El HxC Floppy Emulator te permite reemplazar diferentes tipos de disquetera y usar una tarjeta SD en lugar de disquetes.
La versión Slim, que no tiene display, es especialmente adecuada para Amiga, Amstrad CPC, y Atari ST, ya que dispone del software de visualización en pantalla "On Screen Display" para estos modelos. Este software proporciona un interface gráfico para el manejo de los discos desde el propio monitor. Para otros ordenadores o dispositivos, deberás usar el botón de la placa para intercambiar los discos.
El emulador es usado actualmente con Amiga, Atari, CPC, Spectrum, MSX, ordenadores PC, diferentes teclados y samplers, máquinas CNC, y diverso instrumental científico.
La lista completa de ordenadores / instrumentos que soporta se encuentran en la página web del proyecto:
http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/index.html
Para preguntas y soporte :
http://torlus.com/floppy/forum/
Especificaciones técnicas:
Floppy interface:
• HE10 34 pins floppy connector :
• Shugart compatible mode supported.
• PC compatible mode supported.
• Tested on PC, Atari ST, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Thomson, MSX, ZX Spectrum series computers.
• Two floppy disk drives emulation
Power supply:
• 5V +/- 10% standard power floppy connector input.
User Interface:
• 1 button only ( switch disk, pressed whilst booting - firmware upgrade).
• 1 audio transducer.
• On screen display software for Atari ST, Amstrad CPC and Amiga Computers
SDCard support:
• SD Card up to 2GB.
• SDHC Card supported up to 32GB.
• (10Mhz SPI bus mode. Average byterate: ~500KB/s)
SDCard Filesystem:
• FAT32 supported. Subdirectory and long name file supported.
List of supported file images type:
• ST, MSA, ADF, ADZ, DMZ, CPC DSK (standard and extended)
• CopyQM DSK, Oric DSK, IMG, SMC,MSX DSK, IMD, Zx Spectrum DSK, BetaDisk TRD,
• BetaDisk SCL, Thomson TO8D SAP, Thomson TO8D FD, PC88 D88, x68000 HDM (beta), x68000 XDF (beta), • custom raw floppy geometry…
• An AmigaDOS or FAT12 floppy disk image can also be generated from spares files.
Read / Write support:
• Track mode based floppy emulator (Full track pre-encoded in the HFE image file)
• Read support: Most of existing formats (FM/MFM/Amiga track...) supported.
• Custom tracks supported.
• Write support: ISO MFM 256/512/1024Bytes sector write supported.
• Write support available on Amiga computers
• You may read about upgrading REV B to REV C
Floppy bitrate supported:
• 250/300Kbits/s (DD floppies)
• 500Kbits/s (HD floppies)
• (others bitrates possible)
Note : Variable bitrate not supported. So protected floppy disk image (IPF and STX file format) file support will be only partial ! If you look for a device supporting IPF / STX please a have a look to the USB HxC Floppy Emulator device)
Important Note:
The SD HxC Floppy Emulator is tested with a lot of different models of SD Cards, and should works properly with all SD Cards present on the market. Unfortunately there are lots of fake/bad flash medias (SD Cards/CF Cards/USB keys...) on the market
So we recommend you to care about the SD Card selection and also choose a good provider.