RELEASE_NOTES 12 KB

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  1. ************************************
  2. ** Greaseweazle Firmware Release Notes
  3. ** Keir Fraser <keir.xen@gmail.com>
  4. ************************************
  5. ** v1.1 - 27 February 2022
  6. - V4: External Activity LED can be connected to pin TXO
  7. - TXO-RXI jumper still forces update mode
  8. - TXO still used for serial logging in debug firmware builds
  9. - GetPin: Report on all pins also supported by SetPin
  10. - ReadFlux: Don't report missing index if read is not index-terminated
  11. - GetInfo: New sub-pages CurrentDrive and Drive_n
  12. - Report motor, cylinder#, and flippy drive status
  13. ** v1.0 - 26 December 2021
  14. - Firmware is now released separately from the host tools
  15. - No firmware changes since v0.31 (apart from the version bump)
  16. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
  17. All versions below include firmware and host tools in a combined release.
  18. ** v0.33 - 14 December 2021
  19. - Support high-density Amiga images (1760kB ADF)
  20. - IPF: Automatic write verification
  21. - New format specifiers for Acorn DFS and ADFS
  22. - New image handlers for Acorn: ADS, ADM, ADL, SSD, DSD
  23. ** v0.32 - 14 December 2021
  24. - New format specifiers for IBM, Atari ST and Commodore 1581
  25. - New image handlers for *.ST and *.D81
  26. ** v0.31 - 8 October 2021
  27. - F1: Support Low-Density STM32F103C6 chips, 32k Flash, 10k SRAM
  28. - V4: Increase USB buffer size from 16kB to 64kB
  29. ** v0.30 - 12 August 2021
  30. - New board type: V4 Slim (AT32F403 MCU, laptop drive interface)
  31. - F7 Slim: Support Disk Change Detect (used by WinUAE floppy bridge)
  32. ** v0.29 - 29 July 2021
  33. - gw read/write: Fix memory leak, reducing memory usage by approx 10x
  34. - gw bandwidth: Test USB connection integrity
  35. - New board type: F1 Plus (Unbuffered)
  36. ** v0.28 - 22 June 2021
  37. - V4: Improve USB bandwidth and double MCU clock speed to 144MHz
  38. - Fixes "gw bandwidth" warnings
  39. - Firmware: New command CMD_NOCLICK_STEP.
  40. - Used by Rob Smith's WinUAE bridge to implement noclick
  41. - "gw pin": Split into "gw pin set" and "gw pin get"
  42. ** v0.27 - 12 May 2021
  43. - EDSK: Support writing KBI-19 protection tracks
  44. - EDSK: Support next IDAM in preceding sector's GAP
  45. - gw seek: New option --motor-on to enable drive motor while seeking
  46. - New firmware command: CMD_GET_PIN to interrogate input floppy pins
  47. - New board type: V4 (using AT32F4xx MCUs)
  48. - New board type: F1 Plus (enhanced BP adapter board by Monideth Pen)
  49. ** v0.26 - 26 March 2021
  50. - Support new Greaseweazle model: F7 v3 "Thunderbolt"
  51. - EDSK: Support for writing many protected EDSK files
  52. - Windows 7: Disable jumperless firmware update as it hangs.
  53. - Default head-step delay is doubled to 10ms.
  54. ** v0.25 - 27 February 2021
  55. - EDSK: Support for writing unprotected EDSK files
  56. - SCP: Allow disktype header byte to be specified (eg "a.scp::disktype=amiga")
  57. - SCP: Fix import of non-index-cued SCP imnage files
  58. - AmigaDOS: Mark bad sectors with explicit pattern "-=[BAD SECTOR]=-"
  59. - read/write: Add a --retries parameter used if analyse/verify stage fails
  60. - clean: New command to clean a drive using a cleaning disk
  61. - gw: New global option --time to print elapsed time taken by an operation
  62. - gw: Improve reliability of USB connection reset when starting an operation
  63. - flippy: Improve reliability for Panasonic modded drives (find true trk0)
  64. - Linux/Mac: setup.sh better error reporting when run from wrong folder
  65. ** v0.24 - 14 January 2021
  66. - Index-cue generated Kryoflux and SCP image files
  67. - Most external tools and emulators fail with non-cued streams
  68. - gw write: New precomp command-line option (see the wiki)
  69. - gw: Backward compatibility with older firmware (only back to v0.23)
  70. - Safer bootloader update (CRC check before erasing existing bootloader)
  71. ** v0.23 - 13 January 2021
  72. - Support new Greaseweazle model: F7 Slim
  73. - Read/write/verify 1.44M IMG image files
  74. - Read/write Kryoflux stream files
  75. - Optimisations:
  76. - Rewrite read/verify conversion routines in C
  77. - Fast Amiga track reads (now read an Amiga disk in approx 45 seconds)
  78. - Shrink the Windows distribution zip file
  79. - GW: New track-selection syntax ("--track="). See the wiki.
  80. ** v0.22 - 27 November 2020
  81. - Support read and write of Amiga ADF image files
  82. - Increase /STEP pulse width to 15us (fix 5.25" drive seek for Arno Olaf)
  83. - Flippy drives: support 'gw seek' down to track -8
  84. - Revised USB protocol
  85. ** v0.21 - 10 September 2020
  86. - Support new Greaseweazle model: F7 Lightning Plus
  87. - Fixes for older drives
  88. - 50us index mask, avoid double triggering on the index signal
  89. - Increase default head-step delay to 5ms
  90. - Windows: Install the CAPS/SPS IPF library automatically
  91. - New command 'gw seek' to seek to specified drive cylinder
  92. - New syntax for specifying Greaseweazle device name on command line
  93. - eg 'gw read --device COM3 a.scp'
  94. ** v0.20 - 1 July 2020
  95. - gw write: New options --erase-empty and --double-step
  96. - gw update: Fix COM redetect on Windows running Bitdefender
  97. - Support version 2 of Ant Goffart's F7 Plus
  98. - SCP: support legacy single-sided SCP images
  99. - Automatic import; Export via ::legacy_ss suffix
  100. - eg. gw read --single-sided my.scp::legacy_ss
  101. - SCP: support SCP image files generated by FluxEngine
  102. ** v0.19 - 8 June 2020
  103. - F7 v2: Support for the new board design
  104. - gw update: Signature and CRC validation checks
  105. - gw read: Fix end-track field in single-sided SCP images
  106. ** v0.18 - 28 May 2020
  107. - gw read: New parameters --rate and --rpm
  108. - rate: Bitcell data rate in kbit/s (eg 250=DD 500=HD)
  109. - Used only for HFE images right now, where default is DD (250)
  110. - rpm: Normalise track timings to the given RPM value
  111. - This occurs before any other conversion or analysis
  112. - gw info: New command to display information about the Greaseweazle setup
  113. - gw bandwidth: Improved stats output
  114. - SCP: Fix single-sided image handling according to latest SCP spec.
  115. - Operates correctly with latest beta version of HxC software
  116. - F7: Support new board designs
  117. - AmberTronic F7 Plus: Kryoflux form factor, output buffers, 12v supply
  118. - F7 Lightning: High Speed USB, output buffers
  119. ** v0.17 - 19 May 2020
  120. - Windows: New self-contained executable distribution
  121. - No need to install Python, or module dependencies
  122. - Mac, Linux: Main script is directly executable
  123. - No need to manually invoke the Python interpreter
  124. - GW host tool: Help-text description for each available action
  125. ** v0.16 - 15 May 2020
  126. - F7 Firmware: Enable over-drive voltage mode
  127. - Required for reliable 216MHz operation (see datasheet)
  128. - Bootloader update:
  129. - 'gw.py update --bootloader' updates the bootloader
  130. - Not normally required
  131. - Failure may brick the Weazle and require full reflash: Take care!
  132. - Update build system to work with Windows MinGW environment
  133. ** v0.15 - 5 May 2020
  134. - Host tool improvements:
  135. - IPF: More robust conversion to raw flux for writeout
  136. - HFE: Fix crash when writing out HFE from third party tools
  137. - F7 Firmware improvements:
  138. - Preparation for High Speed USB (future board using 730Z8 MCU)
  139. - Enable Instruction and Data caches (10x execution speedup)
  140. - Various improvements to bandwidth as reported by 'gw.py bandwidth'
  141. ** v0.14 - 29 April 2020
  142. - IPF: Full write support (weak data, index misalignment)
  143. - New GW commands: bandwidth, erase
  144. - bandwidth: Measure USB read/write bandwidth
  145. - erase: Erase a disk
  146. - F7 USB: Improved bandwidth when writing to disk
  147. - Much less likely to see FluxUnderflow failures
  148. - update: Fix a bug which could fail to reopen the GW device for update
  149. - update: Automatically find the update file if filename not specified
  150. - Control script: Tidier notification of errors (no scary backtrace)
  151. ** v0.13 - 25 April 2020
  152. - HFE: Read & write support
  153. - IPF: Preliminary write support
  154. - Requires SPS/CAPS support library. See the wiki.
  155. - Weak data not yet supported (RNC "Protect Process" protection, & others)
  156. - Write splice is always rotated to the index (affects Speedlock & others)
  157. - Also TODO: Verified writes
  158. - USB: Use the VID:PID pair assigned to Greaseweazle (1209:4d69)
  159. - New prerequisite: 'bitarray' module. See the wiki.
  160. ** v0.12 - 10 March 2020
  161. - GW Autodetect: General improvements, and now works on Windows 7
  162. - New read parameter --double-step to double-step drive heads
  163. - Useful for reading a 40-cylinder disk in an 80-cylinder drive
  164. - New 'pin' command allows a floppy pin to be set to specified level
  165. - Currently supported only for pin 2 (DENSEL)
  166. - New 'reset' command resets the Greaseweazle to power-on settings
  167. - Motors off, drives deselected, power-on pin levels and delay values
  168. ** v0.11 - 21 January 2020
  169. - GW.py: Auto-detect the COM/serial port device name
  170. - The device argument is now optional!
  171. - USB: Provide a serial-id string to the host
  172. - Identifier is unique to each Greaseweazle device
  173. - Allows disambiguation between multiple Greaseweazle devices
  174. - Recommended: Full flash from HEX file (embeds serial in bootloader)
  175. - Ubuntu: Udev script now creates a /dev/greaseweazle symlink
  176. ** v0.10 - 17 January 2020
  177. - STM32F7xx: Multi-drive support via drive-select config option
  178. - Up to three Shugart drives or two IBM/PC drives
  179. - gw.py read|write --drive {a,b,0,1,2}
  180. - See the "Drive Select" wiki page
  181. ** v0.9 - 7 January 2020
  182. - Activity LED
  183. - Lights while a USB-issued command is in progress
  184. - Flashes when enumerated but idle in the firmware-update bootloader
  185. ** v0.8 - 6 January 2020
  186. - STM32F73xx: Various Fixes and Improvements
  187. - Allow Firmware Update mode to be forced via strapping Serial RX/TX
  188. - Fix bogus sample values at start of read flux values
  189. - Fix some time constants to be in units of the sample clock
  190. - USB: Advertise USB 2.0 device descriptor
  191. ** v0.7 - 6 December 2019
  192. - USB: Fix end-of-stream detection on track writes
  193. - Writes of empty/unformatted tracks sometimes hung forever
  194. - No Flux Area: Firmware automatically masters long NFAs during track writes
  195. - Generating no flux transitions does not read back as a NFA
  196. - STM32F73xx: Initial support for new STM32 MCU
  197. - Two HEX files are included: Use Greaseweazle-F1-* for existing boards!
  198. - Single unified UPD file containing both firmware images
  199. ** v0.6 - 15 November 2019
  200. - gw.py: Big overhaul of underlying Python package
  201. - Action (read, write, update) must come first on the command line
  202. - eg. "python3 gw.py read --ecyl=39 foo.scp COM3"
  203. - gw.py: New action "delays" to print/set delay parameters
  204. - eg. "python3 gw.py delays --step=10000" to increase step time to 10ms
  205. ** v0.5 - 11 November 2019
  206. - USB: Overhaul the protocol and allow writes to be terminated at index
  207. - Terminate-at-index is always used by current Python control script
  208. - Terminate-at-index prevents an over-long write from overwriting itself
  209. - Fix interruption of track writes (eg. KeyboardInterrupt)
  210. - gw.py: New option --adjust-speed to normalise flux times for target drive
  211. - Measures RPM of the target drive and calculates an adjustment factor
  212. ** v0.4 - 5 November 2019
  213. - Blinky: Diagnostic test firmware to detect fake STM32 chips
  214. - https://github.com/keirf/greaseweazle/wiki/STM32-Fakes
  215. - Floppy Write: Fix for very short flux timings
  216. - Floppy Read: Fix for very long flux timings
  217. - USB: Small improvement to double-buffer logic
  218. ** v0.3 - 30 October 2019
  219. - Bootloader: Fix Programming-Jumper detection
  220. - Read Track: Various minor fixes
  221. - SCP: Fix the SCP file headers generated by "gw.py read"
  222. ** IMPORTANT USER INSTRUCTIONS **:
  223. - Users must serial-update using the v0.3 HEX file
  224. - DO NOT update from v0.2 using the UPD file
  225. - May need to install the crcmod package: eg "pip3 install crcmod"
  226. ** v0.2 - 29 October 2019
  227. - USB: Fix hangs during "gw.py read"
  228. - Thanks to Charlie Smurthwaite for telling me how to fix this!
  229. - USB: Improved bandwidth (double-buffered IN/OUT endpoints)
  230. - Reduces risk of buffer underflow/overflow during disk operations
  231. - Firmware Update: Requires a jumper across A14 (aka DCL) and GND
  232. - eg. "python gw.py update Greaseweazle-v0.2.upd COM3"
  233. ** v0.1 - 17 October 2019
  234. - First release