ZF flashing blue light after a successful 1541 operation

[Peter Schlepphorst]

Hi all - 

I'm just received my ZoomFloppy and have a question regarding the blue led.

I'm running a Commodore 64 emulator (Vice 3.4 r37296M / Windows 7 desktop) connected to a real Commodore 1541 drive thru the ZF IEC cable.

The ZF works great, but there is one thing I find interesting.... The blue led continues to flash on/off after a successful read on the 1541 drive.

For example I will get the disk directory using the LOAD"$",8 command. The red light on the 1541 and the blue led on the ZF flash on/off as the operation executes.

After the 1541 has successfully retrieved the directory, the red led on the 1541 goes out but the ZF blue led goes into 'continuous flash on/off mode'.

It will stay that way until I execute another drive command.

Seems to me the blue LED would go out after a good operation....

I would appreciate any help or a link to a FAQ...

Thanks,

Pete

Greenville, SC, USA

[John Saller]

I hope you get an answer! No one knows why the blue light blinks.

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[Luca]

The constantly blue light blinking has been the hot topic of recent threads, such as this one: 

"ZF: Drive only reacts to "cbmctrl reset""

On Monday, July 20, 2020 at 5:42:34 PM UTC-7, John Saller wrote:

I hope you get an answer! No one knows why the blue light blinks.

On Mon, Jul 20, 2020, 4:37 PM Peter Schlepphorst <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi all - 

I'm just received my ZoomFloppy and have a question regarding the blue led.

I'm running a Commodore 64 emulator (Vice 3.4 r37296M / Windows 7 desktop) connected to a real Commodore 1541 drive thru the ZF IEC cable.

The ZF works great, but there is one thing I find interesting.... The blue led continues to flash on/off after a successful read on the 1541 drive.

For example I will get the disk directory using the LOAD"$",8 command. The red light on the 1541 and the blue led on the ZF flash on/off as the operation executes.

After the 1541 has successfully retrieved the directory, the red led on the 1541 goes out but the ZF blue led goes into 'continuous flash on/off mode'.

It will stay that way until I execute another drive command.

Seems to me the blue LED would go out after a good operation....

I would appreciate any help or a link to a FAQ...

Thanks,

Pete

Greenville, SC, USA

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[Peter Schlepphorst]

Hmmm, looks like I need to put the ZF in a project box and skip creating a cut out for the light :-)

Thanks for the info!

[Nate Lawson]

The current firmware uses the LED as follows:

- solid blue after first power on reset 

- blinking while a command is in process 

- off between commands 

So blinking after a command completes would indicate the prior command never completed ok. It likely still works for subsequent commands because I added an interrupt feature to reset the drive and start over if it finds a prior command in process. OpenCBM will print a notice about this (“prior command was interrupted, resetting” or something like this). 

-Nate

On Jul 20, 2020, at 5:42 PM, John Saller <bestde...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Spiro Trikaliotis]

Hello Pete,

* On Mon, Jul 20, 2020 at 04:37:17PM -0700 Peter Schlepphorst wrote:

> I'm running a Commodore 64 emulator (Vice 3.4 r37296M / Windows 7 desktop)
> connected to a real Commodore 1541 drive thru the ZF IEC cable.
>
> The ZF works great, but there is one thing I find interesting.... The blue led
> continues to flash on/off after a successful read on the 1541 drive.

As far as I remember, the VICE implementation does not close OpenCBM
once a command has been used. It will be kept open until VICE is left.

As Nate said, the drive with blink slowly as long as an operation is in
progress. More precisely, as long as OpenCBM is kept open.

Thus, I would expect the blinking to stop as soon as you leave VICE.

If this is the case, this is nothing to be concerned about.

Regards,
Spiro.

--
Spiro R. Trikaliotis
http://spiro.trikaliotis.net/

[Peter Schlepphorst]

Hi Nate and Spiro - 

Thanks for the firmware/LED behavior info and also how VICE doesn't close OpenCBM.

That is exactly what's happening - as soon as I leave VICE the light stops blinking.

I really appreciate the help!

Thanks again and cheers!

Pete