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Victor 9000 / ACT Sirius 1 Software

If you have the drive connected, the command line as simple as:
/fluxengine write victor9k_ss -i "msdos3.1_ss_real.img"

the above is for single sided disks or for double sided:
./fluxengine write victor9k_ds -i "ms-dos-2.9-crosstalk.img"

the ss and ds at the end of the victor9k is the only difference. You need to have a 96 tracks per inch 5.25" drive. Other than that I think any of them will work.
 
So I seem to be going round and round with this, with no success

I have downloaded MS dos for the V9000 from here https://archive.org/details/ms-dos-3.1-for-victor-9000 and get the file MS-DOS 3.1 for VICTOR 9000 (1 OF 2).img ?

1669211443825.png
If I then Browse disk it with fluxengine GUI using victor9k_ss I get a list of garbled file name.
1669211462066.png

If I try to write it using the command line or the GUI I just get errors.

Cant seem to work this one out ?
 
Starting simple, downloaded a 720k MS dos image and I can seem to write and read that from my 80 track mitsubishi disk drive

Using command

fluxengine write ibm720 -i MSDOS.img

but if I try that with a victor image using

fluxengine write victor9k_ss -i victor.img

I get

IMG: read 37 tracks, 2 sides, 0 kB total from victor.img
Measuring rotational speed... Using GreaseWeazle GW00B53BB84C874000076C0716 on COM7
204.5ms (293.3rpm)
Measuring rotational speed... 204.5ms (293.3rpm)
0.0: writing 204 ms in 77143 bytes
0.0: 245 ms in 73073 bytes
0 raw records, 0 raw sectors
sectors: 0.0.0? 0.0.1? 0.0.2? 0.0.3? 0.0.4? 0.0.5? 0.0.6? 0.0.7? 0.0.8? 0.0.9? 0.0.10? 0.0.11? 0.0.12? 0.0.13? 0.0.14? 0.0.15? 0.0.16? 0.0.17? 0.0.18?
0 bytes decoded
bad read
retrying; 5 retries remaining

I'm noting that it says "37 tracks, 2 sides, 0kb" which doesn't seem right

Think I must have a problem with the victor image files ?
 
yeah, that doesn't sound right. I downloaded the above image and ran the command line and I see:
./fluxengine write victor9k_ss -i victor.img
IMG: read 80 tracks, 1 sides, 612 kB total from victor.img

which matches what I'd expect. I'm realizing I haven't rebuilt fluxengine in a while. I'll update my code and try with the latest version.
 
That file you're using should work fine. I updated my fluxengine and it still see's 80 tracks. I haven't played with the GUI very much but I realized this morning the disk browsing on Victor 9000 files hasn't been connected. So that feature won't work on any of the images. But you should be able to write one to a physical floppy. What OS are you using?
 
Are you using a greaseweazle with FluxEngine ?

I'm trying to use a GW V4

I can write IBM disks but not Victor disks.

Got two drives, one is a 300 rpm 80 track double density drive, the other is a high density drive but it seems I can't decode the victor disk image. I not that the file sizes don't match what the fluxengine website things a victor disk image should be.

Confused.
 
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Yeah, I'm using a greaseweazle v4 with FluxEngine. I'm on a Mac. I'm wondering if that's part of the problem. I've generally used a YE-Data YD-380 drive with fluxengine. Though I've also used a Panasonic JU-475 and a Teac FD-55GFR. Though I remember in the beginning I had to play with the jumpers a bit to get the drives to read and write at 300 rpm.

But what concerns me is the readout fluxengine is giving about the images as being the wrong track sizes. Where you have "IMG: read 37 tracks, 2 sides, 0 kB total from victor.img" is just wrong. As the disk image in the file you linked above is definitely single sided and 80 tracks. Is it possible the .img file was copied over by something else? I'd start with downloading the image again to make sure you have the correct file.
 
I did notice that trying to check the USB bandwidth using the fluxengine tool fails on writes but the same test using the native Greaseweazle application works fine, so there is something that's not quite right.

I think I will try the MAC installation next and see if that makes a difference.

We have three ACT Sirius's (including one where the case, monitor and keyboard are steel) and I'm hoping that at least one of them will boot up.
 
I'm sure at least one of them will boot. If you're completely stuck let me know and I can mail out some disks. I'm traveling at the moment but when I'm home I could see if I could translate the file format to something the greaseweazle will work with natively.
 
I must be thick or something, but I cannot work out how to install FluxEngine on my MAC. The instructions on the GitHub page are woeful for an inexperienced user.

The package install (FluxEngine.pkg) does run and installed the FluxEngine GUI but that crashes as soon as I try to open it, and I can't work out the instructions to build the client from here https://github.com/davidgiven/fluxengine/blob/master/doc/building.md

My MAC is probably too old (late 2013 running Catalina)

Can you point me in the right direction ?

I thought I should be able to use 'brew install FluxEngine' but it can't find FluxEngine. The items like libusb seemed to install (ie brew install libsub) but not FluxEngine.

Arrrgh !
 
While I still can't install FE on mac successfully, the windows command line version suddenly seems to work.

I have no idea why, but the command "fluxengine write victor9k_ss -i victor.img" which threw up the 37 tracks 2 sides, is now showing 80 tracks 1 side.

No idea but I can now write the file "Original Floppy MS-DOS 2.93 disc 1.img" to a disk, then read it off and they look identical.

Just need to fire up the Sirius now, fingers crossed.
 
Gary C said:
While I still can't install FE on mac successfully, the windows command line version suddenly seems to work.

I have no idea why, but the command "fluxengine write victor9k_ss -i victor.img" which threw up the 37 tracks 2 sides, is now showing 80 tracks 1 side.

No idea but I can now write the file "Original Floppy MS-DOS 2.93 disc 1.img" to a disk, then read it off and they look identical.

Just need to fire up the Sirius now, fingers crossed.
Click to expand...
That sounds like good progress! Give it a shot and let me know how it goes.
 
Yay.

MSDOS booting on the Sirius. Screen is lovely, and the Sirius graphic on the boot reminds me of the mind blowing effect when I saw one when they had just been released.

But, the keyboard(s) dont work. Bit more work to do, but the software library is an amazing resource for a machine that I thought I might never see boot again.

Cheers to Paul for building the library and David Given / Kier for the Fluxengine/greaseweazle combo. Cheap and effective.

Now, where are my drawings...

EDIT

Ah, its a keytronic. Time to order some foam pads.
 
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When I opened it I knew as soon as I saw the little pads what the problem would be, but it was so bad not a single key would work on either keyboard I thought it must be the connection.

Seems Texelec is the only people doing them now ?
 
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