exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

BennehBoy wrote: 08 Jun 2021 10:15 I think this is catching, I keep adding beebs & masters to my ebay watch list :oops:

Uh oh.....

I managed to get a free Electron from a chap over at stardot having a clearout, very generous giveaway, all I had to pay was £8 postage. Should arrive today.

I had some from aliexpress with faulty EEPROMs on. I just couldn't write the settings but IIRC FT_Prog did detect them and talk just fine. I bought some new EEPROM from Mouser and swapped them to repair the boards. Some detection problems with FT_Prog but otherwise the FT232H chips seem pretty reliable.

My advice... if no detection reboot the PC and try again.

cmorley wrote: 08 Jun 2021 12:34 I had some from aliexpress with faulty EEPROMs on. I just couldn't write the settings but IIRC FT_Prog did detect them and talk just fine. I bought some new EEPROM from Mouser and swapped them to repair the boards. Some detection problems with FT_Prog but otherwise the FT232H chips seem pretty reliable.

My advice... if no detection reboot the PC and try again.

All programmed fine now, just waiting on a cable to connect up to the Beeb :)

rubber_jonnie wrote: 08 Jun 2021 13:25 All programmed fine now, just waiting on a cable to connect up to the Beeb :)

You can use an old 40 conductor IDE cable. Do not use an 80 conductor cable though - they have grounds connected internally so short stuff out.

cmorley wrote: 08 Jun 2021 13:48

rubber_jonnie wrote: 08 Jun 2021 13:25 All programmed fine now, just waiting on a cable to connect up to the Beeb :)

You can use an old 40 conductor IDE cable. Do not use an 80 conductor cable though - they have grounds connected internally so short stuff out.

I do have IDE cables, but guess what, like every other bloody thing, they are in storage!! So I bought a 40 conductor IDE cable off ebay. Should be here soon and I cant try to have a poke around the Tube.

I still need to find time to drop some ROMs into the 64KB EEPROM as well, and now I have a dead Electron too!! All good fun though, and I think the Elk is just a power problem.

So, just to add a little regarding the TurboSPI, it uses a file called BEEB.MMB to store 500 disk images.

Those images are kind of like .ST images we use in our Goteks etc, and can also be used for our BBC emulators.

Looking at the weekend, the file is not editable using normal methods, but you can see from this post, there is a tool called MMBIMAGER, which you can find here: https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic ... 72#p241972

It lets you browse the file and add disk images to the available slots. In other words, you can use your favourite Beeb emulator to create blank images that can then be added to BEEB.MMB.

I believe there is also a new version of the TurboSPI ROM that allows for simply dropping the disk files into the MMC card filesystem, so I need to look into that to simplify things.

I also have one of Mr Morleys 32KB Sideways ROM/RAM adapters inbound too.

Having a go with the 64KB sideways EEPROM adapter over the weekend was super easy to add ROM files to it and erase as required, so I just need to have a look at what ROMs will be most useful and add them in :)

A big thanks to @cmorley who has been super helpful.

rubber_jonnie wrote: 14 Jun 2021 11:35 I believe there is also a new version of the TurboSPI ROM that allows for simply dropping the disk files into the MMC card filesystem, so I need to look into that to simplify things.

TurboSPI is Steve Picton's proprietary stuff. MMFS is the open source "original" created by Martin Mather. There is also SmartSPI which is vased on DFS 0.9 - closed source but works well. MMFS2 is the one which you can use SSD (disk image files) just by dropping them on the SD card (like you would a FlashFloppy gotek USB stick).

duikie on stardot maintains smartspi. hoglet on stardot maintains MMFS.

cmorley wrote: 14 Jun 2021 12:35

rubber_jonnie wrote: 14 Jun 2021 11:35 I believe there is also a new version of the TurboSPI ROM that allows for simply dropping the disk files into the MMC card filesystem, so I need to look into that to simplify things.

TurboSPI is Steve Picton's proprietory stuff. MMFS is the open source "original" created by Martin Mather. There is also SmartSPI which is vased on DFS 0.9 - closed source but works well. MMFS2 is the one which you can use SSD (disk image files) just by dropping them on the SD card (like you would a FlashFloppy gotek USB stick).

duikie on stardot maintains smartspi. hoglet on stardot maintains MMFS.

Thanks so much for the info, I will go and take a look at these. MMFS2 does sound very much like what I'd ultimately like to be able to do.

And very useful since I am also a Mac user as well as a PC user, here is a link to MMBExplorer for both OSes: https://github.com/robcfg/retrotools/re ... tag/v1.2.1

Plus there is the source so it can also be compiled for Linux too :)

It's great for viewing and creating MMB files for the TurboSPI.