The HxC SD card reader is an excellent addition to your old Fairlight.
The HxC is a Floppy drive emulator.
The Floppy disk drives are 40 years old and hard to maintain, repair & replace.
I highly recommend you email Jean-Bernard of MUSTUDIO for one.
I purchased the kit from mustudio.fr
Many thanks also to Peter W for his help in it's installation.
The Flash player uses a SD card to emulate 2 virtual drives. (A & B).
Compatable cards are SDHC up to 32MB.
Formated in FAT 32.... use a PC (not a MAC) to format the card.
I found navigation of the file structure in the SD card a bit confusing at first.
This is how it seems to be set up:
You only need to use the "Systems" and the "sounds" sections.
I like to configure the system to use two virtual drives.
That is, I'll bypass the use of the Floppy Drives completely.
Left switch : up
Right switch : Down
1. Turn on the Fairlight.
The monitor will as is usual display "Load System disk in drive"
2. "Systems" should be shown on the display.
If not, use the left/right buttons to rectify till you find "systems".
(pressing the left/right buttons will move you between Systems, Sounds & QDOS)
4. Using right button, step through till the desired software is shown.
(Revision 20). Hit enter.
The Fairlight will now load the operating system
It bleeps as it steps through sectors. The monitor should eventually show Page 1
The LCD will change... You are entering the "Function Menu" Mode.
6. Toggle through options till "change drive" appears.
Hit "Enter"
7. Toggle until "B" appears.
Hit Enter
8. The LCD display will show the software revision.
Toggle left until only dots appear.
9. Systems should reappear. ![]()
10. Toggle left till "sounds" shows.
Hit enter
Hit enter
You should see displayed the contents of the virtual disk.
10. Toggling left & right should show the contents of each virtual disk.
Test by loading a file.
EG:
Type L,A,filename<return> to load a file.
eg to load a file named GONG1.VC
type L,A,GONG1 <return>
You don't need to add the .VC after the file name.
eg to load a file named GONG1.VC
type L,A,GONG1 <return>
You don't need to add the .VC after the file name.