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+--- Thread: Replacing B drive with Gotek (/thread-418.html)
Replacing B drive with Gotek - douges - 12-01-2022
Hi All,
I understand that it is possible to replace a Microbee 5 1/4 disk drive with a Gotek virtual floppy drive. I looked at the Gotek website but didn't really know which drive you need to get.
http://www.gotekemulator.com/Product.asp
Are there any guides for which model to get ? My setup is a Microbee SBC 128K Series 3
Thanks
Dougall
RE: Replacing B drive with Gotek - CheshireNoir - 12-01-2022
(12-01-2022, 01:01 PM)douges Wrote: Hi All,Hi Dougall,
I understand that it is possible to replace a Microbee 5 1/4 disk drive with a Gotek virtual floppy drive. I looked at the Gotek website but didn't really know which drive you need to get.
http://www.gotekemulator.com/Product.asp
Are there any guides for which model to get ? My setup is a Microbee SBC 128K Series 3
Thanks
Dougall
My understanding is you need to get a FlashFloppy compatible drive.
https://github.com/keirf/FlashFloppy
You'll either need to get it with the FlashFloppy firmware already installed or install it yourself. (I've done it a bunch of times. All you need is the special USB cable which I made myself)
These are the ones I have used in everything from Amiga to Archimedes to Atari. I just flashed the firmware across.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32951693684.html
Microbee is listed as a compatible system.
Cheers!
Chesh
RE: Replacing B drive with Gotek - douges - 12-01-2022
I wondering if you could implement dodgy TCP/IP stack on CP/M that used SLIP ?
RE: Replacing B drive with Gotek - ChickenMan - 12-01-2022
As Chesh said, you need to flash the Gotek with FlashFloppy firmware which is free and open source. A Gotek is about $40 from China or from $80 in AU you get one thats updated with a LED Screen and a rotary selector, both essential in my book. Or you can do it all yourself, instructions are in the Repository as per https://microbeetechnology.com.au/forum/showthread.php?tid=64
RE: Replacing B drive with Gotek - mjelic - 10-05-2022
I bought one and have finally put it back together in what I was positive was the right manner... But when I fire it up, the right hand drive light stays on all the time and the Gotek, which I was hoping to be the A drive on the left, lights up but has on the screen a message:
Ribbon Cable May be upside down?
Now, I was 99% sure it was wasn't. as I thought I traced the red wire correctly and I didn't want to fry anything by reversing polarity or such... I didn't change only of the jumpers nor pull any resistor packs out. Should I have? Or do I really have the cable upside down?
RE: Replacing B drive with Gotek - MbeeTech - 10-05-2022
Goteks are normally set as drive 1 (not zero) if I recall correctly. This suits the standard IBM cable which sets the drive as A or B based on the position of the drive on the cable.
If you want to use the Gotek in a Microbee as A drive (drive 0) then your need to set the jumper to drive select 0. If it is still configured as drive 1 (B) and you have a drive B in the system as well, then
this may be the cause of your error message on the Gotek screen.
RE: Replacing B drive with Gotek - someone - 10-05-2022
Use a multimeter to determine the odd pins (GND) from the even ones (Signals). From that you can determine whether you've plugged in the cable upside down or not.
Unusually different, by default the microbee continually keeps a disk drive LED on.
RE: Replacing B drive with Gotek - ChickenMan - 10-05-2022
As Ewan has suggested, move the S1 jumper to S0 to work as A: should solve your problem.
RE: Replacing B drive with Gotek - mjelic - 11-05-2022
OK, after mucking around with it, flipping the cable, moving the jumper back and forth, it finally came good. Really not sure what was the actual problem as I';m pretty sure it was already on S0, so might have been the cable... Maybe.
Anyway... Now for the really dumb question... I've only run a disk Microbee in the Windows emulator. And what I do there (and it's probably the wrong way to go about things) is I copy the disk I want to run into the disks folder and rename it to "boot.dsk" for it to run that disk.
Is that what I have to do with the Gotek Floppy thing as well? Because I tried just loading a USB with a bunch of disks, I can rotate the little knob around to select which disk I want... And then start up the Bee aaaand... Nothing. I expected it to boot the disk I had selected, similar to how it does in the Windows emulator.
I just know I'm missing the very basics of how the disk Bee works... Hence why the school only had the ROM versions.
If anyone can point me to the right manual to read, I'm happy to start from there.
RE: Replacing B drive with Gotek - Ernest - 11-05-2022
Depends on what system hardware / Boot ROM you are using as to what boot disk you can use.
Start by using only DS40 disks until you get it all working.
Ernest