HD floppy on classic Amiga

[z36ra]

Best I can do on this.
Any suggestions are welcome.
click here

[iamaboringperson]

wouldnt you be better off just using a zip drive?

[PaSha]

Quote from the web page:
"approximately twice as fast as 2HD mode because of the higher rotation speed in 2HD mode. "

The rotation speed is the same in 2DD and 2HD on a normal pc drive (300 rpm). AFAIK The only drives that have different speeds for DD and HD, are Amiga specific HD drives (Chinon FB-357A and FZ-357A). These drives run at half the speed in HD mode (150 rpm, because Paula can't handle more...). This issue is the biggest problem when it comes to converting a PC HD drive to Amiga HD. You will somehow have to make the drive drop to half speed when reading/writing HD disks. Look on aminet for more details, I know there's at least one file detailing these problems.

another quote:
"I think it would be interesting to discuss the possibility of building an adaptor that would fit on the ribbon cable to convert a PC floppy drive into an Amiga floppy drive. I believe that in order to get the adaptor to work on any PC floppy drive would require more expertise than I have and may be cost prohibitive"

Such a device more or less already exists, it's called Kylwalda.

Anyway, thanks for a very informative page. I might be having a look on the  pile of old fdd's I've got lying around...

-Paul

[Fnac]

I have found this interesting article about pc floppy jumper config:
http://www.ics-finmek.com/ics/swtool/manuals/mag_opt/cap4.pdf

[z36ra]

PaSha wrote:
Quote from the web page:
"approximately twice as fast as 2HD mode because of the higher rotation speed in 2HD mode. "

The rotation speed is the same in 2DD and 2HD on a normal pc drive (300 rpm). AFAIK The only drives that have different speeds for DD and HD, are Amiga specific HD drives (Chinon FB-357A and FZ-357A). These drives run at half the speed in HD mode (150 rpm, because Paula can't handle more...). This issue is the biggest problem when it comes to converting a PC HD drive to Amiga HD. You will somehow have to make the drive drop to half speed when reading/writing HD disks. Look on aminet for more details, I know there's at least one file detailing these problems.

another quote:
"I think it would be interesting to discuss the possibility of building an adaptor that would fit on the ribbon cable to convert a PC floppy drive into an Amiga floppy drive. I believe that in order to get the adaptor to work on any PC floppy drive would require more expertise than I have and may be cost prohibitive"

Such a device more or less already exists, it's called Kylwalda.

Anyway, thanks for a very informative page. I might be having a look on the  pile of old fdd's I've got lying around...

-Paul

After checking the specs on a similar Teac drive, I see that Paul is correct about the rotation speed of the PC floppy drive. The rotation is plainly stated as beeing 300RPM. However, the spec sheet mentions that DD mode transfer speed is 250kbps which is half of that of the HD mode.

Thanx  for correcting me Paul.

I would like to get a Teac 235HF-A529 to play with. I think the Teac drives are going to be the best solution. I have learned that the Teac drives are often used in specific hardware applications such as drum machines. These special purpose applications  make it impossible to use a plain ole PC floppy drive.

Zip solution is a good idea. I will look into that but it wasn't part of the experiment.

[z36ra]

I seem to be prone to multiple errors. Well this time I caught my own.  I said that the data rate is 250kbps when it is really 250bps.

I posted Paul's correction on my website and gave proper credit to Paul. Thanx again Paul.

[melott]

Well.....

If your only alternitive for a drive is to
convert a pc drive.........

'DKB' had some about 10 years ago when Amiga
drives were really hard to get.They were
converted in England I think. Anyway they worked
but not 100%. I have one, it really isn't very
good. It isn't 100% compatable.
I don't know what modifications they made, just
that it can be done. I used it for a second
external drive.
And yes, I'm sure they had both internal and
external drives.

Hope this helps....

Mel Ott

[freak]

I bought a HD floppy drive from Software Hut for my A2000 a few years ago.  They still sell them but they are very expensive.

It appears to be a PC floppy drive with a small circuit board attached to the back.  It is probably the same hardware hack that can be found on aminet.  I haven't had any problems with it.

[z36ra]

I've updated the site but I'de like to say that I have done all the work i am going to do on the issue. For the moment I'm putting together a tutorial on building your own twisted pair cable tester (nice pair  sequence and polarity tester, as well as polarity only tester). After that I plan on a tutorial about replacing NiCad batteries...
Hope you can solder!

[skywalkgr]

What do you mean High Density Drive?

Please be more specific...did you mean the HDD drive of amiga 1200 (amiga technologies) 1.44 Mb?