Getting an external gotek to register as drive 2

[Lardo Boffin]

My TC01 has two physical drives but when I plug in my gotek to the external drive port it will only work if I disconnect the power to drive 0 which suggests that it is appearing as drive 0 to the computer.

Any idea what jumper settings are required on the gotek to allow my drive 0 to work and the gotek to be drive 2?

Gotek jumper settings:

25B45F16-7E74-442D-A3D7-D1E5D5191855.jpeg (1.82 MiB) Viewed 6468 times

Many thanks!

Lardo

[retrogamer]

Great question, Lardo.

Having researched this, I don't think this is possible

We know that the Einstein recognises 4 drives (0-3) and the Shugart interface has 4 drive select lines.

BUT the Gotek has only 2 drive select jumpers. So on the Einstein this means S0 gives Drive 0, and S1 gives Drive 1. So, yes, you can have two Goteks

Very happy to be corrected, but it looks like the Gotek can't be numbered as Drive 2 or Drive 3. Adding a third drive as a Gotek would therefore require setting one of your internal drives (you're so lucky to have two!) as Drive 2 or Drive 3, if possible.

I'm aware that Keir is looking at developing FlashFloppy to emulate two drives in a single Gotek. Wow! But this will require a hardware mod to the Gotek unit.

I'll edit my previous post to link here to keep the forum up-to-date.

Richard

[Lardo Boffin]

Thanks Richard!

Interesting news about double disc goteks. That would be very useful, especially if they did not cost much more than a standard one.

[Lardo Boffin]

A couple of snaps from the hardware manual:

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94CBDFD1-ADFF-49C3-AC44-A1B68A364166.jpeg (3.91 MiB) Viewed 6445 times

So presumably I can set what is currently drive 0 to 1 and 1 to 2 so I have:

0 - gotek
1 - 3” drive
2 - 3” drive

Will give that a go at some point.

[retrogamer]

... or possibly even

0 - Gotek 800k
1 - Gotek 800k
2 - 3” drive
3 - 3” drive

[retrogamer]

So it looks like there is a way to configure a Gotek to be Drive 2, after all

But it is a hardware mod ...

Richard Loxley suggests bypassing the jumpers on the Gotek and replacing them with a rotary selector switch that can also connect to the drive select pins for Drive 2 and Drive 3 on the Gotek 34 pin connector.
https://www.richardloxley.com/2017/04/1 ... py-cables/

I've checked this in principle with DIR and by running a game from my Gotek as Drive 2 (and Drive 3) with a temporary connecting wire in place. And it seems to work!

The Drive 0 select signal is on pin 10. Placing the jumper on S0 passes this to the Gotek.
The Drive 1 select signal is on pin 12. Placing the jumper on S1 passes this to the Gotek.
The Drive 2 select signal is on pin 14. So connecting pin 14 to the S1 pin configures the Gotek as Drive 2!
The Drive 3 select signal is on pin 6 (see the Hardware Manual). So connecting pin 6 to the S1 pin configures the Gotek as Drive 3!

So it would seem that it's not as impossible as I thought to configure a Gotek as Drive 2 or Drive 3 on the Einstein!

[Lardo Boffin]

Interesting and a great link thanks! Now I know why drive B spins when reading gotek A.