Classicamiga Forum Retro Edition
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Thread: KryoFlux - USB Floppy Controller Beta Released
fiath 21:11 18th February 2010
KryoFlux is an advanced software-programmable FDC (Floppy Disk Controller) system that runs on small and cheap ARM7-based devices and connects to a host PC over the ubiquitous USB connector. It reads (and in the future, will write) flux transitions from magnetic media (most commonly, floppy disks) at a very fine resolution. KryoFlux can read data with no regard for what disk format or copy protection a disk may contain, and it can also read disks originally written with different (and even varying) bit cell widths and drive speeds, with a normal fixed-speed drive.

KryoFlux is available for free for private non-commercial use. You will however need to build or buy a board based on our open hardware design.

KryoFlux supports dumping any floppy disk to “stream files”, which contain the raw flux transition information. It supports output of a range of common “sector dumps” (e.g. ADF) to allow you to use your dumped images right away in your favourite emulator.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjfT-F0GUl4
Info: http://softpres.org/glossary:kryoflux
Beta 2 Release News Item: http://kryoflux.org/news:2010-02-18
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Harrison 03:11 19th February 2010
That sounds brilliant. If writing back to disk can be made possible, then this will be the perfect solution for Amiga fans.
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burns flipper 10:39 19th February 2010
HOLY SWEET LORD!!!!!

This is exactly what I need to finally convert all my old PD disks so I can make them freely available, all the software I have that was never available on aminet!!


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fiath 20:21 19th February 2010
Harrison: Writing support is definitely planned, yes. Of course, you probably want to wait until we have actually done it if that is your primary usage.

burns flipper: Wow, that founds great. Our system is predominantly motivated by our preservation requirements at the Software Preservation Society, so we have poured tons of effort into testing to ensure we have a reliable system, and that any possible integrity checks are done on the data read. We want to excite people about this system - if people find it useful and free, we are hoping it will make our main preservation focus easier - an kind of "expand the market" exercise - though of course we do the preservation work unpaid too. We certainly hope that others such as yourself can benefit from it.
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fiath 22:38 20th February 2010
MINI FAQ:

Q. Why is it free?
A. Because we are a non-profit preservation organisation, and our ultimate goal is not financial, but to save all these wonderful games before they are lost.

Q. Do I need a special drive?
A. No. Just a standard PC drive and floppy cable is required to dump any media for that drive.

Q. Does it work with 5 1/4" drives?
A. Yes. Check 1min 10secs into the YouTube trailer.

Q. Will it work on a laptop?
A. Yes. It uses standard USB. We have it running on an EeePC.

Q. Why can't I just use the floppy drive in my PC?
A. The floppy controller in the PC can only read the very strict format PC disks, and not very much of anything from other platforms. Not only that, but any copy protection on disks is hard to extract properly without a "low level" read - which you can't do through a PC's FDC. For various reasons, we would strongly argue that images of disks read through a PC floppy controller are unsuitable for preservation.

Q. Is it Windows only?
A. The software is currently in beta, and only runs on Windows (32 or 64-bit, Windows XP or greater). The source to the host software will be available after we go final, and we are then hoping to get it ported to as many platforms as possible. The code was written with portability in mind.

Q. Is it command-line only usage?
A. For the beta, yes. However, we are working on a graphical user interface which will likely be available when we go final.
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Harrison 04:24 23rd February 2010
As the software is non-profit, if people are interested in manufacturing the board for this system once the final version is complete, will there be any condition or restrictions on how they can market sell the board, if they want to include the software with the board, and how much they can charge?

Also, you state that a standard PC drive can be used to dump any media. So to access Amiga formatted disks with this controller, we will just need a standard PC 1.44MB drive, rather than an actual 880K Amiga floppy drive? And in its current beta stage, have there been any specific makes and model of drive that the system works best with? I ask because with the existing commercial Catweasel controller system that requires very specific makes and models of drive to get it working properly.

Final question. Will it be possible to read and write disks on the fly with this controller, for emulators? Or will it only be possible to dump disks to images and write disks from images? Therefore requiring the creation of a disk image to access them within emulators such as WinUAE? My ideal dream would be to have a seamless disk controller that can be accessed within WinUAE to access disks as if it were a real Amiga. However, just being able to create perfect dumped images of Amiga disks for use within emulators, and for archival backup purposes will still be great if that is the main function of KryoFlux.
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fiath 12:28 23rd February 2010
I'll answer this questions in separate posts, in the interests of giving you a full answer.

Manufacturing hardware.

Short Answer: Yes, if they want to sell it as a KryoFlux device. If they are not advertising it as KryoFlux device, they can do whatever they want.

Yes, there are some restrictions. The design is open hardware - anyone can make it and sell it any any price with no input from us (I'm glad you note that our hardware design is currently a prototype. The software isn't though - and the software is where the real magic lies). However, if they want to sell it as a KryoFlux device, and they probably do, then they need a license and certification - we don't want people making rubbish under the KryoFlux name, and the license fees are intended to help us with our preservation efforts.

The software is free for personal/private use, it cannot be sold in any form, or use in any non-personal usage without a license. Of course, if a company wants to sell KryoFlux devices, the software would be part of the negotiation.

Are you asking because you know someone who would be interested in this? We are in negotiations at the moment, but the more hardware manufacturers the better IMO. We will of course promote licensed hardware from our website.
[Reply]
fiath 12:36 23rd February 2010
Supported Drives

Short Answer: KryoFlux will (well, should) work with any Shugart-compliant drive.

Of course, there are always compliations. All drives claim to be Shugart-compliant, but in fact, things have gotten worse the last few years. Another problem is OEM manufacturers, you can buy a well known brand and end up with something generic.

There are some manufacturers who have messed with the specs which can cause problems with dumping. Others have added SD card readers to their FDD (!), most of those don't work either. And with prices going down each year, manufacturers have chosen to make the enlcosures of thinner metal parts which leads to drives which will be misaligned when screwed too tightly into an enclosure.

We have good experience with older models (before 2005, but not older than 2000) made by e.g. Teac (beware of OEM drives!), Sony, Panasonic, Nec, Sanyo and also some Mitsumi (Newtronics) but we'd generally say avoid the latter at all cost (most of them are for the bin, really). 5.25" drives seem to be fine somehow. We'd recommend getting two or more different brands when buying. At a few pounds for a 3.5" drive, this isn't usally a problem.

A word of warning regarding even older drives: Capacitors tend to leak. We've had several dead drives with motors spinning way to fast due to leaked electrolytic capacitors. If you have an old drive you like please inspect the caps from time to time or just replace them if you can.

It is also a good idea to run the KryoFlux seek calibration mode on the drive (-c2) before using it proper (in fact, in the GUI we're writing, a warning will bug you until you do it), and only use drives that can reliably access track 83 (i.e. support at least 84 tracks) - this is required for preservation, though not necessarily useful for casual use, i.e. just sector dumps.

There was one drive we had that was badly misaligned, and barely worked with any disks that had non-standard cell densities - this can be verified by dumping an HD disk from about track 70, and if no errors show up, it's ok.

I guess you're bound to get these problems interfacing with legacy tech...
[Reply]
fiath 12:43 23rd February 2010
Reading and Writing Disks Using an Emulator

Short Answer: Possible, yes. Practical? Probably not.

There shouldn't be anything technically stopping an emulator author from doing this other than it's going to be difficult to implement (for any device similar to ours). To be honest, I doubt they would bother. They would likely have to use a multi-threaded approach and do pre-caching of disk data. It's doable, but not very practical.

Also, since the timing of data transfer itself is on USB, there will be a delay, but the data itself would reflect the timing of the data correct to nanoseconds of resoluton... which is way better than what you'd have from a "real" FDC. However since the transfer of such data is not predictable due to how a USB bus works, plus the unpredictable workload of the host OS, it requires some effort to pull this off. One approach could be to speculatively pre-cache tracks that are requested by the program, like how streaming games would do, say on a PlayStation. It has to be done completely in parallel with the emulator's execution, with a slight delay the first time data is being requested. It's not trivial to implement that, and we find it unlikely any emulator author would do it, unless for the challenge itself.

Another factor that would question real-time use of a disk is that it will wear out your precious disks. They are pretty old now after all. This wouldn't happen if the disk was imaged only once in the first place... is it worth the risk?

Lastly, and obviously, we do not have write support in there yet.
[Reply]
Harrison 14:58 23rd February 2010
Thank you for the very detailed answers to my questions.

Very interesting information about drive compatibility, which I think are the same reasons for drive issues have had with the existing Catweasel controller in the past. Will you be releasing a full list of drive makes and models that are fully compatible once the hardware is finalised? Or is this something you would be interested in the community testing and creating?

Originally Posted by :
Are you asking because you know someone who would be interested in this?
I do know a few different people who might be interested. However they would need to know the full details of the planned license and certification first to see if it was worth their while.

And I fully understand and support your need for quality control before anyone is allowed to use the KryoFlux name for a product they were manufacturing and selling themselves. This is a great idea in my view to ensure quality is delivered to the end user, and to maintain the whole projects reputation.


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