Building my own SD card interface for the Apple II

Thanks very much for all your hard work.

If you have a moment, can you detail how the SD cards should be set up? Is it just two 32M ProDOS partitions created with CiderPress that it will see?

Ladies and Gents,

today my package arrived at noon. It was well packaged (with a little gift) and all parts are looking good.
Many thanks to Florian for his great work.

So I already assembled the whole stuff but it's not tested yet, because I just asked Florian by email how
to assemble the LED as there is no polarity printed to the board.

For sure I can follow the wiring... but I'm lazy

Just one recommendation to those who will solder it within the next days.
To get high quality solder points... just use some solder flux (e.g. FL112) like I did.

Wish all of you a nice xmas time...

Update (03:12 PM GMT+1):

I just saw the link to github where you can find the schematics and more... so my card can be tested now.

https://github.com/freitz85/AppleIISd

I’m happy to report that my card is now working fine with my IIGS! Thanks to Florian for working out the issues with the ROM image!

Can you please tell me what SD card (vendor and amount of memory) is been used?

The reason why I'm asking is, that my SD card interface doesn't work at my Apple //e. I'm getting the Copyright message but then I'm not able to read or write (from/to) the card. If I'm using and 8GB card, my system crashes with the message I posted earlier in another thread.

If I'm using a smaller card, same problems except that the system doesn't crash.

So I'm not sure if I made a mistake during assembly... but don't believe so because I'm getting the Copyright message.

Can’t remember the make at the back of my hand but it’s probably a 2 GB Transcend.

Any more of these kits available?

These work on all of the Apple II family line? Pretty awesome work guys!!

Many thanks!

Jennifer

Hi all

my kit has arrived! Thank you again Freitz!

One thing I'd like to read up on, before I get time to build it - a question for everyone apple2 cp/m aware really.. is it possible to create a cp/m hard drive image and boot my iie from it?

I read ciderpress can read and modify cp/m disk images but i am not sure if that includes hard disk / ,po images and can this card boot from such an image if I write it to an sd card?

and of course, if it exists can anyone please share a link to such a .po file?

thank you!

My kit arrived yesterday, 05Jan2018. Long way from Germany, but worth the trip!
Completed the kit today. Very nice work Freitz, and I appreciated the gummies too!
The kit was complete. Documentation is on his website.

The most difficult part of the build was to NOT loose the parts in the kit.
When unwrapping the SMD components, you need to be careful not to loose them. (!)
They are, after all, about the size of a flea turd. :O
I would suggest installing all of one type of SMD component before you unwrap the next,
as you really can't identify the values visually. Freitz labeled them for easy identification.

I had the same LED that Freitz used on his prototype build so I decided to use the same type
rather than the one supplied with the kit. Nicer looking IMHO.

Photo of competed board here.

Lastly, if you've never worked with SMD assembly before or do not have expert soldering skills,
you will find this kit difficult to assemble. Time spent (by me) for this was a little over 2 hours.
You will need a very fine soldering tip for this assembly. You will also need 0.25mm solder for
the SMD's, or you will need solder paste (such as SD-528T alloy) if you use hot air soldering.
I did not use hot air soldering on this, though it likely would have been faster. I really wanted
to do it with a soldering pencil, as most of the components required it. But if I were to do it again,
I'd finish the SMD components with air first, then use the soldering pencil for the rest.
I found that using solder paste on the SD Card socket assembly made it neat and easy to install.

This is an awesome Apple ][ project and I hope Freitz finds time to continue it's development.
If we can make it work for DOS on an Apple II (not IIe) that would be a plus. (pun intended)

I built mine today and it works great. I reversed the LED, but that was easily fixed. The SMD caps and resistors are TINY! I am glad I have a magnifying lamp or it would never have been built.

I was able to copy files back and forth with CiderPress easily, and copied my old FocusDrive data over to it.

It would be nice to have more than two partitions whenever you get a chance, but for now it works great!

PS: The only build problem I had was I could not get the top pads of C12/C13 unbridged. Are they supposed to be connected? Mine are, and everything works, but it looked like on the layout it was not supposed to be. I think they are both ground, though, so it's OK?

C12/C13 are both grounded on that end, so you should be OK.

Hi, All
Is anyone doing any research to make this work with DOS 3.3, possibly dual OS?
wm

Not sure what you mean. No hard drive worked with 3.3 natively- it is floppy-only. There are software launchers that can work with "virtual disks" that support some of that, and they work fine on this.

I have had issue reports from some users that were not able to boot off certain SD cards. The cards ranged from 128MB to 8GB. All of them reported a crash in the region of about $800.

This means that the card was properly initialized and the first block was read off the card. However, there seemed to be no valid code in this block. That's why the Apple crashed.

One user nearby sent me his interface and 128MB card and it turned out that the interface was fine (it works with my Transcend 8GB and my Noname 512MB card). The 128MB card on the other hand was not formatted correctly by Ciderpress. It showed one large partition, instead of 4 small 32MB ones.

I don't want to rule out a bug in the firmware, but at the moment it seems more like an issue with Ciderpress formatting. I will investigate this further and maybe get in touch with the developers of Ciderpress.

I've seen that when dumping image files to partitions of differing sizes- I ran into it moving the data from my Focus card. I ended up just creating new partitions and exporting/importing the data. I doubt it's a problem with CiderPress, just that it maybe wasn't designed to automatically resize partitions.

It works if you copy partitions that were imaged from CFFA, but not if they were created another foreign way.

Creating partitions as per instructions of Tecnobytes Classic IDE worked for me.

I'm having some issues with my board too, but I haven't fully gone over the board and checked all the soldering as yet - I've had to purchase a magnification lamp as my eyes were struggling with the small components.

When I boot my with my card installed, I am getting the copyright message, but I am not seeing the LED come on and nothing further happens. I've tried two different CF cards with the same results.

I plan on sitting down and verifying my soldering and trying it in one of my IIgs machines as well.

But if any updates are available, please keep us posted!

Following the tutorial of freitz to create a bootable SD failed. I tried several SD cards with my IIe as well as with my IIgs. They boot into the monitor at address 0803 or 0804.
I read that protek used the Tecnobytes intruction. In my opinion there is no essential difference to the tutorial of freitz. But I tried it. The IIe boot into the monitor. Then I noticed that the suffix of freitz sample image is 2mg. I converted my po image to 2mg, load it onto the SD card and my IIe boot the new ProDOS 2.4.2
I did not test it any more, I was tired. But all tests with po images failed. I will continue my tests when I have more time.

My package arrived a few weeks ago (thanks Freitz!) and I have just found some time to put one together. My first time soldering SMT components, it was a good learning experience. The first few components were a little tricky, but then on all good.

I too struck the error with crashing back into the monitor at $803 when I tested in my IIe. I then spent some time trying another card, reformating etc. I think I may have found the reason why, the card still has the MBR on it and this is in block 0. This is then being loaded as the boot sector which then leads to the crash.

The trick to fixing this is that you must select 'physical disks' when working with the card in Ciderpress. When I then opened it in Ciderpress, I just left the default 'ProDOS block ordering' and 'Unknown filesystem' and then loaded the first 32mb prodos image onto the card. Once this is loaded, Ciderpress automatically comes up with the CFFA 4-8 partitions and you can load the second one in.

I would think if you have a card that does not have the MBR on it, then Ciderpress will work ok when using 'logical volumes'. This may explain why some work and some don't.

I have been trying to setup some images for a CFFA 1.x recently, and having issues. I think the same thing was in play for it, so i'm happy to realise that this physical/logical setting is important.

/Rob

My first successful attempt was a stroke of luck. Other SD cards I prepared this way did not work anymore.

I am using a USB card reader with Realtek chipset. Ciderpress runs on Win 7 in a VMWare player on Linux.
Finally, I found the following recipe for me how SD cards can be reliably prepared for the ApplIISD:

1) Connect a card reader to a USB 2.0 port (on a 3.0 USB port, Ciderpress will usually break with a write error)
2) write a new msdos partition table (e.g. with gparted) on the SD card.
3) Mount Sd in Win 7 (no need to format the SD in Win 7)
4) Upload an image to the SD card following the instructions of freitz or Tecnobytes Classic IDE.

It works reliably with 2,4 and 8 GB SD cards. A IIgs Rom01 with Transwarp boot GSOS 6.0.4,the IIe boot ProDOS 2.4.2 without any problem.

I am very satisfied with the card, thank you very much freitz.

I plan on sitting down and verifying my soldering and trying it in one of my IIgs machines as well.

So I sat down on the weekend and went over the soldering on my board and I couldn't find any faults. Using the provided schematics, I tested continuity between all of the soldered connections and everything seemed to be in order. I installed the card in my IIgs and it usually bombs out around C600 (more often than not it *is* C600). As I mentioned previously, I get the copyright message coming up but the LED never comes on. Is the LED there to give indication that the board has power or a read/write access is happening? I'm guessing the latter due to the LED being connected to the CPLD...

Unless anyone has some suggestions, I guess the next thing would be to take some voltages at various test points to see if that gives any clues as to what might be going wrong? Obvious points would be the voltage regulator output and 5V rails... any other points I should be specifically checking out?

Thanks in advance for any help,
Mike

Be sure that the two pins on the right of the SD connector are not shorted or contacted to the case. They are a bit tricky to solder. One is card detect, the other write protect. I don't know which way around, but they should change between ground and floating (3.3V) when the card is in/out and protected/not protected.

If you know assembly, you could step through the initialization using BugByter. I can send you a list file, if you don't have CC65 running.

Hi Flo,

I'll check those voltages in the next day or so and report back.

Whilst I can't program in assembly, I can usually step through it and can probably see when things go off the rails (I'm a lazy software guy who keeps putting off learning assembler!), so if the voltages don't provide any clues as to what's going wrong, I may need to ask for those debugging tools.

Thanks for your help,
Mike

As it seems no cards are available at the moment I decided to have a few made. I'm skeptical about the PCB quality but company was having a sale. Seems too good to be true but price was low enough to give it a shot. If the boards come through and quality looks good I'll probably offer up the ones I don't need to keep at my cost plus shipping if Freitz doesn't mind.I think I ordered red so they would be distinguishable from his in case it turns out there are defects.

Regards, Brian

Honestly hadn't thought about it. I have 1 in my parts bin that looks correct. Just looking around eBay the selection isn't very good but there are a few surplus online vendors that might have them. If I find a good source I'll Post here as I plan to build 3 of these to keep. Otherwise, I'll probably be back in touch if you have a reliable source.

Thanks for your follow-up. I figured you wouldn't mind my selling off excess boards but prefer to check when possible.

Regards, Brian

I was looking at some boards made also but could not find the proper SD socket here in the US. I have not given up looking. You might have to do some jumpering to get a socket to work. The SD sockets I found have the CD and WP in different places. Let me know when the boards come in.
Wayne

I just received the boards and they actually look good. Copper looks nice, all pads in good condition, and silkscreen lines up. Unfortunately, I have a broken arm and wouldn't be able to assemble and test for at least 4 weeks. If anyone feels that they could get one assembled and tested in the next 2 weeks or so, I can send one out to you. I would prefer US only to make shipping easier. PM and we can discuss.

Freitz, have you considered moving to the Micro sized SD memory socket? (over using the adapter)

Freitz
I have an Eagle .lbr file that has a card that is readily available on Ebay and at Digikey that I could send you. It is a socket that has the CD and WP along with the other 9 pins so it will require some careful soldering. If you would consider redoing the board I will send it to you.
wm

If you rework the board, another suggestion I have would be to move the SD card slot away from the top of the card. As it is, you can't easily plug an extension cable in to run it out the back of the machine, because it sits too high to close the case when connected. This is with a GS, anyway, it may be fine in a IIe.

@macnoyd: the pins on the micro SD slots are even tinier and more difficult to solder. It was a design goal for me that assembly only required 'advanced' soldering skills. Otherwise I would have chosen a different CPLD package, for example.

@wmnet: I think it may be sufficient of you told me the brand and part number of the socket. If the connector is available in Europe, too, I'd change it all together.

@rittwage: when I have found the 'one' connector, I might try to do a layout with two positions, where it is possible to assemble it upright or to the right.

Btw, have you noticed, that the card is hot swappable on both ProDOS and GS/OS.

Freitz
The SD card socket is from WURTH # 693-061-010-911, looks to be the same as Amphenol (FCI) # 10067847-001RLF, the datasheet from Digikey shows FCI as the Mfg.
These are readily available from Mouser, Digikey and on Ebay too.
Thanks for considering doing this.
Wayne

How about changing the design to accept an SD card adapter that is used with Arduino?

@macnoyd: the pins on the micro SD slots are even tinier and more difficult to solder. It was a design goal for me that assembly only required 'advanced' soldering skills. Otherwise I would have chosen a different CPLD package, for example.

The maker of the PETdisk for the Commodore PET leverages a brilliant idea for making your own easy-to-solder MicroSD card sockets: just solder header pins to a MicroSD-to-SD card adapter. IE, hack #6 here. If you want a low-rent solution there's a way to go.

I was able to find a different SD extension cable that clears the IIgs case and works fine.

If any others are interested, it's this one:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/SD-SDHC-SDXC-Card-Male-To-Female-Flexible-Extension-Adapter-Cable-For-Car-GPS-TV/142651256223

Hi freitz! wow, congrats

if you dont mind, could you please summarise the advantage of a smartport drive instead of what we already have with the 32mb prodos images.. If it works on my machine, I assume from your github I have to build it and then burn a new eprom?

I have a iie enhanced 128mb (and I hope the GS is serving you well, it seems to be! )

cheers, iain

(redacted)

Thank you for the update and for sharing your great work!
Since the cost for DIY only one card is bigger than for quantity production, any news about someone new batch production?

Got PCBs and almost all components, but still in doubt about how to program xilinx.. i have a tl866 programmer with icsp port and a Usb Blaster, does anyone know if it's possible to use one of them? or i had to buy some xilinx's dedicated hw?

Thank you freitz for the answer, and just ordered a chinese xilinx programmer!