techtravels.org

inital results on error correction

While I have yet to actually implement the full-scale error correction as I want to, I did some manual tests today. I basically took a track that I was erroring out on, and swapped in 1-bit away values for the bad bytes.  In some cases, it appeared...

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my checksum algorithm

So I’m using an XOR checksum to detect errors in the transfer between the SX and the PC.  I always thought it was a reasonably strong checksum, even though it’s still an 8 bit checksum. I found a neat...

first two bytes of checksum bad

Despite the data being received 100% correct, the data checksum fails in certain cases. It’s always the first two bytes of the 4-byte, 32-bit checksum that are wrong.  The last two are always right.  What does...

AFP 0.2 WIP SX code

I’ve put some work into cleaning up the SX code tonight. I’ve removed some code sections no longer needed, and added documentation where it was lacking. Code should be commented pretty good. I’ve also...

March 21st Status

Well, here’s where I’m at: The external amiga floppy drive is now hooked directly to my SX microcontroller.  The code within the microcontroller waits for a command.  If it get’s a “B”...

updates with FRAM access

My initial attempts to write to the FRAM used SX/B commands like SHIFTIN and SHIFTOUT. These operated at a slow rate of about 83kbits/s. It did work and functioned as a good test of the hardware setup. Now that...

proof of concept works

Today is the first day in months that I’ve made what I consider good progress. I am now able to read any track(so far) off of any disk with 100% success including checking and relying on the checksums. I read...

more updates

I know I’ve been bad keeping you guys updated….. This doesn’t mean I haven’t been working on it, however. I recoded the ISR completely in assembly because I was just plain sick of the damn...

Am I reading MFM wrong?

I’m beginning to think that I don’t fully understand the signalling coming out of the drive. I understand the concepts behind MFM (I think), but the actual application to this project, I’m not so sure...

Canada Post sucks

So I made the mistake of having an Amiga book shipped from Canada using Canada Post Expedited USA shipping.  It was dropped off at a post office on Nov. 17th in Mississauga, Ontario.  Now Mississauga is about 300 miles...

of bit-shifted sectors

I’m beginning to think more and more that my software on the SX is just fine. Perhaps minus the idle routine mentioned in the last post. I have to do something there. However, without the idle routine, I was only...