Apple II DISK Emulator using STM32

I noticed there is a new 0.80.8 version out there, what needs to be tested?

VIBR wrote:

A new version is available on github with a major fix on stability of read and write.

I have done some testing already but will be good if you can give as well your input.

 

I change the way Interrupt are working between the SDCard and Read Timer & Write Timer,

Priority is on read write, but if I stop the SDCArd DMA IRQ after a few minutes it stop working and I

I will pull the latest version from GitHub and update some of the 15 that I have built with it and test with the focus you suggest above.  If that looks good I will update the rest of them.  So far as far as Disk ][ emulation goes, things really look great and I am super excited about it.  I have yet to get SmartPort to work, but I will take another look at that.

VIBR wrote:

A new version is available on github with a major fix on stability of read and write.

I have done some testing already but will be good if you can give as well your input.

 

I change the way Interrupt are working between the SDCard and Read Timer & Write Timer,

Priority is on read write, but if I stop the SDCArd DMA IRQ after a few minutes it stop working and I

Hello Vincent.

Thank you very much for making the fix available.

So far, no problems. I am able to write programs in basic and save them to the dsk without crashes (4 hours in a row).

In previous versions of the firmware, the crash occurred in less than 20 minutes.

One of the features that I liked is that it is possible to create the DSK, WOZ and PO image directly on the SmartDisk II.

And An interesting thing is that COPYA (DOS 3.3) is working perfectly, I was able to copy several DSKs to a blank image (DSK).

Another test that worked perfectly was creating DSKs from Asciiexpress.net.

I would like to share a custom version of the SmartDiskII that I built myself.

Since I had trouble finding a case for the project, I built one using black acrylic. 

After a few days of gluing acrylic in the correct position, sanding and polishing and a lot of patience, I got a satisfactory result.

I created a new layout and added a vintage bicolor LED.

> No light = No activity

> Green light = Image reading

> Red light = Image recording.

I modified the firmware to light the LED according to the activity.

IMG_8379.JPEG

IMG_8478.JPEG

IMG_8479.JPEG

IMG_8480.JPEG

Thank you,

Daniel.

i built the smartdisk II rev.4 board and seem to be having issues installing the bootloader and firmware.  i used the stm32 st-link utility to flash the .bin from https://github.com/vibr77/AppleIIDiskIIStm32F411/blob/main/Contributed/Build/SmartDiskII_STM32F411_bootloader_v0.12.bin and seems to flash fine but when i try to update the firmware with https://github.com/vibr77/AppleIIDiskIIStm32F411/blob/main/Contributed/Build/AppleIISDiskII_stm32f411_sdio_v0.80.9_A2F.uf2 my blackpill is seen as an unrecognized device, so i am unable to install the firmware (.uf2)

any ideas what i'm doing wrong?  any help is greatly appreciated!

thanks,

mike

mikedanick wrote:

i built the smartdisk II rev.4 board and seem to be having issues installing the bootloader and firmware.  i used the stm32 st-link utility to flash the .bin from https://github.com/vibr77/AppleIIDiskIIStm32F411/blob/main/Contributed/Build/SmartDiskII_STM32F411_bootloader_v0.12.bin and seems to flash fine but when i try to update the firmware with https://github.com/vibr77/AppleIIDisk

I build the firmware from source (cloned the GitHub repository).  I use the ".elf" file and the STMCubeProgrammer app which you can download from ST's web site if I remember right.  If you want to build from source you also need to get the arm-gnu-toolchain.  That's assuming you are using Linux.  I don't know about MacOS and you'd have to install a whole bunch of dev tools on Windows, it's probably not worth the trouble.

Hi Vincent I noticed you have an updated Bootloader Ver 0.13 available however ive tried to write this to my stm32 but it always fails? ver 0.12 however works fine, can you check if the file is ok and or if it's recommended to upgrade. Thank you :-)

stm_prog1.jpeg

STM programming tool

stm_prog2.jpeg

STM programmer attached to computer and emulator

stm_prog3.png

STM programming software.  First press the blue "Read" button.

stm_prog4.png

Then select the .elf file.

stm_prog5.png

Next press the green "Connect" button, then press the blue "Download" button.  You should see messages scroll in the log window and a popup should show the results.  Dismiss the popup.  Press the green "Disconnect" button and then you can unplug the programmer and the emulator should be ready to go with the new version.

VIBR wrote:

No need to update, it is just cosmetic, and it fails because there is a memory protection that need to be removed using ST Prog32

Hi yes sorry what I was meaning is that if I have bootloader vr 0.13 installed it doesn't allow fw to be uploaded when connected via usb? Pressing reset the stm32 fails to be detected just blue light on as if no bootloader installed?

No problem if I use vr 0.12 it works normally (ie double press reset and drive appears) and can upload fw.

I think might be issue with the ver 0.13 file?

Hi VIBR,

thank you for the great apple II flopy disk emulator. I built it, and ti works great :)

I wonder if this hardware will eventually emulate floppy disk drives for Macintosh and Lisa?

Are there enough unused GPIO pins for the exra signals?

Do you have plans on working on the necessary firmware changes?

can i use the .bin thats on the github to program the bootloader?  or do i need to build the bootloader?

when i tried programming the available .bin with my st-link, then plug my blackpill into a usb port, the blackpill shows as an unknown usb device.

sorry to sound newbish...

thanks!  

mike

mikedanick wrote:

can i use the .bin thats on the github to program the bootloader?  or do i need to build the bootloader?

 

when i tried programming the available .bin with my st-link, then plug my blackpill into a usb port, the blackpill shows as an unknown usb device.

 

sorry to sound newbish...

 

 

thanks!  

mike

 <

Hi Mike ,

I have been through this problem just recently so perhaps I can help.

On VIBR's GitHub page link to page you will see on the right hand side of the page the text" releases 27" and under it "+ 26 releases" click on the link there and you will get to the releasses pages. Scroll down to the bottom of the page a click on page 3, When in page 3 look for update "Bootloader v0.13" and click on the asseets arrow and then select "AppleSDiskII_bootloader.bin". you should now have a download file of this name in your computer downloads area.

Assuming you have STM32 Cube Programmer installed on your computer start this programme.

Take out any SD card as a safety measure.

Connect your ST_LINK programmer to your BlackPill and then plug the programmer into your computer. In the STM Cube Programmer Select ST_LINK blue top right and press connect Green top right.

Assuming you get a connection go to the left hand side of Cube Programmer and click the 2nd from top green icon showing a down arrow. 

On this new page browse to select your file "AppleSDiskII_bootloader.bin"

You should see or set a start address 0x08000000.

set tick for verify prog, set tick run after programming.

set tick full chip erase 

set tick download file.

push the blue start programming button.

If all goes well your Sdisk 2 Oled screen should be showing that you are in bootloader mode.

Next remove the ST_Link programmer from the BlackPill and plug the BlackPill into the usb cable socket on the Pill and the computer. If you do not see the bootloader mode message on the OLED screen then press reset button twice on the Pill, windows should now see the Pill as astorage device and even ask you what you want to do?

Open the blackpill storage device in explorer and in another explorer window open the location of the .UF2 programme you want to load to the BlacPill, drag the .UF2 file into the BlackPill storage device window and you should see the OLED screen showing VIBR brilliant code working.

If you need more info you can PM me and I will give more help if possible.

I have just started on building my second unit and should be able to start testing the pair as I would use a standard pair of floppy drives. 

Regards Mike aka Crusty

the help is much appreciated!  everything worked fine till connecting the blackpill via usb.  device doesn't show up in explorer.

in device manager it shows as an unknown usb device (device descriptor request failed)

but this is the first time i have seen the display actually show anything..

can you update the blackpill via micro sd instead of via explorer / .uf2?

appreciate the help!

thanks,

mike aka kneehighspy

IMG_8991.jpg

Mike aka kneehighspy,

Not sure I can help here.

in device manager it shows as an unknown usb device (device descriptor request failed)

but this is the first time i have seen the display actually show anything..

My computer is an ASUS running most recent windows 11 and whilst it appeared to glitch the first time I tried the programming process it has programmed 3 BlackPill's without fault. I do however have a bunch of security items switched off on this machine so I can run what Microsft considers is dubious electronics programming software.

It does have an issue with one BlackPill that I have every reason to consider I have given a potential problem voltage to a couple of board I/O.

To look at the problem from another angle I used my fairly vernable MacBook Air to Programm the BlackPill at the USB bootloader stage and it went also without a hitch showing up as a memory device and alowing drag and drop to be achieved for the update of the .uf2 file.

Can you update the blackpill via micro sd instead of via explorer / .uf2?

As far as I know Vincent has not provided a method for this.

I have in the past and in different circumsstances performed upgrades to processors via an SD card, but it is not a trivial task as it all to easy to end up bricking the processor.

i do appreciate your help.  you got me further along than i had been.  i've programmed tons of ST32Fxxx chips for other projects with no issue along with pico(x) and pico clones (purple) and was just beating my head against my monitor.  tried with win10, win11 and ubuntu (alienware laptops, and my dell office/lab pc)  all with the same results.  your help has inspired me to keep working with it :)

i appreciate everything and i will work on this issue.

again thanks!

mike

Hi Vincent,

I am very glad to be able to confirm that my copy of CPM boots without error.

I do not know if I have missed an option in your menus  so far ?

But would it be possible to have an option to make and SDISK II card a device 1 or a device 2 .

It should be only a question of setting  in the menu, the drive select I/O for the card to be active High or active Low and should not require any other I/O pin useage. 

I may have this completly wrong but it would be nice to see your comment on this.

Mike Aka Crusty

Have you tried a diffrent USB cable I have had some duff ones in the past.

Crusty wrote:

But would it be possible to have an option to make and SDISK II card a device 1 or a device 2 .

It should be only a question of setting  in the menu, the drive select I/O for the card to be active High or active High or active Low and should not require any other I/O pin useage. 

It is not working like you imagine it is:

 https://www.bigmessowires.com/2015/04/09/more-fun-with-apple-iigs-disks/

Crusty wrote:

Hi Vincent,

I am very glad to be able to confirm that my copy of CPM boots without error.

I do not know if I have missed an option in your menus  so far ?

But would it be possible to have an option to make and SDISK II card a device 1 or a device 2 .

It should be only a question of setting  in the menu, the drive select I/O for the card to be active High or act

I have used two VIBR floppy devices with one attached to the drive 1 connector and the other attached to the drive 2 connector on a Disk ][ controller card to handle a dual drive setup.

If you want to do something like that with the Apple 5.25 card with the single DB19 you would need some kind of splitter like the one BMOW sells or maybe their Daisy Chainer.

Crusty wrote:

Hi Vincent,

I am very glad to be able to confirm that my copy of CPM boots without error.

I do not know if I have missed an option in your menus  so far ?

But would it be possible to have an option to make and SDISK II card a device 1 or a device 2 .

It should be only a question of setting  in the menu, the drive select I/O for the card to be active High or act

Hi Mike, hi Vincent,

I just want to point out that the images for the Applicard for the CFFA3000 are booting, too.

Bootable CP/M System on the CFFA3000 Compact Flash HD for the PCPI Applicard and Apple II (Part 1) - Planemo

I used the Applicard emulation on a A2DVI 4.1 and a Grppler+ Clone in Slot 7 with a Apple //e enhanced 128kB

cu

Georg

@Softwarejanitor,

You are correct and I have a duff cable on the second drive of the Disc ][ controller card.

Please accept that I am getting old , 80 years now,  and it's as hot as hell in my loft workshop today.

Many thanks everyone.

Crusty Aka Mike

PS I do have mains power however unlike some of us.

IMG_2009 2.JPG

I have to say that VIBR's revision 4 PCB is a great deal better than my first stripboard versiom.

Best Crusty

Hello Vincent,

When the IIgs is set to fast mode, and any 5.25" drive is connected to the built-in port or an interface card in slot 6, the computer goes back to slow 1 MHz mode whenever the motor is enabled. There is a bit in the configuration register CYAREG ($C036) that controls whether this slowdown happens. Since the 5.25" Disk II interface has no FIFO, software uses cycle-accurate timing loops to read or write bytes at the necessary rate, which can only work if the CPU frequency is 1 MHz as expected. When 3.5" drives are being accessed, the slowdown bit should be disabled because 1 MHz is not fast enough to handle the data coming off a 3.5" diskette.

Hello Vincent,

I have an issue while updating to v0.80.13 on a V4 unit.

I am running v0.80.10 an seeing freezes on the Total Replay 5.2 with a Liron reborn. With other images the Smartdisk II is working fine.

Then I saw that there is a new version v0.80.13.

I tried an update and got an Windows 11 errer when I copied the new uf2 file to the Smartdisk II.

But it shows v0.80.13

Booting from the working SD card, which I did not touch show "no device connected".

Switching back to v0.80.10  with the same windows error message and booting resolved the issue.

 What did I wrong?

cu

Georg 

In post #381, 'VIBR' wrote:

" Regarding the issue with TotalReplay I need to test, I do not have this issue. "

Uncle Bernie comments:

The complaint of 'gew' in his post #380 about the 'random freezes' probably came the experiments in this thread:

https://www.applefritter.com/content/asking-you-do-small-experiment-needs-liron-card-or-clone

... which was initiated by me because I had immense problems with the "freezes" of the "Serpentine" game in TOTAL REPLAY I.

But what 'gew' sees is different, if I correcly interpret what he wrote in the thread I linked above, he not only sees the not-so-random "freeze" of "Serpentine"  but "random freezes" throughout TOTAL REPLAY I running in its auto demo mode.

It saw such "random freezes" throughout TOTAL REPLAY I running in its auto demo mode on an Apple IIc with the latest firmware ROM version and using the BMOW Floppy Emu and I used this platform to refine my RTL for the 'IWMless' until the "random freezes" disappeared. The not-so-random "freeze" of "Serpentine" never was seen with my tests on the Apple IIc, but appeared on two versions of the Apple IIe with a Liron clone using the 'IWMless'.

This Liron clone is a 100% faithful reproduction of the original Liron card if an original IWM is plugged in. Plug in an 'IWMless' and it should work the same way (this is still under test). The "Liron Reborn" is a completely different animal and last time I checked it was sold out, so I could not obtain one as a test specimen.

I think that it would be beneficial to your Floppy Emu project if you had more of these "IWM-ish" slot cards available to test your 'SmartPort' functions. What the users of your Floppy Emu certainly want is that it works trouble free with all of these "IWM-ish" slot cards: the original Liron card, the Liron clones with the original IWM, the Liron clones with my 'IWMless', the "Liron Reborn", and last but not least, the "Yellowstone" card from BMOW.

So you should have all these cards to do functional and reliability tests with your Floppy Emu combined with these cards.

All I can do for you, if you are interested, is to give you at least an 'IWMless' beta test unit,and if possible, a complete "Liron" clone with an 'IWMless'. This would allow you to test your Floppy Emu at least in this combination. Maybe others will donate the remaining "IWM-ish" slot cards to you. So you can make sure your Floppy Emu works robustly with all of them.

Take this as a well-meant advice, and not as criticism. Your Floppy Emu has made amazing progress in the past year. But if its 'SmartPort' emulation does not work robustly with all types of "IWM-ish" slot cards out there, then your project will eventually fail.

Note that 'SmartPort' is finicky and it's the worst and most poorly documented, software and hardware bug-ridden scheme to connect mass storage I've ever seen in my life. So you must expect fighting with these bugs and the surprises they bring and due to lack of proper documentation, it boils down to "hacks": what makes it work, works ! --- I spent more than 2 months with systematic experiments to make the "random freezes" of 'SmartPort' functions go away on my own test platform. And I could not tell how that happend. Maybe the  Apple II fairy  had some pity with me and came one night to fix my RTL, and then it magically worked and the "freezes" were gone (just joking).  But I don't dare to touch my RTL anymore. This is the nature of development work on undocumented and wonky systems. If you understand these unfortunate conditions, you will have the willpower and stamina to weed out all the 'SmartPort' issues that could plague your project. Just shrugging and claiming "... I do not have this issue " won't cut it. Again, take this as a well-meant advice. I want you to succeed.

Comments invited !

- Uncle Bernie

Hi,

I've test built the STM32F411 DISK II emulator (the one with the small oled display and without rotary encoder)

I've installed the bootloader via ST32Cube and a stlink.

I can see the USB device as a hard drive and put the AppleIISDiskII_stm32f411_sdio_v0.80.9_A2F.uf2 file on it.

Once the file has been transfered, it automaticaly disconnect from the PC. However I can't get anything on the OLED screen even when in boot mode.

I'm wondering :

1) Am I using the correct uf2 firmware ? If not , where can I get an already compiled one for my version of hardware?

2) My OLED screen has 0x78 I²C address. Is it the right one as I can switch to 0x7A

Thanks in advance

VIBR wrote:

Hello Didifart,

0x78 is the right address, 

Can you please check the PIN of you OLED because depending of the provider VCC & GND can be switched

Vincent 

As Vincent suggest above and another way to confirm is if you have an Arduino device try running the display on an example Arduino sketch, if pins are swapped then easy to see and understand on the arduino board.

VIBR wrote:

Hello Didifart,

0x78 is the right address, 

Can you please check the PIN of you OLED because depending of the provider VCC & GND can be switched

Vincent 

 

I ran into this, I think I mentioned it earlier in this thread.  I got a batch of OLEDs with the different pinout.  They work fine with the VIBR floppy device if you run wires to swap the pins.  Of course that's ugly but it works.

Hello vincent, just wanted to say thanks for all your work on this and the new firmware im using is great!

I have been using it with softsp card 6a and it has been very stable on IIe enhanced and IIc (rom 3).

I know your busy but I have been thinking how hard it would be to implement a boot rom that would essentially display the sdisk file menu on the apple II screen at boot, I think ive seen this done on a few different devices like the wdrive a long time ago but could be wrong.

This would help especially us older folk with bad eyes :) In fact my stm32 board has extra flash chip fitted so potentially this could be used as an apple boot rom if my thinking is correct?

Just started looking into this but perhaps it might be something to investigate when you have time as having the ability to navigate via the apple II opens up huge potential like embedding this inside the iic for example. 

Cheers!

Hi,

Thanks for your help.

The cabling of the oled display is correct (as labeled on it) anf it has been tested on an other arduino based. (GND-VCC-SCL-SDA)

I used  Firmware_SmartDiskII_v0.80.13.uf2 instead and it worked !! I can now see the messages on the display.

Regards

didier