sd2iec / uIEC availability, experiences, ideas

Hydrophilic · October 02, 2009, 06:22 PM

Is the uIEC still available or is the sd2iec all that's available now?

I couldn't find uIEC when I searched Jim Brain's site, but later found several photos on his site, including uIEC 3.0... searching here under "herdware" but only found RobertB's comments / observations.

It seems that sd2iec is available from NKC electronics. Are they reliable? Other sources of this promising device?

Were I to order from NKC, it seems I would need the sd2iec and daughter board kit. Total of about $65 plus shipping. Very reasonable I think for a compact, mass storage device.

Besides RobertB's observations, does anyone else have some experiences they want to share?

Aside from the practical uses, I'm intruiged about the possibilities. The firmware is open source and there seems to be a lot of missing features to play with. Like burst mode and d71, d81, and x71 support.

X71 is a custom format I made for use with VICE that allows other system's CP/M software to be used in C128's CP/M mode. I remember downloading several games and applications from Atari and Tandy vintage computer sites. The disk images were in (M)FM format which C128's CP/M mode can run using a 1571 (in reality or emulated with my custom format and patches to VICE).

I don't know how much free firmware is available or how much firmware my ideas would require. Plus I'd have to learn programming for ATmega644... I probably don't have time for all that but just thought I'd ask for opinions...

Edit
Corrected typos
/Edit

RobertB · October 03, 2009, 04:08 PM

Quote from: Hydrophilic on October 02, 2009, 06:22 PM
Is the uIEC still available or is the sd2iec all that's available now?

I couldn't find uIEC when I searched Jim Brain's site, but later found several photos on his site, including uIEC 3.0...

Hmm, Jim Brain would be able to answer that in regards to availability. Jim visits here regularly. FWIW, I had not heard anything about the uIEC/SD or the uIEC/CF being unavailable.

QuoteIt seems that sd2iec is available from NKC electronics. Are they reliable? Other sources of this promising device?

If you mean reliable as a company, NKCElectronics.com has always and promptly shipped SD2IECs to me, whether it was the older version I bought for myself and friends or whether it was the latest version which I received. I have seen SD2IECs from NKCElectronics being used as far away as Greece (two or three of them at the Amigathering 9). Other than NKCElectronics.com, there are no other manufacturers of the SD2IEC.

QuoteThe firmware is open source and their seems to be a lot of missing features to play with. Like burst mode and d71, d81, and x71 support.

Unseen is the person who works on the sd2iec firmware.
Yes, C128 burst mode is not recognized, but that can be alleviated somewhat by having JiffyDOS in the computer, since the SD2IEC is compliant with that.

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug

Hydrophilic · October 07, 2009, 01:19 PM

Thanks RobertB! I finally found the old posts I was searching for before (they're under News).

I emailed to Jim to see if he has any uIEC's left. They're so tiny! According to one of his posts only 51k of the 128k firmware is used, so d71, d81, and burst mode should be very do-able.

RobertB · October 07, 2009, 03:58 PM

Quote from: Hydrophilic on October 07, 2009, 01:19 PM
I emailed to Jim to see if he has any uIEC's left. They're so tiny!

When not connected to a computer, I keep the uIEC and SD2IEC together in a larger box. It's harder to lose a 5 x 7 x 1 inch box.

QuoteAccording to one of his posts only 51k of the 128k firmware is used, so d71, d81, and burst mode should be very do-able.

Interesting. Because the SD2IEC uses basically the same firmware, that means 51k of its 64k of space is used.

Waiting for my IDE64 v4.1 to arrive in the mail,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
The Other Group of Amigoids
http://www.calweb.com/~rabel1/
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
http://www.sccaners.org

Hydrophilic · October 08, 2009, 01:14 PM

Quote from: RobertB
When not connected to a computer, I keep the uIEC and SD2IEC together in a larger box.

Good idea! The uIEC is so tiny I would probably loose it...

Quote from: RobertB
Because the SD2IEC uses basically the same firmware, that means 51k of its 64k of space is used.

64k ?? Only 13k to work with... hmm... I'm pretty adept at crunching 6502 code, but I've never worked with these microcontrollers.

You had me really woried! I checked the schematic Jim has posted for the latest 3.0 vesion of uIEC/SD, and it is using an ATmega1281 which has 128k of flash memory (see Atmel's product card). That takes off a lot of pressure

.

Jim replied he is getting new stock in a week or so. I never found any sort of order form on his website so if anybody is interested, try emailing to brain (at) jbrain (dot) com.

I'm getting excited about this. Although I've never programmed a microcontroller per se, having considerable experience with 1541/71 drive programming (with their limited RAM and lack of video/keyboard), I think I'm up to the task.

Here is link to a thread that describes the uIEC/SD.

Hydrophilic · October 22, 2009, 12:18 PM

Jim emailed today that his new stock of v3.1 uIEC/SD have arrived. Anybody interested in a tiny SD-card "disk drive" should see this thread which has info on the device and an email address to contact Jim.

I'm anxiously awaiting mine

Edit
I got my uIEC/SD the other day. I sent money straight through PayPal and didn't use the storefront RobertB announced last week, http://www.jbrain.com/estore/. Jim ships fast! My uIEC/SD arrived before my Ebay items that I payed for earlier!

The cost is very reasonable considering it includes a daughter board and power connector. The SD2IEC from NKC Electronics is slightly more expensive when you factor in the daughter board and would still need a power supply...

Because of this, I'd say the uIEC/SD is "plug & play" except you really should put it in a case unless you routinely wear a ground strap

Now all I need is an SD card and some time to try this baby out! As Murphy would have it, my PC's motherboard blew its IDE interface chips, so now I have more pressing issues at hand...

/Edit

Hydrophilic · November 17, 2009, 02:33 PM

I got to play with my uIEC this weekend. So far I like it. I had no problem changing/creating/removing directories, but it took me forever to figure out how to attach a disk image (*.d64).

Changing directories is pretty simple, using the MONITOR:

@A,CD MYDIR (into directory)
@A,CD.. (back to parent)

but when I tried to attach .d64:

@A,CD ZED77.D64

I got an error. I was really wanting to test interlace on my RGBI to S-Video adapter and it was quite frustrating. According to the docs I found it should be CMD style syntax and I thought I understood that. The problem is you need a colon to attach a disk image. So this works:

@A,CD:ZED77.D64

Just thought that my help some people.

Next I need to figure out which button does what... they're for disk swapping and sleep mode and who knows what else...

I also downloaded the firmware source code. To my relief, the vast majority of it is C so hopefully I won't have to spend a lot of time learning about assembly language of the controller. I'll probably need to learn a little more about the I/O becasue I'm thinking burst mode is going to need to use an IRQ on the SRQ line.

To my surprise and joy, .D71 and .D81 are also supported. Although it doesn't supported creating these type of blank disk images, I can just put a blank of each on my memory card and copy when I need a fresh disk image.

As RobertB reported elsewhere, there is a slight delay in the reporting of BlocksFree in the root directory. I wonder if this is because the root directory is a fixed length and so the firmware has to skip all the blank entries...

The first things I plan on trying with the firmware is adding REL support inside disk images. For some reason it works from a file (*.R00, *.REL) in a FAT directory but not in disk images. Another idea I had was an idea to open GEOS info and VLIR blocks from in disk image. I was thinking something like:

OPEN 2,U,2,"GeoWrite,G"
or
BLOAD "GeoWrite,G"

to get the info block and

OPEN 2,U,2,"GeoWrite,Vn"
or
BLOAD "GeoWrite,Vn"

to get the VLIR record n.

And maybe something like

PRINT#15,"Q-V:GeoWrite"

to get the number of VLIR records of a file with a response like
?DS$
05, VLIR BLOCKS, 11, 00

Well now I guess I'm going off topic and should start another thread on uIEC programming... or is there a forum just for that?

RobertB · November 17, 2009, 03:04 PM

Quote from: Hydrophilic on November 17, 2009, 02:33 PM
The first things I plan on trying with the firmware is adding REL support inside disk images.

(snip)

Another idea I had was an idea to open GEOS info and VLIR blocks from in disk image.

Both of those are worthy projects.

Quote...should start another thread on uIEC programming... or is there a forum just for that?

No, no thread yet on uIEC/SD2IEC programming.

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
The Other Group of Amigoids
http://www.calweb.com/~rabel1/
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
http://www.sccaners.org

Diddl · November 17, 2009, 06:45 PM

Sorry my english is really bad, so maybe I don't understand correctly ...

Is it so you have problems to mount a d64 image in ÂµIEC?

I'm using ÂµIEC-3-SD successfully cause it's same as SD2IEC. Not something like "@A," but "@CD:TEST.D64". After this a "LOAD"$",8" comes with the directory of "TEST.D64".