XU1541 and more USB stuff
in [Commodore]
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From: petela on 21 Jan 2008 02:07 I've been thinking about a different interface cable to the 1541 (and other serial devices) for some time. Using the X1541 et al has been troublesome for me. And others I think have a love/hate relationship with them as well. Right now I have an old Pentium-100 with FreeDOS I use for all my X1541 needs, but it is a pain to move back and forth between that machine and my main box. Especially when transferring data. I'm an embedded software engineer by trade, so I'm quite comfortable writing PIC/AVR/8051/etc code, and have been considering some of the newer (and cheap!) USB microcontrollers out there. So I've started working on a project to do the USB<-->CBM cable. As part of my background search, there is reference to the XU1541 cable, but all the links I have found are broken. Does this cable still exist? Are there archives of the work that was done? I saw some discussion of integrating the XU1541 into OpenCBM. I've downloaded OpenCBM, and it appears to be a toolset plus a low-level driver. I haven't explored it much, but it appears to bit-bang the parallel port via the X1541 (et al) cable. Not to stir up the USB vs parallel port debate, I wanted to announce my own work on a USB cable. I have created a website and blog (my first ever, so don't expect much) documenting my ideas and the project. I'm open to ideas, and help. Check out my blog at http://mudplace.org/?cat=u1541 for more information. I think the biggest barrier to the USB version of the cable is cost. X1541 cables are very inexpensive and easy to make. A USB solution requires several more dollars (probably close to $30 in parts in small quantity purchases). However, I think a USB solution could be much cleaner in terms of ease of use, offloading the bit-banging to a microcontroller, and compatibility with newer machines. Anyways, if anybody is interested, I'd be glad to hear from them. Pete
From: Paul Förster on 21 Jan 2008 05:36 Pete, > I've been thinking about a different interface cable to the 1541 (and > other serial devices) for some time. Using the X1541 et al has been > troublesome for me. [..] > Not to stir up the USB vs parallel port debate, I wanted to announce > my own work on a USB cable. [..] > A USB solution requires several more dollars (probably close to $30 > in parts in small quantity purchases). .... if you'd really put this into a real thing then I'd buy one. 30 bucks is not that much. I don't want the parallel port anymore. No, I don't want to stir up the discussions about pros and cons either but fact is, less and less machines have one. I for one have only on PC (old laptop) left that has a parallel port. That's why I don't want it. It works fine, but for how long? I changed its hard disk once and put a 2 GB disk into it. But what about today's sizes? Can it handle at least a fraction of them, i. e. can I plug in a modern disk at all? You see my worry. This old laptop will inevitably die one day and then I don't have a computer with parallel port anymore... Hence, looking for alternatives. And USB would definitely be a great alternative. -- cul8er Paul paul.foerster(a)gmx.net
From: Simon Scott on 21 Jan 2008 07:36 On Sun, 20 Jan 2008 23:07:21 -0800, petela wrote: > Anyways, if anybody is interested, I'd be glad to hear from them. > Consider me interested :D
From: redrumloa on 21 Jan 2008 09:38 Ignore any noise, options are good. And yes, legacy devices like parallel ports are getting scarce. My recent motherboard has a built in floppy adapter, but it doesn't even work! All legacy devices are going bye-bye :-/
From: Jim Brain on 21 Jan 2008 13:43
petela(a)mudplace.org wrote: > I'm an embedded software engineer by trade, so I'm quite comfortable > writing PIC/AVR/8051/etc code, and have been considering some of the > newer (and cheap!) USB microcontrollers out there. So I've started > working on a project to do the USB<-->CBM cable. As part of my > background search, there is reference to the XU1541 cable, but all the > links I have found are broken. Does this cable still exist? Are > there archives of the work that was done? It does exist, but political infighting or something made the original author grow uninterested in the project. At the beginning of the year, he asked to have all the links to his site removed and he removed the page: -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [Opencbm-devel] xu1541 cancelled Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 12:53:43 +0100 From: Till Harbaum / Lists Reply-To: list for opencbm development To: list for opencbm development References: <20070128114224.GA13640(a)trikaliotis.net> Hi all, i hope you all had a pleasant christmas! Since the xu1541 seems to have become a big undocumented mess and since there's no visible progress that allows users to actually use the xu1541 i have decided to cancel the project. I have also not managed to get into a discussion with payton about the units i sent him so i consider these units to be lost. I have removed the xu1541 web page and have asked Christian to also remove the entries from his AVR USB page. Since everything is open source you are of course free to continue your work. And i would appreciate an email if you actually release something based upon the xu1541. I'll now unsubscribe from this list, so if you have some urgent replies please CC me directly. Regards, Till --------------------------------- However, instead of re-inventing the wheel, join the OpenCBM-devel list (https://lists.trikaliotis.net/listinfo/opencbm-devel) and see if anyone has the firmware. It was an AVR-based solution, with soft USB. If you want to use a newer AVRUSB device, I am sure you can ditch the soft USB. A nice bonus is that XU1541 support is built into the OpenCBM routines, so no integration costs. > Not to stir up the USB vs parallel port debate, I wanted to announce > my own work on a USB cable. I have created a website and blog (my > first ever, so don't expect much) documenting my ideas and the > project. I'm open to ideas, and help. Check out my blog at > http://mudplace.org/?cat=u1541 for more information. > > I think the biggest barrier to the USB version of the cable is cost. > X1541 cables are very inexpensive and easy to make. A USB solution > requires several more dollars (probably close to $30 in parts in small > quantity purchases). However, I think a USB solution could be much > cleaner in terms of ease of use, offloading the bit-banging to a > microcontroller, and compatibility with newer machines. There were plenty of people interested, so I think the cost is not an issue. Jim |