Emulation of Fujitsu MB8877 Floppy Disk Controler with Arduino

Update

This project was never finished. My initial motivation was that I only had one 5"1/4 floppy disk. Since then, I have been given about thirty floppy disks whose halves are new. The other reason is that my prototype was never recognized by the QX1; the sequencer was simply not booting up. Since I had other sequencers to play with (PC with 2 x MOTU MTPAV USB + MidiSport 4X4 = 20 inputs, 20 outputs, 320 channels), I gave up for now and put back the controler and floppy drive. However, I'm still studying the possibility of completely replacing the motherboard with a Raspberry Pi: check this llink.

Context

I have a Yamaha QX1 MIDI sequencer from 1984.

The backup medium is 5"1/4 floppy disks. This project is an attempt to replace the floppy drive (Canon MF-221) and the Floppy Disk Controler (Fujitsu MB8877a) with an Arduino.

Documentation

• Yamaha QX1 Operating Guide.pdf
• Yamaha QX1 Reference Manual.pdf
• Yamaha QX1 Overall Circuit Diagram Part 1.pdf
• Yamaha QX1 Overall Circuit Diagram Part 2.pdf
• Yamaha QX1 Part List.pdf
• Yamaha QX1 Service Manual.pdf
• Yamaha QX1 Overall Circuit Diagram Part 1 (scan).tif
• Yamaha QX1 Overall Circuit Diagram Part 2 (scan).tif
• Yamaha QX1 Overall PCB (scan).tif
• Yamaha QX1 Part List (scan).tif
• Yamaha QX1 Service Manual (scan).tif

The project

Description

The Fujitsu MB8877 is a second source for Western Digital FD1793.

(white pins are not connected on the QX1 DM board)

 On the QX1 (the disk controller is removed):

Pin	Name	Function	Driven by	Description
37	/DDEN	Double Density	QX1	Permanently ↓ as we only use Double Density disks (256 bytes/sector)
3	/CS	Chip Select	QX1	Permanently ↓ (always selected)
24	CLK	Clock	QX1	Times the FDC logic; we don't use this signal to clock the Arduino. However, the clock starts only ~5.4 msec after powering up the QX1; before that, all signals are garbage.
19	/MR	Master Reset	QX1	Used during boot. MR ↓ ~4.6 msec after power up (the main CPU Hitachi HD68B09 only needs 110 nsec @ 8 MHz to boot).
7 to 14	DAL0-7	Data bus	both	This bus is shared by several ICs on the board: IC27: Fujitsu MB8877, the floppy disk controller IC8: Yamaha YM5208, an ASIC named PMAC (seems to be a DMA) IC31: Yamaha YM5213, an ASIC named PIT (interface with PN board: display, keyboard, ...) IC26: Yamaha YM5212, an ASIC named MASTER (UART and MIDI interface) IC7: a buffer (74LS245) to the main CPU IC17: a buffer (74LS244) to the RAM IC23, 24 and 25: the ROMs
5	A0	Address 0	QX1	Selects register (cf table below)
6	A1	Address 1	QX1
2	/WE	Write Enable	QX1	selects function (cf table below)
4	/RE	Read Enable	QX1
39	IRQ	Interrupt Request	FDC	Goes ↑ to warn the QX1 the previous command is completed
38	DRQ	Data Request	FDC	Goes ↑ to warn the QX1 data is available (read) or is required (write) on DAL0-7.
17(*)	Early		FDC	Pre-compensation signals. These signals are used to shift the timing of data to be written on the disk. 0=No pre-comp, 1=Pre-comp.
18(*)	Late		FDC
29(*)	TG43	Track > 43	FDC	Warns the CPU on head position. 0=head on track 0 to 43, 1=head on track 44 to 76.
31(*)	WD	Write Data	FDC	Data to be written on the disk drive

(*) These signals are normally used to drive the Disk Drive. However, on the QX1, they are captured by IC8 (PMAC).  My guess is PMAC is also in charge of the precise timing for pre-comp.

The protocol

The protocol between the MPU and the FDC is driven by the MPU. It basically consists for the MPU to read or post data in the FDC's registers. To do so, the MPU controls 5 pins: /CS (to select the FDC), /RE and /WE (to select read or write), A1 and A0 (to select the register).

As mentioned earlier, /CS is grounded: the chip is always selected.

Thus, the control is ensured by 4 pins, summarized in this table:

/CS	A1	A0	/RE	/WE	Function
0	0	0	0	1	MPU wants to read Status Register
0	0	1	0	1	MPU wants to read Track Register
0	1	0	0	1	MPU wants to read Sector Register
0	1	1	0	1	MPU wants to read Data Register
0	0	0	1	0	MPU wants to write into Command Register
0	0	1	1	0	MPU wants to write into Track Register
0	1	0	1	0	MPU wants to write into Sector Register
0	1	1	1	0	MPU wants to write into Data Register
0	-	-	0	0	Not specified in the datasheet: see below

The situation where both /WE (MPU want to read a register) and /RE (MPU wants to post to a register) are low simultaneously is not specified in the datasheet, and doesn't make sense. However, I measured a lot of cases where both /WE and /RE are down.

Schematic

The schematic can be found here: Project schematic (PDF) 

Some explanations

U1 (74LS245): buffer with DAL0-7

U3 (74LS244): buffer from the keyboard and the command pins (A0, A1, /RE and /WE)

U3 (74LS244): buffer to the LCD

U7 (74HC125): voltage adaptor (5V -> 3.3V) for the SD card and reverse voltage for the keyboard.

U4A (74LS139): this component manage the 8 bit bus (port D on the Arduino) by enabling/disabling the buffers U1, U3 and U6. U4A is managed via port C with the following table:

C3	C2	C1	C0	D7	D6	D5	D4	D3	D2	D1	D0	Sens	Description
1	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	High Z
0	-	1	1	DB7	DB6	DB5	DB4	-	R/W	E	-	Output	LCD
0	-	1	0	<<	<	>	>>	-	-	-	-	Input	Keyboard
0	-	0	1	-	-	A1	A0	/WE	/RE	-	-	Input	Command
0	0	0	0	DAL7	DAL6	DAL5	DAL4	DAL3	DAL2	DAL1	DAL0	Input	Data
0	1	0	0	DAL7	DAL6	DAL5	DAL4	DAL3	DAL2	DAL1	DAL0	Output	Data

The QX1 - timings

All the timings below are measured with a Saleae Logic 8 Analyzer at 12 Ms/Sec.

Bootup sequence

Here are the chronograms (timing) of the QX1 bootup sequence.

Problem with /RE and /WE

On the MB8877 datasheet, no information if both are low. However, I found many situation where /RE and /WE are both down.

Examples where /RE and /WE are both low, an undefined situation.

Timing for the read operation

The timing for a read operation (the MPU wants to read a register of the FDC) is the following:

Update

My logic analyzer was only 8 channels, not enough to capture the protocol. I purchased a 16 channels analyzer and made new captures. Here are the results:

Capture 0: initialization. The trigger is set on /MR ↗, we can clearly see the protocol starting.