KryoFlux - USB Floppy Controller Beta Released

[fiath]

KryoFlux is an advanced software-programmable FDC (Floppy Disk Controller) system that runs on small and cheap ARM7-based devices and connects to a host PC over the ubiquitous USB connector. It reads (and in the future, will write) flux transitions from magnetic media (most commonly, floppy disks) at a very fine resolution. KryoFlux can read data with no regard for what disk format or copy protection a disk may contain, and it can also read disks originally written with different (and even varying) bit cell widths and drive speeds, with a normal fixed-speed drive.

KryoFlux is available for free for private non-commercial use. You will however need to build or buy a board based on our open hardware design.

KryoFlux supports dumping any floppy disk to “stream files”, which contain the raw flux transition information. It supports output of a range of common “sector dumps” (e.g. ADF) to allow you to use your dumped images right away in your favourite emulator.

More information:
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjfT-F0GUl4
Info: http://softpres.org/glossary:kryoflux
Beta 2 Release News Item: http://kryoflux.org/news:2010-02-18

[Berserker]

KryoFlux may not be for everyone. If you experience chest pains, irregular breathing, depression, suicidal thoughts, or an erection lasting longer than four hours, stop using KryoFlux immediately and call your doctor.

Do not taunt KryoFlux.

[fiath]

Haha. Oh dear... I guess the name has rather unfortunate connotations in the US?

[BetaWolf47]

Psst, you spelled your username wrong.

[fiath]

Me? No. :) It's short for Fiathriel (My Elf in Warhammer)

[Sniderman]

edit: nvrmind

[fiath]

I'm sorry if my post came off rather spam-like. So I'd like to re-state that it is all free! Or at least, if you have the skills to build it you can do so at the cost of the parts - all our software and the hardware design is free (for private, non-commercial use).

[Kitsune Sniper]

Can this be hooked up to 5.25" floppy disk drives?

[Enigmus]

I'm sorry if my post came off rather spam-like. So I'd like to re-state that it is all free! Or at least, if you have the skills to build it you can do so at the cost of the parts - all our software and the hardware design is free (for private, non-commercial use).


I wonder if this can read slightly corrupted ones like those Toon Kombat (or whatever it's called) floppies that were talked about on Lost Levels a while back...

[aclbandit]

Can this be hooked up to 5.25" floppy disk drives?

How much I would LOVE to figure out how to put a 5.25" in my desktop, or buy one that runs in USB. That would be glorious...

[Kitsune Sniper]

How much I would LOVE to figure out how to put a 5.25" in my desktop, or buy one that runs in USB. That would be glorious...

Exactly my point.

[Soviet Conscript]

How much I would LOVE to figure out how to put a 5.25" in my desktop, or buy one that runs in USB. That would be glorious...

am i missing something? all you need is a 5.25 drive and a floppy cable with a connector for it. neither of these are rare or expensive. and the drive goes where you would stick any cd drive.

is it an OS thing? i never tried installing one under xp or up, i assume it would work like a 3 1/2 drive, no?

[Jorpho]

As soon as I started reading, I thought, "The Catweasel does all this already; the only way it can compete is if it's cheaper." And I guess it is.


is it an OS thing? i never tried installing one under xp or up, i assume it would work like a 3 1/2 drive, no?I think they might have dropped support in Vista for some reason.

[fiath]

Kitsune: Yes, this can indeed be hooked up to a 5.25" floppy drive. If you check out the YouTube trailer, I believe we show it doing just that. :)

Enigmus: If a disk is really corrupted, there is not much we can do - it would read that corruption as it is. Having said that, we have found (from preserving 1000's of disks) that much of the problems are down to difficulties in reading these old disks rather than data loss. With the testing we have done, we have found that KryoFlux is actually very good at reading disks not readable by the other methods we use. In fact, we are trying to track down some of the very rare software disks we gave up for dead a few years ago...

Soviet C: The problem is that the controller for drives in the PC can only read a very strict format disks. You can't read a huge amount of other disks from other systems (e.g. C64, and many other 8-bit era disks). Not only that, but any copy protection on disks is hard to extract properly without a "low level" read - which you can't do through a PC's FDC. I don't know about OS issues, but we do provide drivers for Windows XP or newer, in 32 and 64-bit flavours.

Jorpho: There are quite a few unique features about KryoFlux. We at the Software Preservation Society created it because other solutions just don't fit our needs. For example, when we are "on the road" doing preservation, we really don't want to lug a PC + screen around. The trailer I think shows reading disks using an EeePC(!) So now we can carry everything in a small bag, which is great for taking to shows, people's houses, etc.

[TheRedEye]

Hey, are you the same guy who was showing this on the IGDA game preservation list?

Good to see it here. I've got some old source code disks that my standard USB drive is choking on, maybe this will be able to read them.

[rbudrick]

Sounds like a great product to me....but will it interface with a Famicom Disk System? Say, by using a variant of the FDSLoader cables?

-Rob

[fiath]

No, that was IFW. A very very clever guy.

I certainly hope we can help. I have personally wanted something like this for years, for very similar reasons.

[fiath]

Sounds like a great product to me....but will it interface with a Famicom Disk System? Say, by using a variant of the FDSLoader cables?


I know somebody mentioned having a have a look at this system. Unfortunately I am not one of our technical guys, so I can't tell you. However, you can ask them about it in our KryoFlux thread here: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=50936

[RARusk]

I hear Vista and Windows being brandied about. What about using this on Macs? Would it work better under Snow Leopard? Just curious.

[Kitsune Sniper]

So it's possible to create a USB-based 5.25" Floppy drive? About. Friggin. Time.

[rbudrick]

I know somebody mentioned having a have a look at this system. Unfortunately I am not one of our technical guys, so I can't tell you. However, you can ask them about it in our KryoFlux thread here: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=50936


Made a post there, Fiath. Thanks very much!

-Rob

[fiath]

I hear Vista and Windows being brandied about. What about using this on Macs? Would it work better under Snow Leopard? Just curious.

I'm certainly with you on this because personally, I only have Mac and Linux at home.

The source code will be made available once we have left beta, so our hope is that somebody will port it for us. We really hope people join in as we don't really have people here familiar programming drivers on those systems.

Given how well KryoFlux has been received, I'm sure somebody will do it soon after we release the source. But of course, do wait until it actually happens before building/buying a board.

The graphical user interface will be cross platform from the start, but of course it relies on the native drivers and software to work.

[Icarus Moonsight]

This turned out to be a pleasant surprise. I thought this was surely a spam post when I first read it. LOL

rbudrick: Please report back on that FDS stuff, or at least drop us a link. :D
Cool beans.

[fiath]

So it's possible to create a USB-based 5.25" Floppy drive? About. Friggin. Time.

Yes :) The YouTube trailer shows just that at 1min 10secs.

We have also got the software to let you dump flippy disks (e.g. C64) in one pass - just like they were duplicated. KryoFlux will reverse the flip-side bitstream for you. You need to modify a drive though, so it can step out to the required -8 tracks.

[A Black Falcon]

I think they might have dropped support in Vista for some reason.

Vista certainly has 3.5" floppy disk support. I should know, my Vista computer has a 3.5" disk drive in it, and it works just fine. I don't know about 5.25", though... good question. I'd love to have a 5.25" drive, I wonder if it'd support it...

[fiath]

That is fine for simple sector reads of PC disks, where you might not be concerned about the constraints of the PC floppy controller. But just to note, the main purpose of KryoFlux is to get low level reads of any disk for any platform, and it will not care about any copy protection or custom format a disk may contain.

[Flack]

I don't understand what kind of connection the KryoFlux has on it. What type of floppy drive connection does it have? Can I use an old PC 3 1/2 drive to dump Amiga floppies, or am I going to need a drive from every system I want to dump? If that's the case, how am I going to connect Apple, Commodore, Amiga, etc. floppies all to this thing? I am really excited about this device but somethings not clicking for me just yet.

[Jorpho]

I don't understand what kind of connection the KryoFlux has on it. What type of floppy drive connection does it have? Can I use an old PC 3 1/2 drive to dump Amiga floppies, or am I going to need a drive from every system I want to dump? If that's the case, how am I going to connect Apple, Commodore, Amiga, etc. floppies all to this thing? I am really excited about this device but somethings not clicking for me just yet.I thought it actually included a floppy drive, but I guess I misread that.

Anyway, you can do everything with a PC 3.5" drive if you have the right floppy controller; there's (apparently) no mechanical barrier for the different formats. At least, that's what the aforementioned Catweasel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual_Computers_Catweasel) demonstrated.

Now, the Apple Twiggy disk (http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/lisa/twiggy.html), that would be a different matter.

[Kitsune Sniper]

I thought it actually included a floppy drive, but I guess I misread that.

They seem to want to release the specs to the public so anyone can build their own. Which is pretty neat.

[fiath]

I don't understand what kind of connection the KryoFlux has on it. What type of floppy drive connection does it have? Can I use an old PC 3 1/2 drive to dump Amiga floppies, or am I going to need a drive from every system I want to dump? If that's the case, how am I going to connect Apple, Commodore, Amiga, etc. floppies all to this thing? I am really excited about this device but somethings not clicking for me just yet.

Jorpho is right. You just need a standard PC drive, with a normal PC floppy cable to dump any 3.5" disk. Note that it's best to use an HD drive even when dumping DD disks. Same goes for 5 1/4 drives, but if you want to dump "flippy" disks, you may need to modify it - we are still working out the details on that.

[fiath]

I thought it actually included a floppy drive, but I guess I misread that.

Well, it would be nice if we included everything in one package... Certainly we can think about doing that when we ramp up the hardware production. At the moment, we are starting out where anyone can build their own, or use a development board, like the ones we use. And we are currently talking to multiple hardware manufacturers to produce our open hardware design.


Now, the Apple Twiggy disk (http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/lisa/twiggy.html), that would be a different matter.

I'm not sure about the Twiggy... but we do support reading the variable rate Apple drives. We support Apple DOS 3.2 and 3.3+ as well as Apple DOS 400K/800K disks.

[fiath]

Okay, most of this came from my answers here :) but I'll post it anyway...

MINI FAQ:

Q. Why is it free?
A. Because we are a non-profit preservation organisation, and our ultimate goal is not financial, but to save all these wonderful games before they are lost.

Q. Do I need a special drive?
A. No. Just a standard PC drive and floppy cable is required to dump any media for that drive.

Q. Does it work with 5 1/4" drives?
A. Yes. Check 1min 10secs into the YouTube trailer. :)

Q. Will it work on a laptop?
A. Yes. It uses standard USB. We have it running on an EeePC.

Q. Why can't I just use the floppy drive in my PC?
A. The floppy controller in the PC can only read the very strict format PC disks, and not very much of anything from other platforms. Not only that, but any copy protection on disks is hard to extract properly without a "low level" read - which you can't do through a PC's FDC. For various reasons, we would strongly argue that images of disks read through a PC floppy controller are unsuitable for preservation.

Q. Is it Windows only?
A. The software is currently in beta, and only runs on Windows (32 or 64-bit, Windows XP or greater). The source to the host software will be available after we go final, and we are then hoping to get it ported to as many platforms as possible. The code was written with portability in mind.

Q. Is it command-line only usage?
A. For the beta, yes. However, we are working on a graphical user interface which will likely be available when we go final.

[Icarus Moonsight]

Using old tech through USB and a GUI? I'm starting to sport a rocket over here. :monkey:

[Ze_ro]

KryoFlux supports dumping any floppy disk to “stream files”, which contain the raw flux transition information.
I assume this means that non-standard sync marks should not pose a problem... but is this enough to create proper images of disks (and hopefully write them as well) with "weak bit" protection? Would a standard drive mechanism even be capable of that, or would it require a device like a trace machine?

--Zero

[98PaceCar]

How about writing back out to disks? I'm more interested in being able to push images back to actual media from a PC than I am about archiving what I have.

[Flack]

Jorpho is right. You just need a standard PC drive, with a normal PC floppy cable to dump any 3.5" disk. Note that it's best to use an HD drive even when dumping DD disks. Same goes for 5 1/4 drives, but if you want to dump "flippy" disks, you may need to modify it - we are still working out the details on that.

Unfortunately, just about everything I'm dumping right now are "flippy" disks. I am still excited about the project, and I'm excited to see what support of those looks like.

[Soviet Conscript]

How about writing back out to disks? I'm more interested in being able to push images back to actual media from a PC than I am about archiving what I have.

what he said.

[fiath]

I assume this means that non-standard sync marks should not pose a problem... but is this enough to create proper images of disks (and hopefully write them as well) with "weak bit" protection? Would a standard drive mechanism even be capable of that, or would it require a device like a trace machine?


Quite correct. Non-standard sync marks are no problem. This thing is pretty amazing actually, which is hard to get across to non-technical people. For example, it can even sample index signals in the middle of flux transitions - I very much doubt there is any other software can do that. I suspect that anything else would just bundle the index with the next FT, but that sort of thing can easily skew the results, and so it is critical for reliability to get it done properly.

As to the "weak bit" protections. I'm not sure. As I said before, I am not one of the technical guys, so rather than say what I think is correct, I will go and ask them first :) They will be in bed now (it's 2am here, ouch), but I'll try and get you an answer later.

I will say that we have actually been preserving exactly that type of protection for nearly 10 years now using our technical knowledge and advanced analysation tools. We hope that if people are preserving original games, they will send them to us to have a look at so we can provide them back with something that definitely does work. Our existing file format, IPF, is designed to encapsulate exactly this kind of thing.

BTW, we are pretty sure Trace used standard disk drives in their duplication machines. They did modify them though, like to write flippy disks in one pass, or get 3.5" drives running at 600rpm to half their duplication time.

[fiath]

How about writing back out to disks? I'm more interested in being able to push images back to actual media from a PC than I am about archiving what I have.

It's planned. We've not started it though, and I can't give you any sort of timescale, so if it's your primary use, I would of course wait until it's done.

[fiath]

Unfortunately, just about everything I'm dumping right now are "flippy" disks. I am still excited about the project, and I'm excited to see what support of those looks like.

The software is already there. We even have the option to reverse the bit-stream of the flippy side, so it can be dumped in one pass. Trace modified their drives to step to -8, and we are hoping to do the same, but the drives we have do have some complications at the moment. We are working on it... but again, if that is your main use, please wait... or press escape to abort :)

[Flack]

BTW if you are interested in purchasing from 1541 drives for testing, let me know. I have at least 6 extras.

[fiath]

is this enough to create proper images of disks (and hopefully write them as well) with "weak bit" protection? Would a standard drive mechanism even be capable of that, or would it require a device like a trace machine?

Okay, I now have an answer to this, and that is to say that KryoFlux is exactly like a Trace machine, just smaller, and cheaper. We see exactly what a controller would see before processing on the data line. We get the flux transitions reported by the drive, and a Trace would operate exactly the same way. So weak bits generated in the controller compensating for a lack of flux transitions is no problem - we will see that lack flux transitions as much as a Trace would do.

Of course, as I said before, for proper preservation, you need to analyse the data anyway. Integrity and authenticity checks should be done on any data to be preserved, and our existing technology allows us to do that, now enhanced very nicely with the addition of KryoFlux. Things like weak bits were scripted on the Trace, and our stuff does the same thing.

I hope that helps!

[fiath]

BTW if you are interested in purchasing from 1541 drives for testing, let me know. I have at least 6 extras.

Nice. Thanks for the offer. I don't think it would be very useful for us though. I think we rather see the 1541 (as cool as it is) being a bit of an enemy to proper preservation, it being basically a computer in it's own right! We just can't get the data out that we need...

Perhaps you mean for comparison of data, but we don't really need to do that - we have a comprehensive integrity checking analyser for that (built over the last 10 years). We specify exactly what the disk format is, and have the data "resolve" against that format. We also test on emulators, but it's really just a post-check.

[AdamAnt316]

Very cool! I wonder about the applications of things like this as might pertain to vintage hard disk drives. I own an Apple Lisa 2 (as seen in my avatar), which was converted by a company called Sun Remarketing into the rough equivalent of a Macintosh Plus. Unfortunately, the Miniscribe 3.5" MFM drive they used was not of good quality, and has experienced stuck heads multiple times, corrupting some of the data on the drive. As far as I know, the original Apple ProFile hard drive was unable to low-level format itself without the use of an Apple /// (what a choice...) with special hardware. I don't know how Sun Remarketing's HD interface compares to Apple's, but I have a bad feeling that it's similar. I have a Seagate 3.5" MFM drive which could theoretically replace the Miniscribe, but as MFM hard drives seem to be harder to format than IDE drives, I have a feeling that it might not work quite the same way with a different drive installed. I know it's highly unlikely that this particular device would work for that sort of purpose, but I just figured I'd throw the idea out there.
-Adam

[fiath]

Nasty. To be honest, I have no idea how that would work. I'm guessing that these drives have a much more complicated interface than floppy drives, where we are just controlling the lines to the motor and drive head...

[Jorpho]

You just need a standard PC drive, with a normal PC floppy cable to dump any 3.5" disk. Note that it's best to use an HD drive even when dumping DD disks.It does occur to me that there's been some speculation that newer PC floppy drives may be less reliable from older ones from the days when floppies were widely used. I doubt there's really been much scientific research into the problem, though.

[fiath]

I can imagine that, and it seems that floppies are generally more unreliable than they used to be, but that could just be because I am used to more reliable storage now.

I forget the reason for recommending HD, but it has something to do with an HD drive having better resolution or something.

[Sanriostar]

KryoFlux may not be for everyone. If you experience chest pains, irregular breathing, depression, suicidal thoughts, or an erection lasting longer than four hours, stop using KryoFlux immediately and call your doctor.

Do not taunt KryoFlux.

:above me:
Okay, that made me laugh.

[phreakindee]

Vista certainly has 3.5" floppy disk support. I should know, my Vista computer has a 3.5" disk drive in it, and it works just fine. I don't know about 5.25", though... good question. I'd love to have a 5.25" drive, I wonder if it'd support it...

I use Windows 7 with a 5.25" 1.2MB floppy drive, it works perfectly with no extra setup needed at all. Floppy support, even down to 360k, still works just fine.

[rbudrick]

I use Windows 7 with a 5.25" 1.2MB floppy drive, it works perfectly with no extra setup needed at all. Floppy support, even down to 360k, still works just fine.

Wow. Holy crap, that's awesome. I had no idea. I thought support for that went out after Win 98.

-Rob

[Thrillo]

Wow. Holy crap, that's awesome. I had no idea. I thought support for that went out after Win 98.

-Rob
The main issue is with motherboards; my current mobo and my previous one both only support one floppy drive. I'd rather have a 3.5" hooked up than a 5.25", so the 5.25" loses out :|

[rbudrick]

The main issue is with motherboards; my current mobo and my previous one both only support one floppy drive. I'd rather have a 3.5" hooked up than a 5.25", so the 5.25" loses out :|

Makes me wonder if A: and B: drives will ever live again, especially B:.

-Rob

[mr.vince]

I don't know if anyone noticed, but we have some videos now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOtwq5eqeuA


It's not only reading, it also writes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypT_H-Dg3bs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTloSBG_A2A

[blue lander]

I might have to get one of these. I have some IBM PC JX disks I haven't been able to successfully dump, maybe this will do the trick.

[mr.vince]

Would guess it uses FM or MFM coding. Both are already supported by the software.