Catweasel Floppy Controllers

Catweasel Product Family

Catweasel is a universal floppy disk controller that uses unmodified PC diskdrives. The Catweasel can handle nearly any disk format, you just have to find a drive for them. Normally, these drives are just 3.5 inch and 5.25 inch drives. PC floppy drives used to be known as being able to work with PC formatted disks only, but now you can access any of the disk formats listed further below. We're updating the software regularly since 1996. Here's the list of the supported formats.

* all PC-formats (180K up to 1440K)
* Amiga DD and HD (also 5,25" formats)
* Atari 9, 10 and 11 sektor disks
* Macintosh 720K, 800K, 1440K (DD, GCR, HD)
* Commodore 1541, 1571, 1581 (C64, C128 and 3,5" C-64 disks)
* XTRA High density with 2380KByte per disk
* Nintendo backup station 1600KB format
* Atari 800XL (all MFM formats, FM under developement)
* Apple IIe disks (Apple DOS 3.3 and up)
* further 8-bit formats planned

Sophisticated error correction algorithms enable you to read otherwise unreadable disks. In other words, you have an excellent chance to read your formally unreadable floppy disks.
You can connect up to two drives to the Catweasel, and the two drives can be any combination of 3.5" and 5.25".

CATWEASEL MK IV

Technical specifications:

PCI bus, 2.5 inch (63.5mm) height

Built-in Kylwalda: the MK4 has the option of using the existing diskdrives

Support for auto-eject drives (ones without eject button)

Hard-sectored disks supported in hardware

Dual-ported memory allows realtime emulation, and error-free function of copy-protected software on emulators

More flexible read- and write operations: on partial tracks even.

Extensive timer-functions: to deal with Windows and Hyperthreading Processors.

All events can trigger an interrupt (IRQ): solution for multitasking Operating Systems. The driver software does not have to check regularly if the controller needs attention, which reduces the processor load.

Keyboard Interface for: Amiga-keyboards, PS/2 devices (mouse & keyboards) can now also be connected.

Amiga mice, analog joysticks, CD32 pads supported in hardware

SID chip improvements: DC-DC converter eliminates noise from other devices, cycle exact control using sophisticated script-language for SID control, digiboost for new SID versions (8580, 6582), selectable filter capacitors, precise clocking, and two SIDs for stereo sound.

Drivers for Linux, Windows XP/2000 and Classic Amiga with PCI expansion.
Coming soon: drivers for Amiga OS4, and Mac OS X.

CATWEASEL MK I

Technical specifications:

ISA bus

The program used to operate it is using DOS shell. Costs less than PCI version and works great under Win9x.

CATWEASEL MK II

Technical specifications:

Zorro bus, Buddha Flash IDE controller and a Catweasel MK2 on the same card.

can also connect Silversurfer Limited Edition to it via its 26-pin expansion port.

This card allows the addition of up to 2 floppy drives and 6 IDE devices. It can use cheap PC floppy drives, both 3.5" and 5.25" in any combination as well as other formats. This card is basically a combination of the Catweasel and the Buddha IDE controller. You cannot however boot from the floppy drives. Reading PC formatted disks is 2.15 times faster than using a native drive, and Amiga formatted disks are 1.3 times faster.