MMC/SD drive newbie - need help

Prophet (3740)

20-01-2009, 16:25

Another important thing that should be mentioned in the documentation:

After mapping a non-system partition with disk image to A: (using DISKMAN.COM), if you have there software that autostarts on boot, you may loose ability to boot into DOS on your system partition again.
In this case eject the card - this reboots into built-in flash drive, then re-insert the card and run UTILS\XCHGMMC.COM. It will ask you to press Enter - do that.
This will move flash disk from A: to B:, and map A: (problematic non-system partition) and C: (system partition) back to the card.
Now you can either fix the problematic partition in A: (format it, write over it other disk image, etc.), or run C:\DISKMAN.COM and select there to map other (e.g. system partition) to A:

By Huey

Prophet (2694)

20-01-2009, 16:43

Yes. And another thing:

Use DISKMAN.COM ONLY from the system partition (0). DISKMAN stores the info localy (DISKMAN.DAT)

That got me confused for a while too when I started using the DISKMAN stored on the flash-disk (B: ) and the one on the system disk (C: )

By sharksym

Resident (36)

20-01-2009, 17:04

I hope this will be helpful for you.

*Diffrences between HW version.
V1.0 -> First version
V2.0 -> Enhanced SPI I/O for better R/W speed
V2.1 -> Support SCC Banking protection
V2.2 -> Support Two MMC/SD Card slot
Higher version contains lower version's functionality

*Functions
Multi-disk emulation for Drive A: and rewritable internal flashrom disk for Drive B:
System Disk(First partition) is always mounted as Drive C:
Support FAT16 via Okei's FAT16 driver.
Second card slot does not support Multi-disk emulation.
(It is mounted as Drive D: and mostly used as big FAT16 disk or exchanging file between two cards.)
Internal SCC is also useful for music player, which supports SCC sound.

*BIOS
MMCDISK1.ROM -> For one card slot HW. Internal flashrom disk is formatted as DOS1.
MMCDISK2.ROM -> For one card slot HW. Internal flashrom disk is formatted as DOS2.
MMCDISK3.ROM -> For two card slot HW. Internal flashrom disk is formatted as DOS2.
It is fully compatible with older HW version.
(Eg: MMCDISK3.ROM can be used for HW 1.0)
It contains DOS1 and DOS2 kernel.
If you have enough memory, DOS2 will boot normaly.
But you can disable DOS2 via 'INS' key.
'Z' key will disable V2.x SPI I/O and use V1 SPI I/O.
(V2.x HW itself is fully compatible with V1 HW)
'TAB' key will disable SCC banking mapper, will protect unintentional memory banking.

*FAT16
It is supported as external sw, Okei's FAT16 driver.
If slot1's memory card is FAT16, internal flashrom disk is mounted as Drive A: (boot disk)
and memory card is mounted as Drive C:
So you can easily add FAT16 driver installation in AUTOEXEC.BAT of flashrom disk.

By cax

Prophet (3740)

20-01-2009, 20:29

Yes. And another thing:

Use DISKMAN.COM ONLY from the system partition (0). DISKMAN stores the info localy (DISKMAN.DAT)

That got me confused for a while too when I started using the DISKMAN stored on the flash-disk (B: ) and the one on the system disk (C: )

Once I tried to run DISKMAN.COM while being inside a subdir - it created .DAT-file in the subdir !
So, while running DISKMAN.COM your current directory should be A:\ (the root of A: )
DISKMAN.COM itself can be anywhere (e.g. in the example above I suggest to run C:\DISKMAN.COM)

BTW, can we consider this "feature" as a bug and ask you, sharksym, to fix it ?

And, if you are reading this: can you update DISKEXE.COM so it will work in DOS1 ?
This should solve most problems with DOS1-mode-only software.

By cax

Prophet (3740)

20-01-2009, 23:45

Huey,

Could you send it to my email in my profile then. Probably it got stuck in the spamfilter

The mail address in your profile bounces my message. Forwarded again to the original address - do you see it now ?

By Huey

Prophet (2694)

21-01-2009, 11:06

Huey,

Could you send it to my email in my profile then. Probably it got stuck in the spamfilter

The mail address in your profile bounces my message. Forwarded again to the original address - do you see it now ?

It was quarantined at work. I asked the administrator to release it.
I am going to test it today on larger disks on the MMC/SD to see if it works.

By Erikie

Champion (324)

22-01-2009, 09:56

Hi Cax,

I have a rom file for your MMC interface that is modified a bit by me so you can use the other number keys on your MSX instead of the numpad keys. I just tested it with XAK 2 and it works for at least the numbers 0-7.
If you want a copy shoot me an email: evanson (a) quicknet . nl
At the moment I only have MMCDISK2.ROM patched but if you want to have MMCDISK3.rom patched too let me know.

Erik

By Erikie

Champion (324)

22-01-2009, 11:17

Small update I think I have now all numbers working 0-9 but have no way of testing it.
And all 3 roms are patched. Any one who is interested in it just shoot an email

Erik

By Huey

Prophet (2694)

23-01-2009, 10:48

I confirm your patch Erikie. It works great now!!!

By cax

Prophet (3740)

25-01-2009, 19:16

I used automated translator from Korean to English in attempts to read sinfox's blog, and from what I understood I can conclude he is disappointed from the amount of sales (yes, it's pricey), and he is going to stop production.

What can I say ?
I like the drive sinfox made for me, I like sharksym's project, but IMHO for the real success it's not enough.

First of all, it misses understandable English instructions (which we are trying to create here).
Having an impressive (but not obvious) set of features, the project's documentation fails to explain how to put things together.
The majority of potential buyers, IMHO, are owners of diskless MSXes, and if I used DOS1 in the past (but never used DOS2 before) they may have even less knowledge about disks, partitions, system files, ROM loaders, BIOS flashing, floppy emulation, etc. Chances they will read the whole MSX FAQ in order to start using the drive are infinite small.
I will try to help this by writing about my findings here, and when I will learn myself how to effectively store and run everything I want using the drive, we will have mostly complete guide.

The second problem, IMHO, is some small bugs and lacking features - e.g. an error-prone way of re-flashing the drive without using other drive, disk switching support for numpad-less machines, etc.
(the more I work with the MMC/SD drive, the more things I want to improve in it).
Here we have 2 options: either sharksym fixes things himself, or shares with us the sources of his tools and driver, and the MSX community will improve the code (e.g. I personally can help with creating CAS-port-based flashing tool). Instead of hacking and disassembling we can spend our time improving the code.

As for the price of the drive - for most people it may be too much to pay 80-100$ (including shipping) for such a device (I decided to buy it only as a present on my 35th birthday). Is it a real show stopper, and how can it be helped ?