Hi everybody,

I don't usually come here as I don't have a MorphOS machine (more on that later :) ).

However, I was wondering....

People who use AmigaOS 4 or AROS may be aware that I've been writing drivers for these systems to support the Catweasel Mk3 and particularly the Mk4(+). As I understand it, though, there's no support in MorphOS?

My question is this: is there a way that I can port the driver to MorphOS, with the simple proviso that I don't spend any money? I'd like to see it supported under all 3 Amigoid systems, but I'm completely and utterly skint. Is there a way to get sponsors or a development machine? I have a Mac Mini (1.25GHz PPC) but that's no good for Catweasel support (no PCI!), and I can't afford the MorphOS license anyway!

Of course, it's all open source, so if someone else wants to port it I'm happy to collaborate.

Current features:

Various formats supported (all read and write):
* Amiga DD/HD disks
* PC DD/HD disks
* C64 1541 disks
* Macintosh DD (400K (untested) and 800K), HD (just not got round to it yet - trivial job as they're similar to MS-DOS HD)
* Atari 400/800/XL/XE 90K FM (1050 disk drive)
* Western Digital WD1770 (BBC 'B', TI-99/4A et al) 3.5"/5.25"
* NEC uPD765A (3.0" Amstrad CPC, Amstrad PCW, Sinclair Spectrum +3 - can add more platforms using this chip easily)
* Probably Atari ST (not tested... yet - but it's the same as MS-DOS I believe)
* soon anything else I can get my grubby mitts on.

Catweasel Prefs program to set the type of drive attached, and which SIDs are enabled. You can connect 40 track 3.0"/5.25" drives (the latter untested for now), 80 track 300rpm DD 3.0"/3.5"/5.25" (the latter needs a few tweaks when I get round to it, but I don't have one..), 80 track HD 300rpm 3.5", or 360rpm 5.25" drives.

Mono and Stereo SID support - currently Vice 2.2 supports it with a special compile, I'm trying to get the changes merged with the main build.

GUI-based disk imager - uses MUI so will be dead easy to port.

I've also added Catweasel joystick, mouse and keyboard support to JanusUAE under AROS. The device comes in two files: catweasel.device and catweaselsid.device (the catweaselsid.device uses the same read/write system as Windows, so it's easy to port).

Does anyone have an interest in this?

Thanks,

Hi,
I have a Pegasos2 G3 with morphos 2.x key that i could lend you for the port if that's any use?

I an interested in having MorphOS drivers for any/all of the Catweasel cards. There was a recent thread here (Andreas will no doubt provide a link to it in a few moments) that discussed the Catweasel and showed that there are several members here that would be interested in having native MorphOS drivers for all functions of those cards.

If someone sends me the Catweasel hardware, I might consider to port the driver ....
I'm just not keen on spending >= 100EUR on it ....

> Andreas will no doubt provide a link to it in a few moments

At your command, Sir ;-)

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=7329&forum=11

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Hopefully someone closer to you than myself will offer to lend you their Catweasel card to get the driver written. If not, let me know and I will send you mine.

If you get hold of one, just give me a yell for the latest sources!

I would really be interested in such a driver for my Catweasel MK3.

pega1

wow thats a cool offer. i'm sure someone will send one to you. this is good news... read and write is very important. It was nice when ihad peg1 with CW3.. good for getting Amiga programs installed on morphos and transfering files to old amigas.

Would a Catweasel card work in a Powermac, or does it require a motherboard that has a floppy controller.
If it could work, I'd support it. A 3.5 drive would fit in nicely in place of the Zip drive.

> Would a Catweasel card work in a Powermac

I see no reason why it shouldn't.

"it's a PCI board for modern PCs, MACs and the new AmigaOne."
http://www.icomp.de/products/cwmk3_e.htm

"The Catweasel MK4 is delivered with drivers for Linux, XP/2000, Amiga OS4, and for Mac OS X at a later date."
http://www.icomp.de/news/news99_e.htm

> does it require a motherboard that has a floppy controller.

The Catweasel has its own floppy controller. That's the main purpose of the card.

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I found nothing in my mail yet, so I somehow doubt it .... :)

If I can't convince Jens, or someone from AmigaKit, or Vesalia to donate a card to you for development to proceed, I will send you my personal Catweasel card.

Does anyone know if the drivers for the Mk3 Flipper card and the Mk4 PCI only card are the same? IIRC, I have one of each and could send pega1 the Mk4 card and keep my Mk3 Flipper card and hope that what ever drivers are created for the Mk4 Catweasel will work on my Mk3 Flipper card.

I'll have a chance to talk to Matthew of AmigaKit during the AmiWest 2010 Show in a few weeks, and if we can't find a way to get a Catweasel card to pega1 by then, I will give mine to Matthew of AmigaKit to send to pega1, or ship it to him myself.

So, worst case it will take a few weeks to get a Catweasel card to pega1. Patience.

I've got no access to a CW Mk3, I'm afraid, so I don't know if the drivers work or not.
However, I do know that before I got stuck into them, they were supposed to work. I may have broken one or two things, I'm not sure, but if I have they'll be small things.

Basically, if it doesn't work with the Mk3 already, we can probably make it work quite easily, as the two are (for what I'm using it for) very similar.

I don't know if anyone here saw, but I posted on some Amiga sites that I've put up a basic support page: http://www.retroreview.com/iang/Catweasel/

So is there still any interest to get this card working with MorphOS ?

I was very kindly sent a Peg II so I now have a MorphOS machine to work on!

I need to get the Catweasel drivers up to speed, but it will be done when I get time. :)

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That is great news! Will it be weeks, or several months of work to complete the MorphOS2.x drivers for the Catweasel cards? Will the same drivers work on both the Mk3 and Mk4 Catweasel cards?

I briefly looked at your support page for the Catweasel (nice work), so I don't know everything that it contains yet. Are the AmigaOS4.x drivers still being refined, or are they already completed and bug-fixed?

@pega-1,

Are you looking for a gift of a Catweasel card to keep after you have completed the dirver(s), or would you consider borrowing and returning a Catweasel card to complete the driver work?

If it a gift, I will contribute 20 euros towards getting you one,
so if we can get another 4/5ths of the money to purchase one for you from other members here that want such drivers, and/or get a reduced price from Jens to sell one for development purposes at a lower price, we should be able to get a Catweasel card to you somehow. If you only want to borrow a Catweasel card, I hope someone that lives in the UK, or EU can let you borrow their card, as it would cost more to send my card to you and then have it sent back, than it would for me to donate the 20 euros toward buying a card for you.
Yes, there is still interest in using a Catweasel with MorphOS2.6

I would like to donate somehow. I can spare a few euros and I am sure others can and will.

Perhaps we can get A. Siegel to set up a bounty here to get a Catweasel Mk4 card for pega-1 so he can work on drivers for it?

Well, if it could be used in my Powermac to read the formats I've seen listed, I'm all for it. Powermacs support of Zip disks seems pointless as USB drives have surpassed Zip disks in capacity and speed (I don't even have one in my Quicksilvewr), but I wouldn't mind having a controller to access Amiga (and other) floppy disks.

What sort of disk drives will we need to use such a controller?

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Standard PC floppy drives are all that is needed connected to the Catweasel floppy drive controller, but you might have to check which brands are proven to work better than others.

I know that Zip drives are mostly useless anymore, but I found one and installed it into my G4 PowerMac for the simple reason that I have many Zip drives and cartridges/discs that I have used for years with my Classic Amiga computers, both internal and external drives. They are not worth anything anymore, so selling them is a waste of time, but using them for "Sneaker Net" file transfers to Classic Amiga computers that do not have a network connection to my LAN, is still a great use of something I already own and still works.

Finding the MDD bezel/face plate with the slot for the Zip drive was a lot harder than finding a drive, but I was lucky and got it with a 750mb Zip drive for a cheap price.

Once there are drivers to use the Catweasel Mk3, or Mk4 cards with MorphOS2.x, I will have to decide if I want to keep the Zip drive and set up some kind of external floppy drive with a custom cable to the internal Catweasel card, or to remove the Zip drive and install a floppy drive in it's place.

Hopefully the slot for the Zip drive in the bezel/faceplate will line up with a PC floppy drive when it is installed in place of the Zip drive.

Now that spirantho has a PegII that somebody sent him (i wonder who it was? , he has said he will port the drivers to MorphOS2.x. That should at least provide CW support on PegII, Powermac might be a different story though. I expect though that if a Powermac is needed by spirantho for driver development one might turn up on his doorstep.

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I think any Catweasel Mk4 driver written for MorphOS2.x will work in any computer running MorphOS2.x.

The drivers are OS specific, not computer specific, just like a Windows driver for a printer or sound card work the same in a Dell computer as they do in an Acer, or Compaq computer.

Thanks for donating the Peg2 to spirantho so he can work on the dirvers.

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That's what i would hope too but sometimes specific issues arise, so a powermac would be available if needed. However it wouldn't be supplied with a morphos keyfile like the PegII was.

Has anyone tried the 68k drivers on their powermacs?. I find it interesting altough i have a mini, but in the future a powermac could come, so it would rock to use my mkIV on MorphOS.