open source floppy disk emulator software

There is also the DiscFerret project ], ], ] which use just an ARM processor to read and write floppy drives. If it is not what you want, you might use it as a basis with the mbed replacing the PIC processor, but keeping the CPLD. The HXC2001 project that Daniel cited is open source. 1.44M) or 'fancy' data formats or speed variations may be beyond the mbed's capabilities, but I'll bet a Beagle Board could do those jobs with just some software :-). Interrupts from the step signal cause the track buffers to be written and read from the active image file. A tight loop in the main() routine keeps up with the DMA samples, and updates the bits in the track buffer. Writing could be added by having the write-data signal drive an external 'capture' pin that is set-up to grab a timer sample to a DMA buffer. Use that technique to create a FM or MFM read-data signal with 2.0 us timing slots from either of 2 track/head buffers of 12500 bytes each. The 640x400 VGA driver project code shows how to create a repeating bit stream plus a sync-pulse. There are mbed libraries for file systems on a USB 'gum-stick' drive and a 2-line LCD + push-button menu interface to 'mount' different disc images from the drive.

Say for example you only need to emulate a '360K' drive with read-only media. They are not open source, but their history has information that suggests to me that an mbed should be able to emulate a floppy drive with nothing more than some TTL interface buffer chips and the right software.

Finally, there is the Kryoflux project and it's predecessor the Cyclone20, , which use just an ARM processor to read and write floppy drives. Since it can both read and write, it might be amendable to conversion to a floppy emulator (again, with an mbed processor as the driver). There is also the DiscFerret project which uses a FPGA to read and write ST506 interface hard drives and floppy drives.

Open source floppy disk emulator software