USB CD Emulation

2011-03-27T19:28:00.000-07:00

SVN Repo @ rev49 - full emulation with the teensy++ and miniSD see here: Forum Announcement <-Follow progress there

update

2011-01-27T17:52:00.000-08:00

SVN repository online: SourceForge:Teensy++EVK1104Custom Board Feel free to check it out or "check it out" using your favorite svn client. Teensy++ uses lufa (older 11-09) and avr studio 4EVK1104 uses avr32 framework 1.6 and AVR32 studioCustom Board uses avr32 framework 1.7 and AVR32 studio Want to join the development? Let me know in the forumWant to know more about the project checkout the site

Update...

2011-01-21T19:10:00.000-08:00

Have ignored this blog for a while, sorry folks. The board went together without any disasters, My first designed and soldered board with a qfp144 cpu and I nailed it :) - a couple issues, but hey its beta-ish . Wrote a bunch of new code, most of which is to conform to the different hardware. screen: was vga(320x240) now 4x20 lcd buttons: was qtouch controlled now 4 tactile switches Still

Tracking waisted time on cd's

2010-11-01T19:14:00.000-07:00

Over at the official site http://renosite.com the next 60 days of wasted time playing with cd's will be recored. Every time a cd is looked for plus the load time for each cd's. This way once the production unit is up and running then will start to compare times - I bet I'll even be surprised at the saved time. line to page: Tracking info here

Well I have time on my hands...

2010-10-29T22:00:00.000-07:00

Nothing to do but wait for the board..... Started a full revamp of renosite.com. Hope to have alot more info hosted there as this project continues.

ordering board this weekend

2010-10-22T05:18:00.000-07:00

The layout looks good will be ordering my first prototype board this weekend. If everything goes as planned will be assembling the fist avr32 high speed cd emulator within a few weeks. The boards from batchpcb.com takes a few weeks to process. Then some firmware tweak and ill be up and running!

Current progress

2010-10-07T21:03:00.000-07:00

Ordering the parts for my first fully assembled prototype. Ended up deciding on a 4x20 lcd screen, sd card (iso storage) interface, 4 pushbutton interface input, AVR32 cpu (for the high speed interface), including a misc assortment of pcb parts. As soon as the parts come in i'm going to compare placement with the eagle pcb printout. If everything lays out correctly then I'll get the board printed

To open source - or - To Not open source

2010-06-28T20:22:00.000-07:00

I don't know, would like some input. I really think this needs to be developed - and open to everyone. There has already been a device realeased to the public for purchase( search iodd ). I'm thinking that selling something new like that would just slow the spread of knowledge - give it away. New devices or new thoughts patterns should be shared. And being that all of the code used in this

I'm still here.

2010-06-04T16:06:00.000-07:00

Have not worked on the project for about a month now. Got a little burned out! But in the next couple of days I will start again. I got to the point where there where only a couple of bugs left to figure out. One big bug is within atmels MassStorage framework code. On certain op codes combinations it would cause an infinite loop within the usb out stall routine, unfortunately I don't have a 100%

It's that time again.

2010-04-17T12:26:00.000-07:00

Haven't posted in a while. Well figured out where I had a major slowdown. The qtouch routine to read buttons was slowing down USB comms. Rewrote the routine and gained some speed - alot of speed. Average throughput went from 4MB per second to 13MB per second. Running a benchmark program the cdrom's raw i/o went from around 20x cdrom to 85x cdrom speed. Booted Ubuntu Live in about 40 seconds flat!

Emulation on new EVK1104 board going good

2010-04-01T15:19:00.000-07:00

Have almost all the code done on the X2 version of the emulator. Once I'm done I'll start working on the hardware end - Will be developing an AVR32 devel board of my own, Without all the extra hardware not needed. So it will be cheaper to sell these things. Besides It's next to impossible to find avr32 devel boards for under $100.00 - I figure the board itself will sell for anywhere between $40

Emulation running on evk1104

2010-03-26T20:58:00.000-07:00

Well got the emulation running a few minuts ago. the code i'm using for the sd card is not the fastest about 4mb per second. I have played around with faster, but already started down the path with this. but it's booting cd's faster that the fastest internal cdrom I have played with. good sign so far. will post back once tested further......

I'm still here

2010-03-08T19:30:00.000-08:00

Figured I'd post something, it's been a while. Still working on the EVK1104 board, if anyone tells you it's easy to switch from AVR 8bit to AVR32 bit processors they are lying! I'm finaly getting the hang of the internals of the processor. It takes alot of read of spec sheets and reading the framework code to get a grasp of things. The current dev is going to use the SD card slot for

Got the new EVK1104 dev board

2010-02-23T19:15:00.000-08:00

Received the new board on sunday, awsome device - Full graphics LCD, sd/mmc/ce-ata interfaces and tones of ram. oh yeah - high-speed usb interface and on-the-go usb hosting support. The qtouch buttons are kinda cool too. But unfortunatly the DFU bootloader is corrupted - so I have to use a jtag programmer to get the bootloader reloaded. From what I read it's a common problem. BUT I don't have a

EVK1104 AVR32

2010-02-18T20:37:00.000-08:00

Well I pulled the trigger tonight. I ordered an EVK1104 dev board. It's pricy but will give me alot more growth. Alot more memory and program space. Plus as an added bonus - High-Speed USB 480mb/s !! Can you say fast cd rom emulation! The graphic display is an added bonus. SD memory card - maybe I could do something with that. CE-ATA interface - interesting, That would use alot less data lines

Website up and running

2010-02-16T20:33:00.000-08:00

Well started a web site - I am not a web site designer! The site sucks right now but it will get better. http://renosite.com/

Sense Data - Thorn in my side!

2010-02-16T19:45:00.000-08:00

Ok, figured out how to handle the switching of cdroms the proper way. Now instead of programming a usb disconnect / reconnect to have the system scan for a cdrom change, I handle it through sense keys - Unit requiers attention / No media / Tray open, Media has changed. Able to switch cdroms in Windows in about 2 seconds. And no more cdrom disconnects. This issue was bugging me!

Found the lockup boot issue w/ random systems

2010-02-10T19:42:00.000-08:00

On boot some systems would issue the Read TOC with a SCSI allocation length of less then the 20 or so bytes i'd normaly output. So adjusted output to transfer only the allocation length of bytes and not all by default. One less bug to think about...

Just in case anyone is wondering...

2010-02-08T04:56:00.000-08:00

The USB dev board I'm using is a Teensy++ from: http://www.pjrc.com/ In the video the blob over half the board is JB Weld. Broke the usb interface twice - second time I ripped the interface right off the board. Ended up having to rebuild the Power, Ground traces and had to replace one of the usb resisters. But it still works! PS: The interface breaking was my stupidity, the board is well

Video

2010-02-07T21:49:00.000-08:00

Added video of CD Emu in action. And found a bug in the code that caused files past the 32 gig limit to not load (DUH!) forgot to add the lba + lbahighbits for the file start address. But all in all testing is going good so far.

Debug routine

2010-02-02T21:28:00.000-08:00

Added Debug routine to save all scsi commands to a Session file on the USB HDD. That way next time I run into a system that won't boot or read correctly from the CD emualtor, I just enable debug mode with session save turned on. Repeat the exact senario that caused the issue. Wait for system lockup then turn session save off and read the file at home when I have time. Next time I'll have a full

Some testing today

2010-02-01T18:02:00.000-08:00

Well had an opertunity to test at the shop today. Tested on 5 systems today. 4 worked good, booted up shop utility cd's without mishap. The 5th didn't work, it supported usb booting but would lockup when the Emulator was pluged in. Didn't have any time to toubleshoot, busy day. When I get a chance i'll try again, I have a debug mode built in where I can watch the scsi cmd's and slow them down

Beta testing

2010-01-31T10:59:00.000-08:00

Well, have all the basic routines done. Now I'm loading a bunch of cd's and testing both within a virtual machine and on my laptop. So far so good. Everything work the way it was intended. CD Emulation - ok MassStorage - ok CD Boot - works good. CD changing on the fly - good. but needs to change some scsi sense data - More Reading... Will report back after bench tests at work. (Still need to

Where it all started.....

2010-01-29T19:51:00.000-08:00

About 3 years ago ..... I'm on this service call, the service call is about one hour drive from the shop. I get there find out the registry is corrupted on the computer. OK, no biggie, I'll just boot UBCD, manually copy over a restore point and be one my way. !!@#$ - my UBCD was scratched! No Boot! Ok, take system to shop, repair there, bring back to clients place. Time and Expense for both me