Configuring Multi-Floppy System Under RomWBW

[Tom Plano]

I'm trying to setup an rc2014 system with a Flock floppy disk controller to control 2 FD drives of different types, a 3.5 DS/HD as well as a 5.25 DS/HD. The standard RomWBW install for that system sets up both the FD0 and FD1 as 3.5 DS/HD. 

The 3.5 drive is physically wired as  FD1(before the twist of IBM IDE cable) and the 5.25 is wired as FD0(after the twist). In the default rom build the 3.5 drive works fine and can be read and written to on D: of all images, but the 5.25 does not work. After poking in the docs I saw Id need to compile a new rom. I made the following changes to the code, just from some educated guessing

Source/HBIOS/Config/RCZ80_std.asm added:

• FDMEDIA .SET  FDM120  
• FDMEDIAALT  .SET  FDM144
• FDMAUTO   .SET  FALSE

Source/HBIOS/fd.asm:138

• Changed FD_CFGTBL for device 1 to FDMEDIAALT

Builds and flashes fine but now both the FD0 and FD1 are set as  5.25 DS/HD drives. Reads and writes to C: now work correctly but the 3.5 drive no longer works.

What is the correct way (if possible) to enable 2 different drive types on a single floppy controller card?

-Tom P

[Wayne Warthen]

Up until a few days ago, it was not possible to define different floppy drive types under RomWBW.  So, you are not doing anything wrong, it just isn't possible in the version of RomWBW you are using.

If you want to try the latest RomWBW Development Snapshot (see Releases Page), you can define the floppy drive types independently.  To use a 3.5" drive as FD0 and a 5.25" drive as FD1, you can put this in your config file:

FD0TYPE         .SET    FDT_3HD         ; FD 0: DRIVE TYPE: FDT_[3DD|3HD|5DD|5HD|8]
FD1TYPE         .SET    FDT_5HD         ; FD 1: DRIVE TYPE: FDT_[3DD|3HD|5DD|5HD|8]

You will need to build a custom ROM after making these changes.  Since this is a new feature, I would appreciate your feedback.

Thanks,

Wayne

[Tom Plano]

Hi Wayne,

That seems to have worked a treat, drives show up with their correct types, and reads and writes work as expected.

Thanks,

Tom

[Wayne Warthen]

Excellent.  I appreciate the confirmation Tom.

-Wayne