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Author Topic: Floppy Drive Specs.  (Read 6060 times)

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Offline J-GoldenTopic starter

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Re: Floppy Drive Specs.
« Reply #14 from previous page: June 06, 2005, 03:46:14 PM »
So, just to clairify, almost any PC Floppy will work in my A4000T as long as I use a cable that has pin 4 & 6 changed.

It will only work as a low density floopy drive though unless you find a PC drve that will spin @ 150 RPM. instead of 300 RPM.

To get two PC floppies to work in an Amiga 4000T without moving jumpers, I also need to change pins 10 & 12 on my floppy cable.

Cable, I can do, what about Floppy drives other then the one Commedore used that will spin @ 150 RPM?  are there others out there?

J-Golden
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Offline PaSha

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Re: Floppy Drive Specs.
« Reply #15 on: June 06, 2005, 06:22:19 PM »
Quote

X-ray wrote:
@ PaSha

Back in 1996 I bought a plain floppy drive from a PC fair and tried to use it on my A4KT and it didn't work.

I just did some experiments again. I took the floppy drive out of my PC and put it in the A4KT: no joy. The access light doesn't even come on and I get the 'unreadable df0' icon in Workbench 3.9.
Just for giggles I put the A4KT floppy on the PC and the same thing happened...no access at all. Whether there is a disk in or not, Winblows says please insert a disk in a:

The A4KT drive is a MITSUMI model D359T5 (Newtronics Co. LTD).
The PC drive is an ALPS ELECTRIC (made in Malaysia). The only number on it that could be a model number is DF354H090F.

So...what gives?

Edit: I didn't change any jumpers on the Amiga side, just changed one drive for the other. Same with the PC. And the cables are keyed so I can't connect them wrong even if I want to.

You might want to change some jumpers on the drive itself.
PC drives are jumpered as DS1 by default.
The Mitsumi drive for your A4000T is jumpered to DS0 with an SMT resistor (pop the bottom cover off, and you'll see the jumper pads next to the 34pin connector.
The TEAC in my PC is jumpered to DS1 the same way. Cost reduction = SMT jumpers

It might be this...

-Paul

-Paul
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Offline PaSha

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Re: Floppy Drive Specs.
« Reply #16 on: June 06, 2005, 06:28:11 PM »
Hmmm... seems my post was a bit messy.
Quote

J-Golden wrote:
So, just to clairify, almost any PC Floppy will work in my A4000T as long as I use a cable that has pin 4 & 6 changed.

No. Swapping pins 4&6 is for using two Amiga FD's

Quote

To get two PC floppies to work in an Amiga 4000T without moving jumpers, I also need to change pins 10 & 12 on my floppy cable.

Same as above. I doubt that using two PC drives is possible, even with the Escom adapter thingy.

Quote

Cable, I can do, what about Floppy drives other then the one Commedore used that will spin @ 150 RPM?  are there others out there?
J-Golden


As for 150 RPM drives, I believe the C= custom Chinons are the only ones.

-Paul
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Offline PaSha

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Re: Floppy Drive Specs.
« Reply #17 on: June 06, 2005, 06:37:08 PM »
Check this one out, it explains some of the differences between PC & Amiga FD's

ftp://de.aminet.net/pub/aminet/hard/hack/PCFloppy2Amiga.lha
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Offline X-ray

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Re: Floppy Drive Specs.
« Reply #18 on: June 06, 2005, 07:40:02 PM »
@ PaSha

My PC drive has just solder blobs, very small, on a very small gap. This isn't one I can jerk around with, but next time I'm at the fair I'll pick up a drive for £5 and test it.

It annoys me that even though we have these adapter PCBs there must still be all this fiddling under the cover.
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Offline PaSha

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Re: Floppy Drive Specs.
« Reply #19 on: June 06, 2005, 07:54:19 PM »
It could perhaps be possible to use a PC-style floppy cable, with pins 10 through 16 twisted for drive A: (aka DF0) with the PC drive in your Amiga (with the adapter PCB still in place, ofcourse). You could also try your Amiga drive (the Mitsumi) on the 'untwisted'/straight-through connector in the PC cable (the connector meant for B:)
No guarantees here, but this should solve the DS0/DS1 problem. I believe the small Escom PCB solves the ready/diskchange differences only.

If you do shop for a drive, get a really old one with proper jumpers on it. Much easier to fiddle with...

-Paul
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Offline X-ray

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Re: Floppy Drive Specs.
« Reply #20 on: September 02, 2005, 08:05:54 AM »
Chaps...

I am still looking for a working spare floppy drive for my A4KT. If anyone is selling one, I am interested. (it would be a bonus if it is a HD drive). I am having no luck with PC drives.
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Offline adolescent

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Re: Floppy Drive Specs.
« Reply #21 on: September 02, 2005, 08:20:20 AM »
I have an AmTrade HD floppy in my A1200.  Not cheap, but it works with everything I've thrown at it and it was new.  SoftwareHut probably still has some in stock.
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Offline Darth_X

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Re: Floppy Drive Specs.
« Reply #22 on: September 04, 2005, 06:35:23 AM »
> Escom PCB

is there a photo of this on the internet anywhere?
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Offline PaSha

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Re: Floppy Drive Specs.
« Reply #23 on: September 04, 2005, 01:22:10 PM »
Quote

Darth_X wrote:
> Escom PCB

is there a photo of this on the internet anywhere?


http://www.amiga-hardware.com/download_photos/a4000tfloppyadaptor1.jpg
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Offline Darth_X

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Re: Floppy Drive Specs.
« Reply #24 on: September 14, 2005, 05:50:27 AM »
thankyou :-D
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Offline orange

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Re: Floppy Drive Specs.
« Reply #25 on: September 14, 2005, 07:49:29 AM »
just one more thing,
pasha said Amiga uses custom/special FDDs, but thats not true at least not for DD drives. Amiga uses 'Shugart standard' and most other computers have used it too (like ZX Spectrum +3, Acorn). its IBM PC that uses 'special drives'.
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