OK, a little intro: I know nothing about Amiga. I have two, one donated and one I found in a cold night of many years ago in the trash bin, rescued (ignoring my wife's complain ;-) and fixed. But again, I've never used one, actually (I know better the 8 bit Commodore computers). Just to explain why this tutorial will probably seem a little dumb for the ones who know Amiga.
HARDWARE:
I'm talking here about the V.1 version (I've built this one because I had all the needed parts, except the PCB I got from PCBway).
According with the schematics, all the other parts are optional. You can power the board by the Arduino USB port. I didn't put the LEDs yet because I'm waiting for the transistors.
SOFTWARE:
Here is where things are getting tricky. If you just own a stock Amiga with floppy, it will not be enough. You need a Gotek (or Lotharek) floppy disk emulator connected to your Amiga, because you need some extra files on your boot disk.
EDIT: I've later found a project about reading and writing Amiga floppy from PC using an Arduino Nano/Uno: http://amiga.robsmithdev.co.uk/instructions. I didn't try it yet, though. If you don't like FDD emulators, this could be another way, maybe.
Since the WB is still protected by copyright but of course you can find them on Google I will only attach here the needed files you need to add to the WB 1.3.3 image
(I used the _"Workbench v1_3_3 rev 3434 (1990)(Commodore)(A500-A2000)(Disk 1 of 2)(Workbench)" image)
As told, this worked for MY setup: Amiga 500 with Kickstart 1.3 and Workbench 1.3.3 (afaik the 1.3 version is the minimum required, previous KS/WB will not work).
Now, get the "files required for sdbox.zip" file attached to this post and unzip it in some folder.
You will see a structure like this:
\
fat95.info
DEVS
+--SD0
+--SD0.info
+--spid.device
L
+--fat95
+--install95
(I'm not sure if the files marked with "*" are needed, actually, but -hey!- this is the first image that worked after many failed attempts, so it's ok for me ;-)
Open the ADF workbench image, in example _Workbench v1_3_3 rev 3434 (1990)(Commodore)(A500-A2000)(Disk 1 of 2)(Workbench) and click on the "Disk Browser" button. You will need to delete some files to make space on the disk.
From the UTILITIES folder I removed calculator, calculator.info, clock, clock.info, installprinter, installprinter.info
Now grab the whole structure (files and folders) from the "files required for sdbox.zip" file and drop into the HxCFloppyEmulator Floppy Browser. Check that the files were dropped into the right folders (NOTE: you can't drop a single file inside a folder; you must to drop the whole structure, files and folders. It will drop everything in the root of the floppy disk image, preserving the folder structure).
Then, click the Save/Export button and choose the right extension for your image.
Lotharek emulators, should be the HFE type (at least my old one: it doesn't accept ADF files).
Gotek emulators, should be the ADS type (I guess: I just bought one by it didn't arrive it yet).
AMIGA 500 WB 1.3 (can't say about other model/WB):
About the SD card, how to format, etc.: see below, where I'm talking about the errors
Boot with the Lotharek/Gotek emulator and your modded image. Open the Workbench, open the shell, and type:
mount sd0: from devs/sd0
cd sd0:
dir sd0:
1) "can't find sd0:" (iirc; something like this)
2) a windows with the message "lesefehler 20 bei block " (or "read error 20 at block ")
in my case both messages were related with bad or bad partitioned/formatted SD card. I tried three different SD cards before to get the rid of this. THIS THING IS REALLY PICKY WITH SDCARD and not all of them are recognized! If you have some trouble, try another brand/partition/format.
I used AOMEI Partition Assistant 9.6.1 to create a small partition (less than 2 Gb) and to format it as FAT16 (should work with FAT32, I didn't test it yet).
Please feel free to correct me or to add any comment below if I went wrong or I missed some important info.
OK, a little intro: I know nothing about Amiga. I have two, one donated and one I found in a cold night of many years ago in the trash bin, rescued (ignoring my wife's complain ;-) and fixed. But again, I've never used one, actually (I know better the 8 bit Commodore computers). Just to explain why this tutorial will probably seem a little dumb for the ones who know Amiga.
HARDWARE:
I'm talking here about the V.1 version (I've built this one because I had all the needed parts, except the PCB I got from PCBway).
The minimum required for a working unit is:
According with the schematics, all the other parts are optional. You can power the board by the Arduino USB port. I didn't put the LEDs yet because I'm waiting for the transistors.
SOFTWARE: Here is where things are getting tricky. If you just own a stock Amiga with floppy, it will not be enough. You need a Gotek (or Lotharek) floppy disk emulator connected to your Amiga, because you need some extra files on your boot disk.
EDIT: I've later found a project about reading and writing Amiga floppy from PC using an Arduino Nano/Uno: http://amiga.robsmithdev.co.uk/instructions. I didn't try it yet, though. If you don't like FDD emulators, this could be another way, maybe.
Since the WB is still protected by copyright but of course you can find them on Google I will only attach here the needed files you need to add to the WB 1.3.3 image (I used the _"Workbench v1_3_3 rev 3434 (1990)(Commodore)(A500-A2000)(Disk 1 of 2)(Workbench)" image)
files required for sdbox.zip
As told, this worked for MY setup: Amiga 500 with Kickstart 1.3 and Workbench 1.3.3 (afaik the 1.3 version is the minimum required, previous KS/WB will not work).
You can open and edit the ADF images using the HxC Floppy Emulator Tool from this page (scroll the page until the "software" section: https://hxc2001.com/download/floppy_drive_emulator/
Now, get the "files required for sdbox.zip" file attached to this post and unzip it in some folder. You will see a structure like this: \ fat95.info DEVS +--SD0 +--SD0.info +--spid.device L +--fat95 +--install95
(I'm not sure if the files marked with "*" are needed, actually, but -hey!- this is the first image that worked after many failed attempts, so it's ok for me ;-)
Open the ADF workbench image, in example _Workbench v1_3_3 rev 3434 (1990)(Commodore)(A500-A2000)(Disk 1 of 2)(Workbench) and click on the "Disk Browser" button. You will need to delete some files to make space on the disk. From the UTILITIES folder I removed calculator, calculator.info, clock, clock.info, installprinter, installprinter.info
Now grab the whole structure (files and folders) from the "files required for sdbox.zip" file and drop into the HxCFloppyEmulator Floppy Browser. Check that the files were dropped into the right folders (NOTE: you can't drop a single file inside a folder; you must to drop the whole structure, files and folders. It will drop everything in the root of the floppy disk image, preserving the folder structure).
Then, click the Save/Export button and choose the right extension for your image. Lotharek emulators, should be the HFE type (at least my old one: it doesn't accept ADF files). Gotek emulators, should be the ADS type (I guess: I just bought one by it didn't arrive it yet).
AMIGA 500 WB 1.3 (can't say about other model/WB):
About the SD card, how to format, etc.: see below, where I'm talking about the errors
Boot with the Lotharek/Gotek emulator and your modded image. Open the Workbench, open the shell, and type: mount sd0: from devs/sd0 cd sd0: dir sd0:
IF you get any error, there's a good thread about that: https://github.com/jbilander/sdbox/issues/2
However, the two big errors I got were:
1) "can't find sd0:" (iirc; something like this) 2) a windows with the message "lesefehler 20 bei block" (or "read error 20 at block ")
in my case both messages were related with bad or bad partitioned/formatted SD card. I tried three different SD cards before to get the rid of this. THIS THING IS REALLY PICKY WITH SDCARD and not all of them are recognized! If you have some trouble, try another brand/partition/format.
I used AOMEI Partition Assistant 9.6.1 to create a small partition (less than 2 Gb) and to format it as FAT16 (should work with FAT32, I didn't test it yet).
Please feel free to correct me or to add any comment below if I went wrong or I missed some important info.