Yes is the simple answer to the questions for 1 and 2 - although you
will have two slight issues to overcome -
a) Whether the cable which has to be reversed for the HxC has to be
reversed for the real floppy disk drive (my guess is yes, as pin 1 on
the HxC should be the same as pin 1 on a real floppy disk drive)
b) getting the HxC and disk drive physically close enough to each other
to insert the cables - the HxC will need something underneath it (I used
a piece of cardboard) to prevent shorting when it is against a metal
surface).
Realistically, this all depends on the cables you have but it should not
present a problem - if necessary, you can always file off the locating
lug on one end of the floppy cable, where it plugs into the HxC.
It has been tested with the Plus D on the Spectrum - it supports .MGT
disk images as well for downloading from the web. I don't think it has
been tried with the Disciple, but from memory, the Disciple and Plus D
are very similar, therefore it should work.
Thanks for the link to the power supply - you would need a cable to take
the HDD power connector and convert it to supply just 5V for a floppy
disk drive power connector.
The other alternative (maybe even cheaper) would be to buy a standard 5V
PSU and cut off the power connector, replacing it with a floppy power
connector - not sure how easy it is to fit those as there must be a
special tool?
Rich
On 19/08/2010 12:12, Dr. M.Hanias wrote:
Dear Rich Mellor
I have some commets about HxC
1 . I have a Ql with gold card and another with Trump Card
Can I transfer files between HxC virtual floppy and the real floppy?
2. Can I do the same with disciple and plus d for my Spectrum128?
3. You can power the device with power supply for external HDD
like this
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/USB-2-0-SATA-IDE-2-5-3-5-Cable-HDD-w-Power-Adapter-/330462239119?pt=UK_Computing_CablesConnectors_RL
Yours
Michael
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Rich Mellor" <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 2010 10:07 AM
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: [Ql-Users] Getting the Sinclair QL to use an SD Card
Well, its another day, and some good news for the QL at last :-)
We have now successfully tested the HxC Floppy Disk drive emulator
with the Sinclair QL home computer, meaning that you can now copy raw
images of Sinclair QL disks to an SD card, and then connect this
floppy disk drive emulator to your QL's disk interface and read/write
to an SD card instead of floppy disks.
The latest v3.0 of Q-emuLator supports raw disk images, so when that
is officially released, you should be able to use that to get
software into the raw disk format required. Then all you need to do,
is to convert it using the supplied HxC software, copy it to the SD
card and then hey presto, the QL sees it as a floppy disk! At the
moment, I can only get Q-emuLator to read from raw disk images,
although Daniele is working on raw disk image support.
You can copy any number of floppy disk images to your SD card, and
then use the buttons on the front of the control panel to set up
which disk image is to be seen by the Sinclair QL as FLP1 and which
is to be seen as FLP2.
Currently, it only appears to support DD disks, although I daresay it
will work with other disk types if I had some raw disk images of QL
HD and QL ED disks to try (I cannot make them on my PC).
Ideally, we need to find some power supplies which can be used to
power these units - at the moment, we are using an old external
floppy disk case. Also, for some reason, both the Gold Card and the
MicroP disk interface we have here needed the cable the other way
around to the QL norm!
This means that the HxC Floppy Disk Drive Emulator available from
SellMyRetro.com
<http://www.sellmyretro.com/search/naturalSearch?keyword=hxc> has now
been shown to successfully work with all of the following equipment
as a complete replacement for the good old floppy disk drive:
* Any computer / piece of equipment that uses PC formatted floppy
disks (3.5", 5.25" or even 8" drives)
* Atari ST/STF/Falcon
* Amstrad CPC6128
* Commodore Amiga (currently write only)
* Dragon 32 / 64 (VDK or JVC disk format, which should also
therefore work with the Tandy CoCo)
* Emax and Emax II Sampler
* Ensoniq Mirage Sampler
* Korg DSS-1 Synthesizer
* MSX2
* Oberheim DPX1 Sampler
* Oric Computer (with MicroDisk)
* PC
* PC88
* SAM Coupe *.MGT and *.SAD formats
* Sinclair QL raw disk images
* Sinclair ZX Spectrum +3 or Sinclair ZX Spectrum with PlusD disk
Interface
* Super Wildcard DS-SWC3201
* Thomson TO8D
* TI99/4A
* x68000
--
Rich Mellor
RWAP Services
http://www.rwapsoftware.co.uk
http://www.rwapservices.co.uk
-- Try out our new site: http://sellmyretro.com
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--
Rich Mellor
RWAP Services
http://www.rwapsoftware.co.uk
http://www.rwapservices.co.uk
-- Try out our new site: http://sellmyretro.com
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