Zoomfloppy with two 1541 connected, use simultaneously?

[Dan Gahlinger]

I couldn't find an answer to this, and was going to test, but thought I'd ask
If I attach two 1541s serial daisy-chained, with one being drive 8 and the other being drive 9
can I run nibread on both drives simultaneously?
or even just d64copy for that matter

this would cut down a lot of time if I can do two disks at once.
my other option is that I have a second zoomfloppy board
I could have drive 8 on the 1st zoomfloppy and drive 9 on the second one,
but then I don't know if there's a command line option change to specify the second zoomfloppy
or how to do that

I use linux if that matters.

--

Greetings from somewhere in the space-time continuum,

Dan.

[Alexander Oberhuber]

On 20.09.2025 at 12:50 quoting Dan Gahlinger:
> {...}

> I could have drive 8 on the 1st zoomfloppy and drive 9 on the second one,
> but then I don't know if there's a command line option change to
> specify the second zoomfloppy
> or how to do that

You could simply open up two terminal windows, and run a commandline in
each terminal, one for drive 8, other cmdline for drive 9, simultaneously.
They will run in parallel. Same principle works with any numbers of open
terminals.

Regards,
ATT

[Dan Gahlinger]

That was my plan, and it's actually the only way to do this
But your information isn't correct or complete.

There's a necessary command line option to specify which of the zoomfloppy youre addressing
without this, it won't work

check the d64copy help to see for yourself:
  -@, --adapter=plugin:bus  tell OpenCBM which backend plugin and bus to use

But I've never used it so I don't know what the option is supposed to look like
also, this doesn't answer if I can use two drives on one zoomfloppy

Otherwise why wouldn't daisy chaining the drives work?

Greetings from somewhere in the space-time continuum,

Dan.

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[go4r...@go4retro.com]

Daisy chaining is possible but zoomfloppy can only talk to one drive at a time and the IEC bus can only be used by one drive at a time.  So, while you can open two terminals to one ZF, attached to two drives, you realistically can only communicate with one drive at a time. 

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[Dan Gahlinger]

Aha! so my idea to use TWO zoomfloppy simultaneously has hope!

I just need to figure out that -@ option

thanks!

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/zoomfloppy-users/c3ed2b94-48e0-453b-8dcd-b784d8445c52%40Spark.

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[Uffe Jakobsen]

Hi,

Dan Gahlinger writes:
>
> I just need to figure out that -@ option
>

I cannot currently find my real Zoomfkoppy device - so I cannot test for you...
But I guess that you could inspect the xum1541 serial numbers during usb device scan with this command (assiming linux):

# XUM1541_DEBUG=0 cbmctrl -@xum1541 detect
[XUM1541] scanning usb ...
[XUM1541] found xu/xum1541 version 0608 on bus 1, device 5
[XUM1541] xum1541 name: xum1541 floppy adapter (PROMICRO_7406)
[XUM1541] xum1541 serial number: 0
[XUM1541] firmware version 8, library version 8
[XUM1541] device capabilities 03 status 00
[XUM1541] Closing USB link

As far as I remember the serial numbers should go here: -@xum1541:<serial>

PS: just guessing here as I only have a xum1541 clone at hand right now...

/Uffe

[Spiro Trikaliotis]

Hello,

* On Sat, Sep 20, 2025 at 10:15:15PM +0200 Uffe Jakobsen wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Dan Gahlinger writes:
> >
> > I just need to figure out that -@ option
> >
>
> I cannot currently find my real Zoomfkoppy device - so I cannot test for you...
> But I guess that you could inspect the xum1541 serial numbers during usb device scan with this command (assiming linux):

[...]

> PS: just guessing here as I only have a xum1541 clone at hand right now...

Serial numbers were never implemented. It was a special function that
WoMo wanted to create.

Thus, the xum1541 devices are just numbered, starting from zero.

So try -@xum1541:0 and -@xum1541:1 to get access to the one or the other
device.

Note, however, that this option was implemented more than 10 years ago,
and I think no-one ever tested it other than WoMo. Additionally, I don't
think he ever tested the option to use both the same time. So, it might
work, or it might not work.


Regarding the other option, to have both devices on one xum1541
daisy-chained: While you can access both devices that one, you can do so
only one after the other. Every command opens the xum1541 in an
exclusive mode, so access to it is forbidden for another command until
the first command has finished.

Regards,
Spiro

--
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[Dan Gahlinger]

Hey Spiro, thanks!

I'll test it out and report back here, it'll be a while
I'm trying to image and catalog the remainder of my c64 floppy disks
I have about 5,000 disks to do (that's 10,000 sides if you're counting)

So doing two drives simultaneously is about the only way to do this if I want to preserve any sanity.

Worst case scenario I'll use one zoomfloppy on linux and the second on my windows laptop
But it would be very handy if I can do it on one desktop with two shell tabs open

i've even created a shell script for the specific purpose of imaging and cataloging
with integrated disk flip built-in

it's as painless as I can make this tedious process

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[Spiro Trikaliotis]

Hello Dan,

* On Sat, Sep 20, 2025 at 05:27:23PM -0400 Dan Gahlinger wrote:
> i've even created a shell script for the specific purpose of imaging and
> cataloging
> with integrated disk flip built-in

The command "cbmctrl change 8" (for disk drive 8) might be handy for this purpose.

Regards,
Spiro

--
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[Dan Gahlinger]

Spiro, I got both zoomfloppy connected
I have both drives, now I just need one more IEC cable and I can start testing
with both zoomfloppy connected to linux, lsusb -v shows this:

Bus 002 Device 010: ID 16d0:0504 MCS RETRO Innovations ZoomFloppy
Negotiated speed: Full Speed (12Mbps)
Device Descriptor:
  bLength                18
  bDescriptorType         1
  bcdUSB               1.10
  bDeviceClass          255 Vendor Specific Class
  bDeviceSubClass         0 [unknown]
  bDeviceProtocol         0
  bMaxPacketSize0         8
  idVendor           0x16d0 MCS
  idProduct          0x0504 RETRO Innovations ZoomFloppy
  bcdDevice            2.07
  iManufacturer           1 Nate Lawson and OpenCBM team
  iProduct                2 xum1541 floppy adapter (ZOOMFLOPPY)
  iSerial                 3 000
  bNumConfigurations      1
  Configuration Descriptor:
    bLength                 9
    bDescriptorType         2
    wTotalLength       0x0020
    bNumInterfaces          1
    bConfigurationValue     1
    iConfiguration          0
    bmAttributes         0x80
      (Bus Powered)
    MaxPower              100mA
    Interface Descriptor:
      bLength                 9
      bDescriptorType         4
      bInterfaceNumber        0
      bAlternateSetting       0
      bNumEndpoints           2
      bInterfaceClass       255 Vendor Specific Class
      bInterfaceSubClass      0 [unknown]
      bInterfaceProtocol      0
      iInterface              0
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x83  EP 3 IN
        bmAttributes            2
          Transfer Type            Bulk
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0020  1x 32 bytes
        bInterval               0
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x04  EP 4 OUT
        bmAttributes            2
          Transfer Type            Bulk
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0020  1x 32 bytes
        bInterval               0
Device Status:     0x0000
  (Bus Powered)

Bus 002 Device 011: ID 16d0:0504 MCS RETRO Innovations ZoomFloppy
Negotiated speed: Full Speed (12Mbps)
Device Descriptor:
  bLength                18
  bDescriptorType         1
  bcdUSB               1.10
  bDeviceClass          255 Vendor Specific Class
  bDeviceSubClass         0 [unknown]
  bDeviceProtocol         0
  bMaxPacketSize0         8
  idVendor           0x16d0 MCS
  idProduct          0x0504 RETRO Innovations ZoomFloppy
  bcdDevice            2.07
  iManufacturer           1 Nate Lawson and OpenCBM team
  iProduct                2 xum1541 floppy adapter (ZOOMFLOPPY)
  iSerial                 3 000
  bNumConfigurations      1
  Configuration Descriptor:
    bLength                 9
    bDescriptorType         2
    wTotalLength       0x0020
    bNumInterfaces          1
    bConfigurationValue     1
    iConfiguration          0
    bmAttributes         0x80
      (Bus Powered)
    MaxPower              100mA
    Interface Descriptor:
      bLength                 9
      bDescriptorType         4
      bInterfaceNumber        0
      bAlternateSetting       0
      bNumEndpoints           2
      bInterfaceClass       255 Vendor Specific Class
      bInterfaceSubClass      0 [unknown]
      bInterfaceProtocol      0
      iInterface              0
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x83  EP 3 IN
        bmAttributes            2
          Transfer Type            Bulk
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0020  1x 32 bytes
        bInterval               0
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x04  EP 4 OUT
        bmAttributes            2
          Transfer Type            Bulk
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0020  1x 32 bytes
        bInterval               0
Device Status:     0x0000
  (Bus Powered)

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[Dan Gahlinger]

Hey Spiro! Well, it works!
I have two zoomfloppies connected simultaneously
and can direct commands to one or the other

this process involves updating the firmware on BOTH zoomfloppies
to "custom" firmware built from the source code.
not for the faint of heart, so I won't outline the process here
there's an incredible thread I found that outlines the whole process
it's very involved, but I got through it, results:

cbmctrl -@xum1541:1 detect
 8: 1540 or 1541
cbmctrl -@xum1541:2 detect
 8: 1571 

and cbmctrl dir works correctly when specifying which device you want
so d64copy, imgcopy, nibtools, etc should work just as well.

well, I still have to do 10,000 disk flips, but at least I can do 2 at a time now.

if you need me to collect any data, debugs, whatever, let me know.
works great!
Dan.