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ESProFile - A Powerful ProFile/Widget Emulator and Diagnostic Tool

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AlexTheCat123:
I've just released my new ProFile emulator and diagnostic tool on GitHub, called ESProFile.

A couple years back, I developed the ArduinoFile ProFile emulator, with the goal of coming up with something that was inexpensive and easy to build. While I believe that I succeeded in accomplishing both of those things, ArduinoFile had a lot of shortcomings that made it impractical for a lot of Lisa users.

ArduinoFile worked great with the Lisa 2/5 (and presumably the Lisa 1, although I'm not sure if anybody's ever tested it on one), but things started falling apart if you tried to use it with a Lisa 2/10, a parallel card, or an XLerated Lisa. The Arduino was already being pushed to its limits on the 2/5, but the faster strobe pulses on these other Lisa configurations were just too much for it to keep up with. With some help from ArduinoFile users, I was able to come up with a couple patches that made ArduinoFile kind of work on the 2/10 and parallel card, but it was still really unreliable. And it still doesn't work with an XLerator at all!

So I decided to develop a replacement that's based around the ESP32 instead, hence the name ESProFile. And wow, it's a massive improvement! Emulation now works with every Lisa configuration I've been able to get my hands on, including with the 16MHz XLerator, and the cost is even lower than with ArduinoFile because of how cheap ESP32s are.

And, in an attempt to make things more accessible to people who don't know how to solder (and also easier for those of us who do), I've designed everything with JLCPCB's assembly service in mind. Just upload the Gerbers, the pick and place file, and the BOM to their site, and they'll fabricate and assemble 5 boards for you for about $30 or $40, including the cost of parts. You just have to add the ESP32, an interface cable, and an SD card, and you're ready to go!

ESProFile also comes in two different board versions: an internal one and an external one. The external one is designed for use outside a Lisa like a ProFile, while the internal board mounts right inside your drive cage like a Widget.

Porting the emulator mode over was fairly straightforward, although there were several major roadblocks and I also added quite a few quality-of-life improvements. However, ArduinoFile also had a very rudimentary diagnostic mode that allowed you to connect it to an actual ProFile and send over a couple basic commands for troubleshooting a drive (although it was pretty buggy). ESProFile's diagnostic mode has been greatly improved over ArduinoFile's, to the point that it now supports pretty much every command in the ProFile command set, including the 5MB and 10MB diagnostic Z8 command sets and all of the Widget's special commands. And it also has a lot of useful utility functions like drive backups and searching your disk for a particular string.

ArduinoFile didn't have enough flash to hold both emulator mode and diagnostic mode at the same time, so you had to upload new firmware to the board to switch between the two modes. But this has been solved on ESProFile, and you can change between modes by simply flipping a switch on the board!

If you think you might want to build one for yourself, feel free to check it out!

jamesdenton:
Fantastic work, sir! Looking forward to putting one together!

AlexTheCat123:
Thank you!

stepleton:
Congratulations! Looks like a fantastic little gizmo. I've thought a few times how there ought to be an ESP-powered ProFile emulator, and it sure looks like you didn't just do it halfway!

The docs and the design for production are impressive. Now, I've always been bad at arithmetic, but do I have it right that (without the cable) we're looking at a unit cost of below fifteen dollars?

AlexTheCat123:

--- Quote ---Now, I've always been bad at arithmetic, but do I have it right that (without the cable) we're looking at a unit cost of below fifteen dollars?
--- End quote ---

Yeah, that's right! I was pretty shocked that it ended up being that low; one of my biggest goals was to make it cheap, but I wasn't expecting it to be quite that affordable. Granted, if you're doing assembly through JLCPCB, you'll have to end up paying $30 or $40 for the minimum quantity of 5 boards, but that gives you 4 extra assembled boards that you could give (or sell) to your friends!

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