greaseweazle-firmware/RELEASE_NOTES

************************************
** Greaseweazle Firmware Release Notes
** Keir Fraser <keir.xen@gmail.com>
************************************

** v1.6 - 28 September 2024
 - Flux write: Whole-track writes to hard-sectored disks
 - Pre- and post-write delays: Specified by many drive datasheets
   - Required for correct interaction with offset tunnel-erase heads
 - Configurable "Index Mask", for debouncing noisy INDEX signals
 - Seek (HDD): Remove arbitrary 100-cylinder limit

** v1.5 - 19 December 2023
 - AT32F403(A): Extend SRAM from 96kB to 224kB
 - Report USB buffer size in 'gw info'
 - GCC12 build fixes
 - USB High Speed: Fix device_qualifier descriptor

** v1.4 - 22 July 2023
 - New board type: V4.1 (AT32F4xx, USB-C)

** v1.3 - 18 February 2023
 - AT32F403A: Run this MCU at 216MHz in main firmware
 - USB: Implement GET_STATUS(DEVICE) as required by USB spec
   - This fixes repeated USB resets on some Linux hosts
 - Blinky test: Fix serial baud rate (115200)

** v1.2 - 18 July 2022
 - Support AT32F403A MCU on F1 and V4 boards
 - Send MCU info to host (reported in 'gw info')

** v1.1 - 27 February 2022
 - V4: External Activity LED can be connected to pin TXO
   - TXO-RXI jumper still forces update mode
   - TXO still used for serial logging in debug firmware builds
 - GetPin: Report on all pins also supported by SetPin
 - ReadFlux: Don't report missing index if read is not index-terminated
 - GetInfo: New sub-pages CurrentDrive and Drive_n
   - Report motor, cylinder#, and flippy drive status

** v1.0 - 26 December 2021
 - Firmware is now released separately from the host tools
 - No firmware changes since v0.31 (apart from the version bump)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
All versions below include firmware and host tools in a combined release.

** v0.33 - 14 December 2021
 - Support high-density Amiga images (1760kB ADF)
 - IPF: Automatic write verification
 - New format specifiers for Acorn DFS and ADFS
 - New image handlers for Acorn: ADS, ADM, ADL, SSD, DSD

** v0.32 - 14 December 2021
 - New format specifiers for IBM, Atari ST and Commodore 1581
 - New image handlers for *.ST and *.D81

** v0.31 - 8 October 2021
 - F1: Support Low-Density STM32F103C6 chips, 32k Flash, 10k SRAM
 - V4: Increase USB buffer size from 16kB to 64kB

** v0.30 - 12 August 2021
 - New board type: V4 Slim (AT32F403 MCU, laptop drive interface)
 - F7 Slim: Support Disk Change Detect (used by WinUAE floppy bridge)

** v0.29 - 29 July 2021
 - gw read/write: Fix memory leak, reducing memory usage by approx 10x
 - gw bandwidth: Test USB connection integrity
 - New board type: F1 Plus (Unbuffered)

** v0.28 - 22 June 2021
 - V4: Improve USB bandwidth and double MCU clock speed to 144MHz
   - Fixes "gw bandwidth" warnings
 - Firmware: New command CMD_NOCLICK_STEP.
   - Used by Rob Smith's WinUAE bridge to implement noclick
 - "gw pin": Split into "gw pin set" and "gw pin get"

** v0.27 - 12 May 2021
 - EDSK: Support writing KBI-19 protection tracks
 - EDSK: Support next IDAM in preceding sector's GAP
 - gw seek: New option --motor-on to enable drive motor while seeking
 - New firmware command: CMD_GET_PIN to interrogate input floppy pins
 - New board type: V4 (using AT32F4xx MCUs)
 - New board type: F1 Plus (enhanced BP adapter board by Monideth Pen)

** v0.26 - 26 March 2021
 - Support new Greaseweazle model: F7 v3 "Thunderbolt"
 - EDSK: Support for writing many protected EDSK files
 - Windows 7: Disable jumperless firmware update as it hangs.
 - Default head-step delay is doubled to 10ms.

** v0.25 - 27 February 2021
 - EDSK: Support for writing unprotected EDSK files
 - SCP: Allow disktype header byte to be specified (eg "a.scp::disktype=amiga")
 - SCP: Fix import of non-index-cued SCP imnage files
 - AmigaDOS: Mark bad sectors with explicit pattern "-=[BAD SECTOR]=-"
 - read/write: Add a --retries parameter used if analyse/verify stage fails
 - clean: New command to clean a drive using a cleaning disk
 - gw: New global option --time to print elapsed time taken by an operation
 - gw: Improve reliability of USB connection reset when starting an operation
 - flippy: Improve reliability for Panasonic modded drives (find true trk0)
 - Linux/Mac: setup.sh better error reporting when run from wrong folder

** v0.24 - 14 January 2021
 - Index-cue generated Kryoflux and SCP image files
   - Most external tools and emulators fail with non-cued streams
 - gw write: New precomp command-line option (see the wiki)
 - gw: Backward compatibility with older firmware (only back to v0.23)
 - Safer bootloader update (CRC check before erasing existing bootloader)

** v0.23 - 13 January 2021
 - Support new Greaseweazle model: F7 Slim
 - Read/write/verify 1.44M IMG image files
 - Read/write Kryoflux stream files
 - Optimisations:
   - Rewrite read/verify conversion routines in C
   - Fast Amiga track reads (now read an Amiga disk in approx 45 seconds)
 - Shrink the Windows distribution zip file
 - GW: New track-selection syntax ("--track="). See the wiki.

** v0.22 - 27 November 2020
 - Support read and write of Amiga ADF image files
 - Increase /STEP pulse width to 15us (fix 5.25" drive seek for Arno Olaf)
 - Flippy drives: support 'gw seek' down to track -8
 - Revised USB protocol

** v0.21 - 10 September 2020
 - Support new Greaseweazle model: F7 Lightning Plus
 - Fixes for older drives
   - 50us index mask, avoid double triggering on the index signal
   - Increase default head-step delay to 5ms
 - Windows: Install the CAPS/SPS IPF library automatically
 - New command 'gw seek' to seek to specified drive cylinder
 - New syntax for specifying Greaseweazle device name on command line
   - eg 'gw read --device COM3 a.scp'

** v0.20 - 1 July 2020
 - gw write: New options --erase-empty and --double-step
 - gw update: Fix COM redetect on Windows running Bitdefender
 - Support version 2 of Ant Goffart's F7 Plus
 - SCP: support legacy single-sided SCP images
   - Automatic import; Export via ::legacy_ss suffix
     - eg. gw read --single-sided my.scp::legacy_ss
 - SCP: support SCP image files generated by FluxEngine

** v0.19 - 8 June 2020
 - F7 v2: Support for the new board design
 - gw update: Signature and CRC validation checks
 - gw read: Fix end-track field in single-sided SCP images

** v0.18 - 28 May 2020
 - gw read: New parameters --rate and --rpm
   - rate: Bitcell data rate in kbit/s (eg 250=DD 500=HD)
     - Used only for HFE images right now, where default is DD (250)
   - rpm: Normalise track timings to the given RPM value
     - This occurs before any other conversion or analysis
 - gw info: New command to display information about the Greaseweazle setup
 - gw bandwidth: Improved stats output
 - SCP: Fix single-sided image handling according to latest SCP spec.
   - Operates correctly with latest beta version of HxC software
 - F7: Support new board designs
   - AmberTronic F7 Plus: Kryoflux form factor, output buffers, 12v supply
   - F7 Lightning: High Speed USB, output buffers

** v0.17 - 19 May 2020
 - Windows: New self-contained executable distribution
   - No need to install Python, or module dependencies
 - Mac, Linux: Main script is directly executable
   - No need to manually invoke the Python interpreter
 - GW host tool: Help-text description for each available action

** v0.16 - 15 May 2020
 - F7 Firmware: Enable over-drive voltage mode
   - Required for reliable 216MHz operation (see datasheet)
 - Bootloader update:
   - 'gw.py update --bootloader' updates the bootloader
   - Not normally required
   - Failure may brick the Weazle and require full reflash: Take care!
 - Update build system to work with Windows MinGW environment

** v0.15 - 5 May 2020
 - Host tool improvements:
   - IPF: More robust conversion to raw flux for writeout
   - HFE: Fix crash when writing out HFE from third party tools
   - F7 Firmware improvements:
     - Preparation for High Speed USB (future board using 730Z8 MCU)
     - Enable Instruction and Data caches (10x execution speedup)
     - Various improvements to bandwidth as reported by 'gw.py bandwidth'
     
** v0.14 - 29 April 2020
 - IPF: Full write support (weak data, index misalignment)
 - New GW commands: bandwidth, erase
   - bandwidth: Measure USB read/write bandwidth
   - erase: Erase a disk
 - F7 USB: Improved bandwidth when writing to disk
   - Much less likely to see FluxUnderflow failures
 - update: Fix a bug which could fail to reopen the GW device for update
 - update: Automatically find the update file if filename not specified
 - Control script: Tidier notification of errors (no scary backtrace)

** v0.13 - 25 April 2020
 - HFE: Read & write support
 - IPF: Preliminary write support
   - Requires SPS/CAPS support library. See the wiki.
   - Weak data not yet supported (RNC "Protect Process" protection, & others)
   - Write splice is always rotated to the index (affects Speedlock & others)
   - Also TODO: Verified writes
 - USB: Use the VID:PID pair assigned to Greaseweazle (1209:4d69)
 - New prerequisite: 'bitarray' module. See the wiki.

** v0.12 - 10 March 2020
 - GW Autodetect: General improvements, and now works on Windows 7
 - New read parameter --double-step to double-step drive heads
   - Useful for reading a 40-cylinder disk in an 80-cylinder drive
 - New 'pin' command allows a floppy pin to be set to specified level
   - Currently supported only for pin 2 (DENSEL)
 - New 'reset' command resets the Greaseweazle to power-on settings
   - Motors off, drives deselected, power-on pin levels and delay values

** v0.11 - 21 January 2020
 - GW.py: Auto-detect the COM/serial port device name
   - The device argument is now optional!
 - USB: Provide a serial-id string to the host
   - Identifier is unique to each Greaseweazle device
   - Allows disambiguation between multiple Greaseweazle devices
   - Recommended: Full flash from HEX file (embeds serial in bootloader)
 - Ubuntu: Udev script now creates a /dev/greaseweazle symlink

** v0.10 - 17 January 2020
 - STM32F7xx: Multi-drive support via drive-select config option
   - Up to three Shugart drives or two IBM/PC drives
   - gw.py read|write --drive {a,b,0,1,2}
   - See the "Drive Select" wiki page

** v0.9 - 7 January 2020
 - Activity LED
   - Lights while a USB-issued command is in progress
   - Flashes when enumerated but idle in the firmware-update bootloader

** v0.8 - 6 January 2020
 - STM32F73xx: Various Fixes and Improvements
   - Allow Firmware Update mode to be forced via strapping Serial RX/TX
   - Fix bogus sample values at start of read flux values
   - Fix some time constants to be in units of the sample clock
 - USB: Advertise USB 2.0 device descriptor

** v0.7 - 6 December 2019
 - USB: Fix end-of-stream detection on track writes
   - Writes of empty/unformatted tracks sometimes hung forever
 - No Flux Area: Firmware automatically masters long NFAs during track writes
   - Generating no flux transitions does not read back as a NFA
 - STM32F73xx: Initial support for new STM32 MCU
   - Two HEX files are included: Use Greaseweazle-F1-* for existing boards!
   - Single unified UPD file containing both firmware images

** v0.6 - 15 November 2019
 - gw.py: Big overhaul of underlying Python package
   - Action (read, write, update) must come first on the command line
   - eg. "python3 gw.py read --ecyl=39 foo.scp COM3"
 - gw.py: New action "delays" to print/set delay parameters
   - eg. "python3 gw.py delays --step=10000" to increase step time to 10ms

** v0.5 - 11 November 2019
 - USB: Overhaul the protocol and allow writes to be terminated at index
   - Terminate-at-index is always used by current Python control script
   - Terminate-at-index prevents an over-long write from overwriting itself
   - Fix interruption of track writes (eg. KeyboardInterrupt)
 - gw.py: New option --adjust-speed to normalise flux times for target drive
   - Measures RPM of the target drive and calculates an adjustment factor

** v0.4 - 5 November 2019
 - Blinky: Diagnostic test firmware to detect fake STM32 chips
   - https://github.com/keirf/greaseweazle/wiki/STM32-Fakes
 - Floppy Write: Fix for very short flux timings
 - Floppy Read: Fix for very long flux timings
 - USB: Small improvement to double-buffer logic

** v0.3 - 30 October 2019
 - Bootloader: Fix Programming-Jumper detection
 - Read Track: Various minor fixes
 - SCP: Fix the SCP file headers generated by "gw.py read"
 ** IMPORTANT USER INSTRUCTIONS **:
 - Users must serial-update using the v0.3 HEX file
   - DO NOT update from v0.2 using the UPD file
 - May need to install the crcmod package: eg "pip3 install crcmod"

** v0.2 - 29 October 2019
 - USB: Fix hangs during "gw.py read"
   - Thanks to Charlie Smurthwaite for telling me how to fix this!
 - USB: Improved bandwidth (double-buffered IN/OUT endpoints)
   - Reduces risk of buffer underflow/overflow during disk operations
 - Firmware Update: Requires a jumper across A14 (aka DCL) and GND
   - eg. "python gw.py update Greaseweazle-v0.2.upd COM3"

** v0.1 - 17 October 2019
 - First release