Zoomfloppy as IEC interface for emulated c64

[Aaron Paluzzi]

This might be a nutty question.  I've got a dead c64 (keeping the board for later repair!) that I'm converting to a rpi4 using a keyrah.  I have a 801 printer and a 1541 that I would like to use with a c64 emulator on the pi.  Could I use the zoomfloopy as a usb converter making the process transparent to the emulator?

[John Saller]

Someone would have to write a driver for rpi4 to use it. I have been wanting an emulator to use the rpi pins to use the IEC bus but no one seems to be interested. 

On Fri, Jul 10, 2020, 10:48 AM Aaron Paluzzi <a.pa...@engusa.com> wrote:

This might be a nutty question.  I've got a dead c64 (keeping the board for later repair!) that I'm converting to a rpi4 using a keyrah.  I have a 801 printer and a 1541 that I would like to use with a c64 emulator on the pi.  Could I use the zoomfloopy as a usb converter making the process transparent to the emulator?

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[Spiro Trikaliotis]

Hello Aaron,

Just to get it right: You want to access the "real" 1541 from an
emulator on the RPi4 with the ZF?

Yes, this works, at least in general. Years ago, VICE was able to do it.
I have heard that this was broken at some point of time, I do not know
if it has been fixed in the meantime.

However, this always was and will be slow like hell and nothing you want
to use as your everyday setup. Additionally, fast loaders will not work
at all.

I would say it is more like a proof of concept, nothing more.

Regards,
Spiro.

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

[Spiro Trikaliotis]

* On Fri, Jul 10, 2020 at 11:09:53AM -0700 John Saller wrote:
> Someone would have to write a driver for rpi4 to use it. I have been wanting an
> emulator to use the rpi pins to use the IEC bus but no one seems to be
> interested. 

You want the emulator to handle the IO pins directly to do the IEC handling?
I doubt this will be possible due to timing constraints. Even in the
Linux and Windows drivers, it was very tricky (so tricky that it is not
the way a driver should behave!) to do it halfway reliably.

[RETRO Innovations]

On 7/10/2020 12:48 PM, Aaron Paluzzi wrote:

This might be a nutty question.  I've got a dead c64 (keeping the board for later repair!) that I'm converting to a rpi4 using a keyrah.  I have a 801 printer and a 1541 that I would like to use with a c64 emulator on the pi.  Could I use the zoomfloopy as a usb converter making the process transparent to the emulator? --

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VICE allows ZoomFLoppy to address a drive, but only via normal IEC protocol.  Fastloaders and such I doubt will work.

Jim

-- 
RETRO Innovations, Contemporary Gear for Classic Systems
www.go4retro.com
store.go4retro.com

[John Saller]

Interesting.. Pi1541 does it so thought you could just go the other way like a c16 or a Plus/4. To use the zoomfloppy, I agree someone would have to write a driver for the Rpi4 to work with the USB and that would be pretty tough.

Regards, John

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[John Saller]

VICE 3.4 works great and when it first came I could not get it to work until about 3 months after I had tried. Commodore drives have been working great since then with the zoomfloppy but like you said no fast loaders. So for me the main use is to backup disks I have or Transfer images to disks for use on the drives with the real computer. MSD on the other hand is not so good but I haven't tried it since Spiro made changes.

John

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[RETRO Innovations]

On 7/11/2020 4:48 PM, John Saller wrote:
> Interesting.. Pi1541 does it so thought you could just go the other
> way like a c16 or a Plus/4.

Pi1541 runs at the bare metal level (no OS).  I suspect that BM64 (that
runs on the Pi) could implement the IEC bus pretty easily on the RPi IO
pins, since the OS latency would be less.  It still might not be fast
enough for some of the faster protocols, as latency is still present in
some amount.

Jim

[John Saller]

Thanks Jim

I just saw this today! Yes I agree!

-John

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[Nate Lawson]

On Jul 15, 2020, at 8:25 PM, John Saller <bestde...@gmail.com> wrote:



Thanks Jim

I just saw this today! Yes I agree!

-John

On Sat, Jul 11, 2020 at 3:29 PM RETRO Innovations <go4r...@go4retro.com> wrote:

On 7/11/2020 4:48 PM, John Saller wrote:
> Interesting.. Pi1541 does it so thought you could just go the other
> way like a c16 or a Plus/4.

Pi1541 runs at the bare metal level (no OS).  I suspect that BM64 (that
runs on the Pi) could implement the IEC bus pretty easily on the RPi IO
pins, since the OS latency would be less.  It still might not be fast
enough for some of the faster protocols, as latency is still present in
some amount.

Right. To be clear, this would be a Pi to IEC bus direct connection via GPIO, not involving USB or ZoomFloppy. The Pi1541 code might be helpful. 

USB is too high latency to do a bit banging protocol like IEC. The ZoomFloppy implements high level commands that then get bit banged over the microcontroller’s IO lines to IEC. That’s how it keeps the latency low.