Floppy drive ????

3 comments to Floppy drive ????

• pucc_unknown

  February 26, 1998 at 12:11 am

  Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 00:11:38 -0600
  Reply-To: Jeremiah Coleman
  Sender: COCO – Tandy Color Computer List
  From: Jeremiah Coleman
  Subject: Re: Floppy drive ????

  At 01:07 AM 2/26/98 LCL, Roger Merchberger wrote:
  >MFM recorded High Density — These are the 1.2Meg IBM 5.25″ floppy drives.
  >A few of these drives have the jumper capacity to be downgraded to the Quad
  >Density status; otherwise they won’t work on the CoCo to my knowledge.
  >For IBM 3.5″ floppies, these are the 1.44Meggers. These will work
  >successfully provided: 1 you disable the High density capability of the
  >drive either via jumper selection or permanantly enabling the DD switch,
  >or 2 use only 720K media to manually enable the DD switch — 1.44Meg
  >floppies as a rule — I’m not counting SCSI floppies or using FHL’s
  >Eliminator controller which was good for only OS-9 are not possible on the
  >CoCo.

  Small correction, most at least all of the dozens/hundreds I’ve worked
  with 3.5″ 1.44′s will work as DD 720K drives _even_ with 1.44 media
  provided one places a piece of tape over upper-left hand hole in the
  disk casing. I only throw this in cuz its damn difficult to find
  3.5″ DD disks anymore, and I happen to have an old PC system
  whose BIOS just plain can’t figure out where the hell all these
  sectors are supposed to be…

  Jay

  —————————————————————
  | Jeremiah Coleman ICQ#-1705655 ranger [at] 1stnet [dot] com |
  | “Luke, stay away from the darker side, |
  | and if you ever go astray, let the force be your guide” |
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• pucc_unknown

  February 26, 1998 at 12:32 am

  Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 00:32:04 -0600
  Reply-To: Carl Boll – System Operator
  Sender: COCO – Tandy Color Computer List
  From: Carl Boll – System Operator
  Subject: Re: Floppy drive ????
  In-Reply-To: <199802260322 [dot] VAA26365 [at] mail [dot] xnet [dot] com> from “G. Douglas Burton” at
  Feb 25, 98 10:20:50 pm

  While thinking of something else G. Douglas Burton’s fingers typed:
  #>
  #> I bought a floppy drive with controller off of someone on this list last
  #> year. Sorry, can’t remember who right at the moment. Anyway, I want to
  #> replace the single full-height floppy with 2 half-height units. My first
  #> question is will the power supply in the case support 2 drives? And
  #> secondly, how are the drives setup for the controller? The old drive has
  #> jumpers and uses the cable connector nearest to the computer. I can’t find
  #> any such jumpers on the newer half-height drives. Any help greatly
  #> appreciated…
  #>
  #>
  #> =AF`=B7.=B8=B8.=B7=B4=AF`=B7.=B8=B8.=B7=B4=AF`=B7.=B8=B8.=B7=B4=AF`=B7.=B8=
  #> =B8.=B7=B4=AF
  #> { Just a message from Doug }
  #> { http://www.seidata.com/~gdburton }
  #> =B8=B8.=B7=B4=AF`=B7.=B8=B8.=B7=B4=AF`=B7.=B8=B8.=B7=B4=AF`=B7.=B8=B8.=B7=
  #> =B4=AF`=B7.=B8
  #>

  OK, I assume that since it has a full height drive the power supply
  is sturdy enough to handle two half height drives and I also assume
  that you can mount them in there.

  You can only use low density drives with the CoCo. These are getting
  very hard to find new. The High density 5 1/4″ drives will not
  work. You need to set the jumper for drive 0 to be drive 0 and
  drive 1 as drive 1. The cable should be a straight through
  cable with no pulled teeth or unconnected wires.

  Carl
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• pucc_unknown

  February 26, 1998 at 1:07 am

  Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 01:07:39 LCL
  Reply-To: Roger Merchberger
  Sender: COCO – Tandy Color Computer List
  From: Roger Merchberger
  Subject: Re: Floppy drive ????

  ;- Clearing the snow from my glasses, I saw Carl Boll – System Operator
  typed:

  snip

  >You can only use low density drives with the CoCo.

  Carl & all,

  I really don’t want to sound like a:

  1 turd,
  2 broken record,
  3 nitpicker,

  but: when speaking of 5.25 / 3.5″ disk drives, there is no such thing as
  *low* density. Yes, this has been beat into dust, but it can give newcomers
  a period of confusion when they go looking for “low density drives” and
  come up empty handed.

  One more time, from the top — a 1, a 2, a 3 and a 4…. ;-

  FM recorded Single Density — this is the lowest density available. The
  CoCo never used this as a standard.

  FM recorded Enhanced Density — this was roughly 1.5x Single density. The
  only systems that used this to my knowledge were the Atari 8-bit machines.

  MFM recorded Double Density — this is what the CoCos have used all their
  life. Big surprise, these disks had the ability to store twice the amount
  of info as the Single Density disks. The first CoCo disk drives were 35
  track single sided double-density Shugart I think floppy drives.

  MFM recorded Quad Density — this IIRC — I’ve never actually owned quad
  density drives is the term used for 96TPI double-density 80-track 5.25″
  720K drives. Again, I’m not totally clear on this one, but I think this is
  right.

  MFM recorded High Density — These are the 1.2Meg IBM 5.25″ floppy drives.
  A few of these drives have the jumper capacity to be downgraded to the Quad
  Density status; otherwise they won’t work on the CoCo to my knowledge.
  For IBM 3.5″ floppies, these are the 1.44Meggers. These will work
  successfully provided: 1 you disable the High density capability of the
  drive either via jumper selection or permanantly enabling the DD switch,
  or 2 use only 720K media to manually enable the DD switch — 1.44Meg
  floppies as a rule — I’m not counting SCSI floppies or using FHL’s
  Eliminator controller which was good for only OS-9 are not possible on the
  CoCo.

  MFM recorded Extra-High Density 3.5″ only — These are the IBMmer 2.88Meg
  floppies. They are fully compatible with the 1.44Meggers, and with 720K
  media can be used on a CoCo, but full 1.44Meg or 2.88Meg capacity is not
  possible with a CoCo.

  Please note: The difference between Single, Enhanced and Double densities
  is a function of the controller, not the drive itself.

  I know — This is not complete or perfect, and changes, corrections,
  additions or embellishments are more than welcome. I hope this helps!

  Roger “Merch” Merchberger
  –
  Roger Merchberger | If at first you don’t succeed,
  Owner, MerchWare | nuclear warhead disarmament should
  zmerch [at] northernway [dot] net | *not* be your first career choice.