The Official Nabu PC Floppy Disk Controller thread

[snuci]

I need to retract the symptoms when I had the Nabu adapter hooked up. I removed a chip on the FDC card to check traces and forgot to put it back. Nabu adapter or not, it does the same thing. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[LeoBinkowski]

Hi, I'm one of the original NABU game developers. I haven't caught up to the thread yet. However, I'm here just to let you know I'll be testing actual NABU CP/M release floppies for booting today. If I can get it booted, I can copy them for you. Wish me luck!

 

[snuci]

Hi, I'm one of the original NABU game developers. I haven't caught up to the thread yet. However, I'm here just to let you know I'll be testing actual NABU CP/M release floppies for booting today. If I can get it booted, I can copy them for you. Wish me luck!

Good luck Leo. Glad you're here.

 

[Klyball]

Hi, I'm one of the original NABU game developers. I haven't caught up to the thread yet. However, I'm here just to let you know I'll be testing actual NABU CP/M release floppies for booting today. If I can get it booted, I can copy them for you. Wish me luck!

exciting, Good to have you on board!

 

[C128 Guy]

Welcome aboard? Glad you are here.

It will be fun to see some of the source code on the games when you the discs archived. Curious - when you ported the games did you start from scratch or work with other versions of the code? (i.e. Coleco)

 

[LeoBinkowski]

Welcome aboard? Glad you are here.

It will be fun to see some of the source code on the games when you the discs archived. Curious - when you ported the games did you start from scratch or work with other versions of the code? (i.e. Coleco)

I only recall three games we ported from Coleco Code: Wing War, Dragonfire, and Moonsweeper. I don't think I have source for those, because they weren't mine. As I recall, they were surprisingly easy, even being bereft of comments. Two high school students at the time, Paul Huggins and Peter Chow, did all of the work for all three. The TI SN chip for sound in the Coleco was functionally if not pin compatible.

The big difference between NABU and Coleco was keyboard handling, since the Coleco did not have a keyboard until the Adam...and Coleco had to make that weird as hell.

 

[C128 Guy]

Yeah, the Adam used AdamNet with it's weird serial processing for all devices on the net.

I have a few Adams here, it was my first computer.

 

[Bruce Tomlin]

FYI, if you need a good disassembly of a Coleco game to start on something, with references traced down, I've disassembled all the old games. Also, most Colecovision games used the ROM sound code, so that should save a lot of conversion work.

 

[LeoBinkowski]

Somebody asked me what type the PAL was and if I could scrape off the serial sticker to find out. Is this not known info already? It doesn't sound like something I want to do.

 

[C128 Guy]

I'd be game to look at converting some of the better games once I get my machine.

 

[snuci]

There is some exciting news. My floppy drive works!

With the Nabu Network recreation software, the Nabu Network as some applications that can use the floppy drive. This includes BASIC (for saving/retrieving BASIC programs), Filer and there is a Disk Utilities menu for CP/M utilities. I have been able to format a disk, write some BASIC programs to it and confirm it's there. However, I still cannot access the original NABU floppies that I have been trying to boot with. I have more details in the "Bad Disk Image" thread as this was were I first was able to confirm that the disk images work. They absolutely do for the format they are in but my drive won't read them Anyway, this is with the 4K Rev A firmware. The NABU Network software doesn't presently work with the 8K Rev B firmware. However, in order to boot up CP/M you need Rev B as the boot option menu is in that version.

Please have a look here: https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/bad-disk-image.1240644/ but comment here. DJ Sures will have a video later today (most likely) on the software and how to get it.

 

[snuci]

But the drives are shuggart right ? How can you use them unmodified on the PC ? Wasn't the hard setting for the head / side ?

Sorry, I am moving this here from the Bad Image Thread because I want to keep that thread focussed.

The PC was set up for a 360k floppy drive in the BIOS. ImageDisk, when configured for single sided, did the rest. There was nothing special about the configuration other than ensuring the DS was set correctly and termination needed to be considered. The drives are TEC FB-50x drives. I don't have a picture of the exact model number. I do have the TEC manual though.

 

[snuci]

One interesting test: try creating more than 32 files. See how the directory goes on BASIC NABU. Someone has reported the nabu images had weird 32 entries only.

I stopped after creating 41 files. FILES shows all of them.

 

[Retro Canada]

Sorry, I am moving this here from the Bad Image Thread because I want to keep that thread focussed.

The PC was set up for a 360k floppy drive in the BIOS. ImageDisk, when configured for single sided, did the rest. There was nothing special about the configuration other than ensuring the DS was set correctly and termination needed to be considered. The drives are TEC FB-50x drives. I don't have a picture of the exact model number. I do have the TEC manual though.

Do these drives have a DS selection jumpers ? Still shuggart are different than PC driver this is the reason PC drives deal with twisted cables for drive / head selection. A good test would try to replicate your working BASIC disk to a second one using the PC. Also imaging the 41 entries disk would help with the geometry investigation.

 

[Klyball]

here is the pinout for the 24 pos centronics connector

 

[snuci]

These are the jumpers on the TEC FB-501 drives.


Come to think of it, I have not recapped these drives and they are prone to bad caps. I'll have to check if I have these caps already.

 

[Klyball]

I found some premade cable for the replica floppy controller it also comes in 15 conductor but i did not think they were long enough

 

[Klyball]

I have the first test board for the floppy controller replica ready to assemble . Testing will begin when i receive my system or @snuci gets his copy built up.

 

[snuci]

I've also posted a longer than I wanted video on the project and a demo of the floppy drive running with the NABU RetroNET software and network adapter replacement. Still working on booting.

 

[LeoBinkowski]

CP/M Boot Diskettes are in Canada Post's hands. I think you'll get them this week.