Build in a Gotek device in my STE

Requirements

Buy a Gotek that fits for the Atari ST/E

“Aktualisierte Version SFR1M44 U100 USB Floppy Drive Emulator Grau”

https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B00C4PAL5I/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Buy a USB Memory Stick 4GB

Donwload HxC Firmware

http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/index.html#download

Download HxC Floppy Emulator Manager Software

http://hxc2001.com/download/floppy_drive_emulator/SDCard_HxC_Floppy_Emulator_Manager.zip

Prepare Gotek

Upgrade the gotek firmware to the latest version

See HxC manuals for details

Set Jumper to S1

The jumpers in my Gotek was set to S0 (2nd row of pins). I set it to S1. This is the 3rd row of pins.

Build in the Gotek

Attention!!: The floppy cable will be twisted in the end. The red line on the cable show line 1, be carefull to connect the cable in the right way.

I replaced a HxC USB device that I had to connect to my PC (in the forground). In the STE the gotek is installed and the SD Memory stick is pluged in.

Prepare USB Memory Stick

Format the Memory Stick as one single FAT32 Partition

A good tool to do that is gparted under Linux

Put HxC files on the USB memory stick

Copy these two files from the HxC FLoppy Emulator Manager Package into the root of the USB Memory Stick (no folders on the memory stick are necessary at all)

AUTOBOOT.HFE
HXCSDFE.CFG

Add Some ST Game Images to the USB Memory Stick

A good start is here:

http://steem.atari.st/automation.htm

Download an image and save it into the root of the USB Memory Stick

Now you have at least 3 files (image and thw tow HxC files) in the root of the memory stick.

Start a Game

Choose an ST Image from the File Selector

Choose a USB Memory Stick Slot for the Image

Press F10 to Save and Exit

See HxC manuals for details

The ST will reboot and the LEDs on the Gotek will show 1.
The ST will boot the image and everythng behave like a floppy Disk is inserted into a floppy drive

Have fun

Just got an evil white screen of death on my Falcon due to missing Screeneye

Seems that the NVRAM stored, that the device have to be pressent. I turned on my Falcon and got the white screen of death. After I while and reading some forums I put back the screeneye I put out recently and it worked again.

Gotek drive replacement finally is installed

Today I finally installed the Gotek disk drive replacement in my Falcon.

It fit’s damned nice into the Falcon. The colour fits much better than the floppy drive that was there before.

Maybe the last disk drive I ever used

Today I removed the broken disk drive from my Falcon. It’s maybe the last disk drive I every used. So from 1986 untill 2016 I used disk drives or at least owned broken ones 🙂 30 years is a long time.

It begun with a Commodore 1541 5.25 inch floppy on a C64.

Next was a Atari SF354 Single Sided 3,5 inch floppy drive for the 520 STFM.

For the same computer I upgraded to a Atari SF 314 Double Sided floppy.

My Atari Falcon 030 came with a HD drive. I forgot all the PC 5.25 and 3.5 inch drives in between. I remember that I once bought an usb floppy drive for the PC.

The one I removed today was the 3rd floppy drive for the Falcon.

 

After about 20 years I removed the screeneye from my Falcon

I got the screeneye camera capture card for the falcon a long time ago, but did not much with it. During the creation of Grenzüberschreitung, I got the idea to use it to make photos of people who want to participate before we start so that I have enough time to include them into the gamer database.

I did this 2-3 times and yes it worked, but it took ages to get the photos together, cut them into 20×20 pices in Rainbow II Multimedia and them transfer them into the gamer database.

Pep / SAK  later gave me a very small camera so I tested this again, but because with a handy nowadays everything is much faster, the screeneye wasn’t used since years.

The reason I removed it today was that I’m bored of have the cable in the way all the time I put my falcon out of the cuboard and back into it.

It will now go the way down in the cellar to be covered with dust. As far as I remember I also still have the original case.

 

 

USB Mouse adapter finally works

I ordered a USB mouse adapter for my Falcon a while ago. At the STNICCC I wanted to test it, but I found out, that I ordered the Amiga version instead of the ST version. So I ordered the ST version and found out, that I bought the wrong mouse. I had to buy an Netscroll Mouse and bought a Netscroll 100. So again I ordered another mouse. This time a Logitech RX250.

And finally it works !!

Here the setup with a joystick extension cable. You could see the Mouse adapter in the middle.

Here the setup without the joystick extension. You could see, that the Mouse adapter is not visible, because its hidden under the Falcon.

So I archived that I now could use a “modern” USB mouse instead of my “oldfashioned” PS/2 trackball. Also this mouse is optical, so for the first time I use a mouse on my falcon without a ball.

Another wast of time and money comes to and end, and the setup is save back in the cupboard 🙂 Hauptsache es macht Spaß 🙂

Atari cross compiling

Today I had a small coding sprint to find out if I could compile assembler code and embed it in a C programm.

The sprint was successfull thanks to the work of:

• saulot/nokturnal : created 2 articles about using gnu assembler and using virtual assembler to do the task.
• Vincent Rivière’s: He created a tool chain for cross compiling for the Atari
• Hatari team: I used the Hatari 1.8 Emulator to test the result

But I had some problems. The main one was that I forgot the leading tab or blank in the vasm assembler file, so I alsways got an error, that the memnonic was not found. Insane / .tSCc. helped me to find this minor error, thanks to him as well.

I also had think, that a complette example would be a great enhancement of soulot’s howto. So I put this example for both assembler in this article. First we setup our cross compiling environment.

Download and install tool chain

http://vincent.riviere.free.fr/soft/m68k-atari-mint/

Download and install Virtual Assembler

http://sun.hasenbraten.de/vasm/

Download and Install Hatari

Here a link to a former article of mine, which is still valid (beside the version numbers)
https://thornstot.wordpress.com/2014/01/23/hatari-1-7-installed-under-ubuntu-13-10/

GNU Assembler example

Link to soulots article: http://bus-error.nokturnal.pl/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=2

C Header: ex_gas.h

#ifndef PLUS_H
#define PLUS_H ;we want to include header once
#ifdef __cplusplus
extern "C" {
#endif
long plus(long a, long b);
#ifdef __cplusplus
}
#endif
#endif

C Code ex_gas.c

#include "ex_gas.h"
#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
int a=0;
a=plus(2,1);
puts("Hello, world !");
return 0;
}

Assembler code ex_gas.s

 .globl _plus
_plus:
move.l 4(sp),d0
add.l 8(sp),d0
rts

Assemble
m68k-atari-mint-gcc -c ex_gas.s -Wa,-S -o ex_gas.o

Compile
m68k-atari-mint-gcc ex_gas.c ex_gas.o -o ex_gas.tos


 

Virtual Assembler example

Link to saulots article: http://bus-error.nokturnal.pl/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=1

C Header ex_vasm.h

#ifndef PLUS_H
#define PLUS_H ;we want to include header once
#ifdef __cplusplus
extern "C" {
#endif
void hello();
#ifdef __cplusplus
}
#endif
#endif


C Code ex_vasm.c

#include "ex_vasm.h"
#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
int a=0;
hello();
puts("Hello, world !");
return 0;
}

Assembler code ex_vasm.s

Do not forget the leading tab in front of XDEF 🙂

 XDEF _hello
_hello:
movem.l d1-d2/a0-2,-(sp)
move.l #hi_msg,-(sp)
move.w #$09,-(sp)
trap #1
addq.l #6,sp
movem.l (sp)+,d1-d2/a0-2
rts
hi_msg:
dc.b "Hi from 68k!",$0d,$0a,$00


Assemble

vasmm68k_mot ex_vasm.s -Faout -quiet -x -m68000 -spaces -showopt -o ex_vasm.o

Compile

m68k-atari-mint-gcc ex_vasm.c ex_vasm.o -o ex_vasm.tos