Rookie Drive FDD ROM v2.1

It’s been a while since the last update of the FDD ROM for Rookie Drive. Konamiman has published v2.1, which contains few but yummy improvements including:

• The ability to connect FDD devices through an USB self-powered hub. This will be useful for cases where the MSX itself can barely (or just can’t) provide enough power for the drive to function.
• Proper support for single sided disks. This includes the appropriate sector number translation (when the drive itself doesn’t do it) and a new “360K” option for the FORMAT command.
• The driver now implements its own XFER routine, and uses it when the system routine isn’t available. This happens in games that boot in the MSX BASIC environment but then manually switch RAM in page 1 and transfer disk data there.
• Fixed (or rather, a workaround has been implemented) for a bug that causes the DSKCHG routine to crash in disk emulation mode, this affected games like e.g. Xak.
• It’s now possible to disable the ROM by pressing DEL while booting, this will be handy for flashing upgrades on Rookie Drive cartridges that don’t have a physical switch.

An additional (and quite unsurprising) change, relevant for developers this time, is that now Nestor80 is required for assembling the source code.

Relevant link: Rookie Drive FDD ROM v2.1

Source: https://www.msx.org/news/en/rookie-drive-fdd-rom-v21