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ArBee: A call for help
#338520 - 04/03/15 12:28 AM
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http://rbelmont.mameworld.info/?p=1003
Quote:
There’s one serious issue. MESS has a timing problem in our from-schematics reproduction of the Wozniak floppy controller. It conveniently manifests in a common regular .DSK (Sherwood Forest) but it’s also causing trouble for booting .EDDs which are more timing-sensitive than normal DOS 3.3 and ProDOS stuff. For instance, the protected original .EDD of Mark Turmell’s “Sneakers” loads all the way in but fails to read correct data for part of the boot because of this.
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Quote:
So this is where the call for help comes in: anyone out there who understands the Disk II controller well, we’d love to hear from you.
RB should just try to get a hold of Woz. I'd say he probably knows a thing or two about that card's magic. 
[edit] Ugh, I am not smart enough to continue reading at this level... This is my best "I have no fucking idea what I'm looking at" guess. And yes I realize this is talking about one of the drive's cards, not the controller card itself. 
[ATTACHED IMAGE - CLICK FOR FULL SIZE]
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| DMala |
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Sleep is overrated
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Reged: 05/09/05
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Loc: Waltham, MA
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Re: ArBee: A call for help
[Re: aavada]
#338547 - 04/03/15 06:25 AM
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> RB should just try to get a hold of Woz. I'd say he probably knows a thing or two
> about that card's magic.
I definitely feel like, if you could make contact, he'd definitely be into it. I wonder how much he remembers all these years later, though.
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Re: ArBee: A call for help
[Re: DMala]
#338563 - 04/03/15 02:45 PM
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> > RB should just try to get a hold of Woz. I'd say he probably knows a thing or two
> > about that card's magic.
>
> I definitely feel like, if you could make contact, he'd definitely be into it. I
> wonder how much he remembers all these years later, though.
I'm pretty sure the Woz would've forgotten most of what was in his mind at the time. It's also possible he never knew exactly what made the disk work. Remember back then developers took advantage of and/or depended on all sorts of hardware quirks and emergent behaviour. You could get away with it when computers were simpler and more consistent.
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Re: ArBee: A call for help
[Re: Vas Crabb]
#338573 - 04/03/15 09:31 PM
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> I'm pretty sure the Woz would've forgotten most of what was in his mind at the time.
> It's also possible he never knew exactly what made the disk work. Remember back then
> developers took advantage of and/or depended on all sorts of hardware quirks and
> emergent behaviour. You could get away with it when computers were simpler and more
> consistent.
This is very true but again it's a case of you'll never know if you don't ask. The man is fiercely proud of that little card. (For good reason.)
This post from last year is the reason I thought of it in the first place. 
http://www.applefritter.com/content/advice-building-first-replica#comment-73820
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Re: ArBee: A call for help
[Re: DMala]
#338575 - 04/03/15 11:13 PM
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>
> I definitely feel like, if you could make contact, he'd definitely be into it. I
> wonder how much he remembers all these years later, though.
He is pretty easy to get a hold of. He is on Facebook, and posts all the time.
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Re: ArBee: A call for help
[Re: Vas Crabb]
#338607 - 04/04/15 12:40 PM
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> I'm pretty sure the Woz would've forgotten most of what was in his mind at the time.
> It's also possible he never knew exactly what made the disk work. Remember back then
> developers took advantage of and/or depended on all sorts of hardware quirks and
> emergent behaviour. You could get away with it when computers were simpler and more
> consistent.
Sure, I feel the same way, but any port in a storm and all that. Woz and I are friends on Facebook, so I sent him a brief message letting him know the issue we're having and asking if he would be willing to share any insight he might have, so we'll see where things go. Worst-case, I get no response and we're left in the very same state we're at right now, so there's really nothing to lose.
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| R. Belmont |
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Cuckoo for IGAvania
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Re: ArBee: A call for help
[Re: aavada]
#338688 - 04/06/15 02:35 AM
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> So this is where the call for help comes in: anyone out there who understands the
> Disk II controller well, we’d love to hear from you.
>
>
> RB should just try to get a hold of Woz. I'd say he probably knows a thing or two
> about that card's magic.
>
> [edit] Ugh, I am not smart enough to continue reading at this level... This is my
> best "I have no fucking idea what I'm looking at" guess. And yes I realize this is
> talking about one of the drive's cards, not the controller card itself.
This actually looks useful and interesting, however. I didn't know that book had a cycle-level discussion of the Disk II.
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italie |
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MAME owes italie many thank yous, hah
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Reged: 09/20/03
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Re: ArBee: A call for help
[Re: MooglyGuy]
#347449 - 11/26/15 08:07 PM
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> > I'm pretty sure the Woz would've forgotten most of what was in his mind at the
> time.
> > It's also possible he never knew exactly what made the disk work. Remember back
> then
> > developers took advantage of and/or depended on all sorts of hardware quirks and
> > emergent behaviour. You could get away with it when computers were simpler and more
> > consistent.
>
> Sure, I feel the same way, but any port in a storm and all that. Woz and I are
> friends on Facebook, so I sent him a brief message letting him know the issue we're
> having and asking if he would be willing to share any insight he might have, so we'll
> see where things go. Worst-case, I get no response and we're left in the very same
> state we're at right now, so there's really nothing to lose.
Any resolution ever come of this?
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Re: ArBee: A call for help
[Re: italie]
#347489 - 11/27/15 08:00 AM
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> Any resolution ever come of this?
Turns out it was an issue with our simulation of how ProDOS writes out sectors. There's a small delay at one point that makes no difference the vast majority of the time, but this crack depends on it to load properly. So it wasn't a problem with our understanding of the hardware, but rather a problem with our understanding of the software. It works now. Big thanks to Peter Ferrie for finally figuring it out.
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Re: ArBee: A call for help
[Re: italie]
#347496 - 11/27/15 11:26 AM
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> Any resolution ever come of this?
If there was, I'd have mentioned it. I was talking to another Apple guy from those days (Captain Crunch), and he rightly pointed out that there'd be no point in asking, because Woz probably wouldn't remember given that he lost most of his memory in that plane crash back in the 80's.
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