Just built an FDSLOADR-- Had some questions.

Just built an FDSLOADR-- Had some questions.
by Epicenter on 2008-01-04 (#30059)

Hello! I put together an FDSLOADR according to the instructions in http://nesdev.com/fdsloadr.zip ... except to avoid damaging my original cable I went ahead and soldered to the corresponding 2C33 pins directly. My soldering iron leaves a lot to be desired, so before I go remaking connections left and right I wanted to check in if this is normal behavior or not.

I'm running it on a Pentium-M 1.4 GHz-based notebook. I have EPP mode set on my LPT port. It functions to some extent in DOS mode on my laptop, but not from XP (as I expected.) When the program launches, the BIOS immediately recognizes a 'disk', and the upload begins. Before the last box in the progress bar in FDSLOADR fills, the FDS BIOS reports "Err 27, Disk Trouble".

This behavior is the exact same for a number of .FDS images. I tried Gun Smoke, Doki Doki Panic, Baseball, Zanac and a few others. None of them worked.

Now I've read before that .FDS images commonly distributed for use with FC/FDS emulators are bad dumps and lack the checksum, gaps and start codes that real disks have. Should this make most of them fail to run with FDSLOADR, thereby making running backups I did not personally make from an actual FDS disk drive unit impossible to run?

If not, I suppose it's probably an issue with poor grounding, shielding, or a misplaced lead somewhere.

Thanks for any advice.

by commodorejohn on 2008-01-08 (#30100)

I had troubles running from a laptop when I built my FDSLoader setup, and I was told that laptop paralell ports are basically complete crap. Try it from a desktop computer and see if that works - it did the trick for me.

by Epicenter on 2008-01-09 (#30126)

How odd. Did you get the same error? I can't think of any fundamental difference between a laptop or desktop LPT port, and my only desktop has no legacy ports except PS/2. So that puts me in a shitty position

by kyuusaku on 2008-01-09 (#30129)

The difference could be in the logical voltage level or the pull-ups or lack of them on the control signals.

by commodorejohn on 2008-01-09 (#30130)

I believe I got error #22, actually, but the paralell port did turn out to be the problem. However, if you're stuck with your laptop as the only computer with a paralell port, try going into the BIOS and setting the paralell port to EPP mode - it didn't work for me when it was suggested, but it might work for you.

If that doesn't work, you could shell out $15-ish for a paralell port card for your desktop, but that may or may not work with FDSLoadr.

by rbudrick on 2008-01-25 (#30366)

Laptops do often work, but often don't too. The problem between laptops and desktops lies with the cheaper parallel port controller chips used in Laptops.

So you are saying you are uploading an image from the PC to the FDS RAM adapter and you get an error? I'venever seen that. Either it loads all the way or it doesn't load at all, in my experience.

I would be apt to say the images are bad, but if they work in an emu, that's unlikely. If you rewrote the disks with .fds images and then it gave you an error, I would say your drive needs to be retuned. But, if you are just loading images to the RAM adapter, that's messed up.

In my experience, .fds image files have all the headers and such intact. There are .bin or "no extension" files I've seen with a slightly different format that came from a device like a Multi Game Doctor 1, but you aren't likely at all to find those!

Try this...use the other FDSLoadr cable to dump an image, test it in an emu, and after a good test, load it up to the RAM adapter with the other cable. If the image still errors out, I would try a different PC, and/or reexamine your connections.

-Rob