.com/file/2603990827/DiskImage_13b.zip

These are the correct settings:

  FD mode option should be "1.25M" and use "HD->FD(125)" button to browse *.xdf, *.dim or *.hdm  files.

   If you are using Windows Vista/7, use Windows XP mode for compatibility

Anyway, n8bit if you have trouble feel free to ask me.

P.S.
Eidis, when I have a bit of spare time  I want to do a Wiki article about the X68000 CompactXVI CF mod  I made, are you agree?
Other USB floppy drives with 3mode support are:

-Toshiba  model PA3109U-1FDD
-Panasonic model CF-VFDU03
-IBM FD-05PUB(Teac OEM) - maybe not the models manifactured after 2005 but this information is  not confimed-

[eidis]

 Hi Caius !

Long time no see. Thanks for clearing things up about X68000 Compact transfers. I read your post only after I had written the wiki article about your X68000 compact SCSI mod. Sorry if I have ruined any plans but feel free to modify and expand it as you wish. Here's the link:

http://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=x68000:internal_scsi_and_cf_card_mod

Do you have any new HDD installed games which are not on the FTP ? We could cooperate and make the third version of the famous image. XM6 has a function that let's you generate HDD images. If you want to upload something, it would be very nice if you could copy those files to HDD image files. That way it would be mo easy to migrate them.

Keep up the good work !
Eidis

P.S. Can I add the information in this thread about floppy transfers to the wiki or would you like to write it yourself ?

[caius]

Hi Caius !

Long time no see. Thanks for clearing things up about X68000 Compact transfers. I read your post only after I had written the wiki article about your X68000 compact SCSI mod. Sorry if I have ruined any plans but feel free to modify and expand it as you wish. Here's the link:

http://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=x68000:internal_scsi_and_cf_card_mod

Do you have any new HDD installed games which are not on the FTP ? We could cooperate and make the third version of the famous image. XM6 has a function that let's you generate HDD images. If you want to upload something, it would be very nice if you could copy those files to HDD image files. That way it would be mo easy to migrate them.

Keep up the good work !
Eidis

P.S. Can I add the information in this thread about floppy transfers to the wiki or would you like to write it yourself ?

Hi Eidis, glad to hear  you again!
Thanks for making the Wiki article, you took me some work away .First it was my intention to do it myself but  then, sadly, I lost all my spare time.. Maybe later   I will add some informations.
Yes, I'm working to add some other HDD installed games,  I will add them in a HDD image as you suggest.
Obvioulsy you can add to the Wiki the information about floppy transfer and feel free to modifiy it as you want, you are the king!
See you later!

P.S.
What about that project of modifying the 2HDboot source?Some time ago I contacted that user on X68000 IRC channel but he didn't made any progress.

[eidis]

 Hi Caius !

Drumroll please....... Annnnnd:

http://www.gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=x68000:writing_3.5_floppies

Simple and elegant. Thanks again Caius for your contribution !

I remember talking to the developer about modifying 2HDboot and he seemed very unmotivated. I had the feeling that it was a rather tricky task so he acted evasively. IMHO if he succeeded we would have been left with something similar to WHDLoad on Amiga which is painfully slow if not enough RAM to store the program and disk images. I have seen memory expansions on Yahoo Auctions showing up for reasonable prices. You just need to browse the listings on a daily basis and sometimes good things pop up for a very good price. Right now I am waiting for 2x ACE HD floppy disk drives. Won the listing with $20. I use Shopping Mall Japan as the deputy service. So far, so good. Check them out. I'll write more Wiki articles about memory expansions as soon as I'll hunt down some decent pictures of them.

Keep the scene alive!
Eidis

P.S. n8bit, how's it going with your project. Any news ?

[n8bit]

wow, what an epic thread now!

so my problem now is just formatting disks.

I cannot get windows to format my disks.  I am using parallels on my mac (I don't have a windows machine) and I keep getting this error

"Invalid Media or Track 0 bad"

I am using a mitsumi usb drive (it is a pretty new one, just bought it about a month ago)

And I know my disks are good because I used nearly 6 or 7 and they all still gave the same error. 

I am going to try to do this on a windows machine, and I can get access to some linux machines on campus. 

I can get xfloppy and diskexplorer to work fine in parallels, but for some reason it just has issues formatting. 

Does anyone know the formatting procedure on a linux machine for a 3.5 inch disk?  I found it for a 5.25 but not a 3.5, are they the same procedure?



Once I can format the disks, I will be in shape for doing everything else.  I have an external SCSI hard disk I bought as well as some older 8 bit bus SCSI drives to stick in it, format with the compact, and then reinstall them into the ACE HDs

I also want to be able to play Cho Ren Sha soon!

[eidis]

 Hi n8bit,

Let me shed some light on what exactly 3mode is and why it is such a pain in the a**. Primarily in Japan there are 3,5" floppy drives that support 3 modes of disk formats - 1.44MB, 1.2MB and 720kB. Hence the name "Floppy 3 mode". As you can see in the following link the X68000 3.5" floppy drives spin at 360RPM and support 1.2MB but IBM PC 3.5" drives at 300RPM and do not support 1.2MB format. That is why it is absolutely necessary to have a 3mode floppy drive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_floppy_disk_formats#Known_disk_logical_formats

Are you absolutely sure that your Mitsumi drive supports 3mode ? IMHO you will need to purchase the Sony Vaio model which Caius mentioned earlier. Better to try it on Windows XP machine and when confirmed that the floppy drive is compatible, start tweaking it with a Mac. Many years ago I was searching for Amiga compatible HD floppies and it turned out to be a big challenge because almost none of them formatted without errors. Then I found Verbatim MF2HD from whom almost all formatted and worked fine. You could try using them as well.

IMHO Xfloppy is only compatible with 5.25" floppy drives but I could be wrong.

Here's a tip. You can get syntax explanations of almost every DOS or shell command by writing /? at the end. For example: "format /?".

Quote: Does anyone know the formatting procedure on a linux machine for a 3.5 inch disk?  I found it for a 5.25 but not a 3.5, are they the same procedure?

Read the syntax and you will know what to do

Quote: Once I can format the disks, I will be in shape for doing everything else.  I have an external SCSI hard disk I bought as well as some older 8 bit bus SCSI drives to stick in it, format with the compact, and then reinstall them into the ACE HDs

You don't need to format anything. Just restore my image to HDD and connect it to your Compact. Active @Disk will do everything for you. If your Compact's boot sequence permits, it should boot from the HD. If not, you will need to boot from Human OS floppy, run switch.x and set BOOT parameter to SCSI <your ID>.

Keep the scene alive!
Eidis

[n8bit]

So here's the current skinny, after much frustration yesterday.

Xfloppy ONLY works with 5.25 inch floppy drives

The drive does not appear to be a 3 mode.  It is a fairly new design, I will try to figure out the syntax on a linux machine.

I tried WinImage and it kept showing errors at every single track and head, so I am assuming that the drive is not a 3 mode. 


It is good to know about the hard drive, When that comes in the mail, i'll restore it, and go from there.


Additionally, I am going to install one of those floppy drive emulators on the back, possibly to avoid the whole disk issue overall. 

[eidis]

 I think Caius has one of those HxC Floppy Drive Emulators. You could ask him for an opinion and please read this thread before considering to purchase it:

http://www.torlus.com/floppy/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=465&start=15

Eidis

P.S. Keep us informed about the latest and greatest news.

[RobIvy64]

I plan on making a detailed Youtube video explaining how to write X68000 floppy disks on both the compact and original very soon!

[caius]

I think Caius has one of those HxC Floppy Drive Emulators. You could ask him for an opinion and please read this thread before considering to purchase it:

http://www.torlus.com/floppy/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=465&start=15

Eidis

P.S. Keep us informed about the latest and greatest news.

Hi all, yes, I was planning to get an HxC floppy emulator but then I noticed that X68000 full support was not yet available.Now the author Jeff is working on it, it's going to add support for special X68000 features (auto-eject, led blinking, etc..) through a small extra board.When he will finish it, I think I'll get it and start testing it with my X68000 CompactXVI though it will harder than other models since Compact floppy drives  use FFC cable (and relative connectors) instead of classic ribbon one so I''ll have to build some adapter.

Yes, I can confirm XFloppy seems to works only with 5.25 floppy drives and Windows 98.
But if you can't format a 3,5 floppy disk at 1.2 MB with that DOS command, try this trick.First format the disk at 1.44 MB (using Windows utility) and then format it at 1.2 MB with the DOS command,sometimes it can help.Eidis, you should add this trick to the Wiki article.
Besides ,later  I will send you some additions (pictures, mostly) to the CompactXVI CF mod WiKi article.Stay tuned!

[eidis]

 Hi Caius !

If I recall correctly, the compact floppy drive has 34 pin FFC cable. You could try to use a FFC to through hole adapter for your project. It could even have more pins as long as the pitch matches your FCC cable and I think that this could be a good candidate for your project:

http://www.newhavendisplay.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=91_123&products_id=2476

Wiki article updated.

Keep the scene alive !
Eidis

[caius]

Hi Caius !

If I recall correctly, the compact floppy drive has 34 pin FFC cable. You could try to use a FFC to through hole adapter for your project. It could even have more pins as long as the pitch matches your FCC cable and I think that this could be a good candidate for your project:

http://www.newhavendisplay.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=91_123&products_id=2476

Wiki article updated.

Keep the scene alive !
Eidis

Yes, the compact floppy drive has 34 pin FFC cable.The FFC to through hole adapter you suggest me would be the best solution   but the problem is that it has a pitch of 0.5 mm while the floppy connector on X68000 Compact has larger pitch, I have yet to figure out what is its real pitch, from my studies it should be 1.25mm judging from the lenght of the  connector itself wich is exactly 46mm (from side to side of the plastic house) and 42mm (from first to last metallic contact) so 42/1.25=33.6.
I have searched on various electronics online stores (Mouser,Digikey,Farnell, etcc) but I didn't found any 34PIN FFC connector with 1.25mm of pitch.
In the worst of cases I'll use the two connectors on my spare Compact floppy drive pcb and build a custom adapter.
What do you think about,Eidis?

[eidis]

 Hi Caius !

IMHO there are no compatible adapters so I decided to search for connectors instead. These through hole connectors could be good candidates for your project:

Molex 1.25mm Vertical, Non-ZIF Receptacle, 34 Circuits (P/N: 52045-3445)
http://www.molex.com/molex/products/datasheet.jsp?part=active/0520453445_FFC_FPC_CONNECTORS.xml
http://www.tracepartsonline.net/%28S%284lltjc552gzrpfezyy1kvhf3%29%29/partdetails.aspx?Class=RS_COMPONENTS&PartID=10-05032010-128493&descr=Connector,PCB,FFC,1.25mm,Vertical,34p

Molex 1.25mm Right Angle, Non-ZIF, Top Contact Style Receptacle, 34 Circuits (P/N: 52044-3445)
http://www.molex.com/molex/products/datasheet.jsp?part=active/0520443445_FFC_FPC_CONNECTORS.xml
http://www.tracepartsonline.net/%28S%284lltjc552gzrpfezyy1kvhf3%29%29/partdetails.aspx?PartID=10-05032010-128412&sk_Reference=52044-3445&Class=RS_COMPONENTS&ClsID=/RS_COMPONENTS/&fwsid=

The right angle connector can be bought here:
http://www.questcomp.com/QuestDetails.aspx?pn=52044-3445&pnid=-28514&stock=Yes

The vertical connector could be easier to work with but unfortunately I was unable to find a place that sells them in small quantities.

P.S. You can use www.findchips.com to find parts more easily.

My guess is that you could take some kind of prototype board, drill holes in it for FFC 34pin right angle and IDC 34 female connectors and bridge them together with kynar wire. Let me know what you think of this idea.

Best of luck and keep the scene alive !
Eidis

[caius]

Hi Caius !

IMHO there are no compatible adapters so I decided to search for connectors instead. These could be good candidates for your project:

Molex 1.25mm Vertical, Non-ZIF Receptacle, 34 Circuits (P/N: 52045-3445)
http://www.molex.com/molex/products/datasheet.jsp?part=active/0520453445_FFC_FPC_CONNECTORS.xml
http://www.tracepartsonline.net/%28S%284lltjc552gzrpfezyy1kvhf3%29%29/partdetails.aspx?Class=RS_COMPONENTS&PartID=10-05032010-128493&descr=Connector,PCB,FFC,1.25mm,Vertical,34p

Molex 1.25mm Right Angle, Non-ZIF, Top Contact Style Receptacle, 34 Circuits (P/N: 52044-3445)
http://www.molex.com/molex/products/datasheet.jsp?part=active/0520443445_FFC_FPC_CONNECTORS.xml
http://www.tracepartsonline.net/%28S%284lltjc552gzrpfezyy1kvhf3%29%29/partdetails.aspx?PartID=10-05032010-128412&sk_Reference=52044-3445&Class=RS_COMPONENTS&ClsID=/RS_COMPONENTS/&fwsid=

The right angle connector can be bought here:
http://www.questcomp.com/QuestDetails.aspx?pn=52044-3445&pnid=-28514&stock=Yes

The vertical connector could be easier to work with but unfortunately I was unable to find a place that sells them in small quantities.

P.S. You can use www.findchips.com to find parts more easily.

Thanks for your links, eidis.Yes,  it very  difficult to find stores which sell this kind of components in small quantities.I really want to do this project, I have already figured out the correct diagrams between the floppy pinout of  the HxC emulator and the one of X68000 CompactXVI but before buying it  I want to wait for full support (as I said the author Jeff is working on it , he will add special X68000 features through the use of a small board withsome TTLs or a PIC16F84A onboard).I attach the diagrams for who wants to study....

My guess is that you could take some kind of prototype board, drill holes in it for FFC 34pin right angle and IDC 34 female connectors and bridge them together with kynar wire. Let me know what you think of this idea.

It was EXACTLY what I have in mind, also for my Compact internal SCSI adapter  I use the same approach as you can see from this picture.





P.S.
Eidis, check your private messages, I'm sending you additional and rectified pictures of my Compact CF mod, please update the WiKi article.

[eidis]

 Awesome pics, Caius !

Nothing beats a good ol' hardware pron late in the evening I think the Wiki page turned out pretty good. Check it out:

http://www.gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=x68000:internal_scsi_and_cf_card_mod

Thanks again for a quality tutorial !

Keep the scene alive !
Eidis

[eidis]

n8bit,

Any progress ?

Eidis