Rookie Drive NX - USB FDD support

Now i really want one

Best buy!

Damn... I wrote about this feature last month to local IT-magazine, but the magazine is still on the printing press... No need to hurry to make it available to download as it was listed as feature that is coming in near future... and yet it takes week or two before the magazines get actually shipped to local homes.

Congrats, Xavirompe and Konamiman!

From technical point of view, I see no problem with amount of data, but if we talk about files and loading from FAT12 (and MSX-DOS1) , I've understood that there are problems with cluster size related RAM allocation that may make this impossible.

1.44M disks support
MSX-DOS 2 can handle standard 1.44M disks out of the box, but MSX-DOS 1 can't. That's because the standard format for these disks uses 9 sectors for the FAT, but MSX-DOS 1 only supports 3 sectors per FAT. So when trying to read one of these disks the MSX-DOS 1 kernel will try to load the entire 4.5K FAT in the allocated 1.5K buffer and the computer will crash.

As a workaround for this, when a disk is formatted under MSX-DOS 1 it will be given a custom FAT format with 4 sectors per cluster and 3 sectors per FAT. This is a quite big cluster size and for disks with many small files it will be a waste of space, but if you really want to use 1.44M disks in MSX-DOS 1, that's the only way.

Source : https://github.com/Konamiman/RookieDrive-FDD-ROM/blob/master...

It works ! It works !

Shown here on my PX-V60 with a 4MB RAM expansion in order to boot MSX-DOS.

MSX-BASIC tells me I have 23376 bytes free.

I formatted the HD disk from MSX, and have been able to copy files from my PC.

[EDIT]: As this is MSX-DOS 1 and I'm using a memory-mapper, I need to initialize the memory mapper manually after boot (with out's in BASIC). Need to find a 64KB RAM expansion without memory mapper now (or maybe do a small MMAPINI.COM program...).

Thinking about that little hypothetical MMAPINI.COM program:

• Maybe it already exists ?
• It's not so straightforward to code if you want something reliable (naive approach is out (fc),3, out (fd),2, out (fe),1 out (ff),0, but you have to be careful when setting the current code's segment, and a reset is probably required too...)
• Maybe that initialization sequence could also be integrated directly in the RookieDrive FDD boot code ?

Louthrax, I wonder how MU behaves in your case. Can you try it?

https://www.msx.org/downloads/mu-v105-with-manual-translated

one of two

Check the available options at: http://rookiedrive.com/en/download/
You can use rkfl.com from MSX-DOS to reflash the original firmware, or RDRECO.BIN.

Another ticky option is to use the recovery tool in audio format, http://rookiedrive.com/download/recovery-tool-in-audio-format/

I am working to integrate the USB floppy driver into the Rookie's firmware, it will be available soon.

Konamiman told me that he chose that option for greater compatibility and simplicity. He did the hard work, now any developer can create the nextor driver.

In my opinion this is the right choice for the first step.

Thank you very much Konamiman!!!!

I definitively have to do some manual initialization steps so far to have things working... That's indeed a Padial 4MB RAM expansion, have not checked if there are some switches to auto-enable some features. I'm currently trying other RAM expansions (all memory-mapper based).

Try this: turn the rookie drive's top switch to the left, so the rookie's ROM is dissabled now, star the computer, boot the MSX-DOS with the TurboR disk drive, then turn the switch to the right and execute rkfl.com rdfirmwa.rom.

Let me know if this way works.

Memory Mappers that initialize its segments in this order at reset are listed HERE. They are not numerous if we remove the cartridges "all in one".

It's been a long time since I said I was going to do it. Now it's done!
This is a program that sets the largest mapper as Main-RAM and replace the "POKE-1,X".
Maybe this will be enough for you. Test it please.

Download link:
https://1fichier.com/?9o8v7r6hkieicl4juzzk

It will probably need improvements. I will create a thread for it...

I have received my ROOKIE DRIVE Thanks XAVIROMPE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1ZvtPTJ8Ew

@GDX " I want to test your Memory Mapper tool because I had tested Technobytes(Double RAM 4MB), MMM(1024KB), MFP-3072KB and PLAYSONIQ (16MB) but the only working memory mapper compatible with my SANNO MSX was LPE-MMCSD 4MB Version 6. Could you please post the file in other server again?"

@Robby: Thanks ....Testing right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8eKBV8d5jY

But BMMS040 can't discover the Memory Mapper when Playsoniq is On Cartridge SLOT 2 or SLOT 3

BTW Tecnobytes Double RAM 4MB was Successfully Tested On Cartridge SLOT 2 + FRANKY VDP On SLOT 3

@GDX: Thanks GDX for this nice program.