Falcon/TT CF drive images & TF536

[Steve]

Hiyas,

I noticed while playing around with my TF536 that it doesn't seem to work with my Falcon/TT CF card drive images. I *think* I have to plug the IDE cable in backwards for the TF536 IDE to work (maybe someone else can jog my memory) And perhaps that has something to do with it.. perhaps it is something to do with byteswapping?

I remember seeing in another thread somewhere, perhaps one of @Badwolf 's, that I can change the byte order of my disk images with a simple Linux command?

Anyhow, hoping someone can clear my understanding of this so I may be able to use those disk images

Cheers

[alexh]

I don't think you'll be able to plug the cable in backwards but you might be able to use a byte-swapped data cable. These were common on the Atari ST after Pera Putnik wrote a HDD driver for it. It can increase effective data transfer speed on 68000 CPUs.

It involves twisting lines 3-18 on the cable 180'.



But you should confirm that is required first.

There is some discussion in this thread about using a byte-swapped cable with TOS (I think EMUTOS is autoswitching?) when using TF536

https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... 9&start=30

[Steve]

Oh cheers I'll give this a read

[Badwolf]

Wot Alex said. Nothing to do with me, I'm afraid!

I'd suggest trying it with the latest snapshot of EmuTOS first (PRG version should suffice) as it may pick up the partitions in byte swapped mode (depending on what driver was used to make them).

The cable is a method of hardware swapping the data lines, the software method is to do a:

Code: Select all

dd conv=swab if=source.img of=dest.img

Hatari is also capable of auto-byte-order-detect on an image, but you can also set swapped or unswapped for the purposes of testing what you've done.

BW

[Steve]

Cheers @Badwolf that's the command I'm looking for! Hopefully that will allow me to use my disk images.

[Steve]

Wot Alex said. Nothing to do with me, I'm afraid!

I'd suggest trying it with the latest snapshot of EmuTOS first (PRG version should suffice) as it may pick up the partitions in byte swapped mode (depending on what driver was used to make them).

The cable is a method of hardware swapping the data lines, the software method is to do a:

Code: Select all

dd conv=swab if=source.img of=dest.img

Hatari is also capable of auto-byte-order-detect on an image, but you can also set swapped or unswapped for the purposes of testing what you've done.

BW

BW - just wanted to let you know this byte-swap command allowed my backed-up TT/Falcon images to work on the TF536! Cheers

[mikro]

When you mention TT... you wouldn't happen to use an SCSI adaptor in both TT and Falcon, would you? If so, that would explain the need for byte swapping in TF536. Same would happen if you connected the card via Falcon's IDE.

And as @Badwolf mentioned, latest EmuTOS snapshots have already support for automatic byte swapping when using a card from ACSI/SCSI on IDE bus but of course it hurts performance. For an one-time backup it is fine, though.

[Steve]

@mikro IDE in the Falcon and Thunder IDE in the TT. I am using EMUTOS 1.1.1 in ROM but that wasn't byte swapping.

[Badwolf]

@mikro IDE in the Falcon and Thunder IDE in the TT. I am using EMUTOS 1.1.1 in ROM but that wasn't byte swapping.

There have been some changes to the byte-swapping support in EmuTOS very recently. I'm afraid I don't recall the details, but a PRG snapshot may have had an effect.

Obviously doing the swap permanently will be more efficient, though.

BW.