External Floppy Drive question

[Shadowfax]

I was rummaging through my Amiga parts and came across a Chinon FZ-357A Floppy Drive new in the shipping box. (I used to be an Amiga repairman and still have some parts from 12 years ago).

So my question is, has anyone tried to retro-fit this 1.76 meg floppy inside an older extrenal DFx case?

Im thinking it would be neat to have an external portable HD floppy drive to switch between Amiga systems.

Thx

[kd7ota]

Sounds like a good idea, and as long as that disk drive works inside of the amiga itself, then it may work externally as long as it connects inside of the external disk drive..... :-)

[Shadowfax]

Aye indeed it does. Just bit the bullet and tried it. I used an Amiga 1010 drive for the test. Leaving the HD drive as DS0, I mounted the assembly into the enclosure with a few screws and fired up the A600 using both mouse buttons to get to the boot menu and sure enough, there it was. I was able to boot WB 3.1. Then I daisy-chained a second external drive and all went well.

Where things 'Did'nt' go well was trying to get the drive aligned with the openings of the 1010 enclosure. First thing, the button on the Chinon HD floppy is wider than that of the A1010, and the new drive sits lower then the orignal 1010 drive does. So rather then take a butcherknife to the enclosure, I aborted the mission and restored everything back to it's orignal condition.

Atleast I know now it will work.

Thanks for the reply, kd7ota.

[badalias]

I have an Amiga 1010 drive, and (several different) PC 1.2Mb 5.25" Drive(s) and PC 1.44Mb 3.5" drives. Is it possible to set these up for use with my A1000 with Workbench 1.3? (The 1010 drive already works - Duh!)

The desired results are a 5.25" drive for use with the PC Utilities on my Extras 1.3 disk and higher capacity storage for use with my A1000.

Matt K.
P.S.: I  am also trying to get info on How to get files to an amiga

[Shadowfax]

If memory serves me correctly, The connector for a 1.2mb 5.25"  
floppy is an edge card type connector. I have seen adaptors that convert these types to a 32 pin ribbon connector. If you can find one of these at a local ventage computer dealer (or a Goodwill computer shop), you may be able to physicaly connect it via the ribbon cable inside your A1010 drive case. Also keep in mind that the power connector is also different as it takes a larger connector header plug, so an adaptor for that is also required.

Then comes the proper commodity to be able to recognise the drive as a PC1 external floppy drive. Editing a PC0 datatype commodity (crossdos) to point to DF1 may address this. Placing this datatype in the DOSDRIVERS drawer of your DEV drawer should do the trick. However, crossdos was not supported directly until AmigaDos 2.1 and the kickstart 2.1 rom for most of the later models of Amigas.

Workarounds for A1000's may be available on AmiNet for this type of modification.

Hope this helps.

[badalias]

Shadowfax wrote:
If memory serves me correctly, The connector for a 1.2mb 5.25"  
floppy is an edge card type connector. I have seen adaptors that convert these types to a 32 pin ribbon connector. If you can find one of these at a local ventage computer dealer (or a Goodwill computer shop), you may be able to physicaly connect it via the ribbon cable inside your A1010 drive case. Also keep in mind that the power connector is also different as it takes a larger connector header plug, so an adaptor for that is also required.

Then comes the proper commodity to be able to recognise the drive as a PC1 external floppy drive. Editing a PC0 datatype commodity (crossdos) to point to DF1 may address this. Placing this datatype in the DOSDRIVERS drawer of your DEV drawer should do the trick. However, crossdos was not supported directly until AmigaDos 2.1 and the kickstart 2.1 rom for most of the later models of Amigas.

Workarounds for A1000's may be available on AmiNet for this type of modification.

Hope this helps.

Well, I have several old PCs ranging from 8088 to Pentium II and have already gathered the necessary cabling and have a whole box of assorted PC 5.25" 1.2Mb floppy drives.

My Amiga is an A1000 with KS/WB1.3 so thee is a PCUtil folder with programs for transfering files to/from a PC using 5.25" disks on my Extras 1.3 disk.

Can you help further? I'm an Amiga newbie.

Matt K.

[badalias]

I have  been looking around and found this but the description is kinda confusing. Seems like exactly what I'm looking for - if I could follow their description better.

Then comes modifying the mountlist. I'm a  newbie, and have books that could be useful, but cannot be found (they're  lost amongst the stuff still packed since my latest move)

BadAlias


I have gone and rested my brain and come back at it from a new angle.

I think the page linked above means that:

For unit 0 (Is this for drives configured as unit 0 or to make DF0?)

Wire number: 02 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 34
- Re-wired to: 34 14 13 16 15 12 11 10 02

For unit 1
Wire number: 02 10 11 12 13 14 34
- Re-wired to: 34 12 13 14 11 10 02

Does this make sense to anybody? I tried the wiring for unit0 and hooked up the resulting cable to the PCB in my 1010 and did not even get a working drive when I used a PC 3.5" 1.44Mb floppy drive.

[Shadowfax]

Keep in mind, the Amiga has it's own idea about floppy drives and that the speed of the drive (RPM's) is one of the parameters that dictate if a floppy drive is compatable or not.

I wished I had an Amiga 1000 to help test what I described above, but my exposure with Amiga PCs' started with the A500. I know that the A1000 needed a kickstart disk to get it to boot up (Insted of a kickstart rom), but I've never owned a 1000. I would venture to say that you need to add a mount string in your [S: Startup-sequence] of your boot floppy or hard drive.

The Startup Sequence file is simply a text file that the Amiga reads during boot up that tells the system what to execute, display, and mount during bootup.
_________________________________________________________
Heres information about the 'Mount' command:

Format: MOUNT |FROM |
Template: DEVICE/A,FROM/K
Purpose: To make a device connected to the system available.
Path: C:MOUNT

Specification:

MOUNT causes the AmigaDOS to recognize devices connected to the system. When the MOUNT command is issued, MOUNT looks in the DEVS:Mountlist file {or the optional FROM file} for premeters of the device that is being mounted. MOUNT commands are usually placed in the Startup-sequence file.
__________________________________________________________

In addition to this, I found a reletive file on the AmiNet site that may help you.

Point your browser to: AmiNet/Hard/hack

 ... and scroll down to Drv-1.44.lha (This is a 1.44 PC floppy to Amiga hack. There are other hacks/info down that list as well.

I use Power Archiver to unzip .LHA files to my WinXP desktop.

Hope this helps.

[badalias]

Shadowfax wrote:
Keep in mind, the Amiga has it's own idea about floppy drives and that the speed of the drive (RPM's) is one of the parameters that dictate if a floppy drive is compatable or not.

I guess that's why I read about a logic board timing oscilator circuit hack for Brand X PC floppy drives. I thought that it was the brute force technique gone  mad. The author's constant asides about this hack not being reliable weren't that good for inspiring confidence either.

I guess I'll have to start looking for the  documentation for the 5.25" drives I have, (Yaay!)

What kinds of settings should I be looking for? Do you have specifications on the Amiga floppy interface? Do you have specifics on the differences between the PC flopppy interface and the Amiga floppy interface?

Shadowfax wrote:
I wished I had an Amiga 1000 to help test what I described above, but my exposure with Amiga PCs' started with the A500. I know that the A1000 needed a kickstart disk to get it to boot up (Insted of a kickstart rom), but I've never owned a 1000.

I know  misery loves company and  all that...  :bigcry:
*BUT*
I consider  you lucky not to have been cursed with such limited hardware. :laughing:

Shadowfax wrote:
I would venture to say that you need to add a mount string in your [S: Startup-sequence] of your boot floppy or hard drive.

The Startup Sequence file is simply a text file that the Amiga reads during boot up that tells the system what to execute, display, and mount during bootup.
_________________________________________________________
Heres information about the 'Mount' command:

Format: MOUNT |FROM |
Template: DEVICE/A,FROM/K
Purpose: To make a device connected to the system available.
Path: C:MOUNT

Specification:

MOUNT causes the AmigaDOS to recognize devices connected to the system. When the MOUNT command is issued, MOUNT looks in the DEVS:Mountlist file {or the optional FROM file} for premeters of the device that is being mounted. MOUNT commands are usually placed in the Startup-sequence file.

Thanks for the info, but  I don't know where the "[S: Startup-sequence]" is on my boot floppy. (Remember? I *am* a newbie. I've only had my system up for about  a week) Could you give me more  specifics on this, I know the Amiga *has* DOS, I just haven't learned how to use it yet, and it's not enough like MS-DOS to make sense to me.

Shadowfax wrote:
In addition to this, I found a reletive file on the AmiNet site that may help you.

Point your browser to: AmiNet/Hard/hack

 ... and scroll down to Drv-1.44.lha (This is a 1.44 PC floppy to Amiga hack. There are other hacks/info down that list as well.

I use Power Archiver to unzip .LHA files to my WinXP desktop.

Hope this helps.

I'm getting slightly annoyed at trying to read Amiga Guide files using notepad, is there anything PC based to read them with or maybe convert them into HTML? I'd like to be able to read DriveSolution.guide but it takes too much concentration toread around the AmigaGuide code.

I'm also quite annoyed that all the info I've been finding presumes you'll load it onto an Amiga before you use any of it I  can't get info onto my Amiga!
(Sorry, had to get  that off my chest.)

I already got that one from The Amiga Technical Resource in their FTP directory

I use Filzip it's even better than WinZip, and it's free!

[badalias]

If anybody else wanted to know I contacted the author of this, here's the whole chain of Q&A via e-mail

Code: [Select]


--- Damir Kuticic <dkuticic@inet.hr> wrote:
> not like that. unit0 and unit1 is connectors on the
> cable. If you prepared first, twisted connector you
> should use the unit0 changes otherwise use the unit1.
>
> --- BadAlias <xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > Damir:
> >
> >    Do you mean you cut off the connector for A: and
> > re-wired the B: connector, resulting in a cable that
> > gave you DF1? If not, could you give step-by-step for
> > idiots?
> >
> > Matt K.
> >
> > --- Damir Kuticic <dkuticic@inet.hr> wrote:
> > > Hi!
> > > unit 0 is first device on cable (twisted), unit 1 is
> > > second device. I took standard pc cable for two
> > > units, then removed first connector and on the second
> > > I made adaption by unit1.
> > >
> > > Good luck!
> > >
> > > To: <dkuticic@inet.hr>
> > > Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 5:38 AM
> > > Subject: PC FDD (1.44) to Amiga FDD (880)
> > >
> > >
> > > --- BadAlias <xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > > Damir:
> > > >
> > > >    I'm trying to use your cable adaptation, is this
> > > > interpretation right?
> > > >
> > > > For unit 0
> > > > Wire number: 02 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 34
> > > > Re-wired to: 34 14 13 16 15 12 11 10 02
> > > >
> > > > For unit 1
> > > > Wire number: 02 10 11 12 13 14 34
> > > > Re-wired to: 34 12 13 14 11 10 02
> > > >
> > > >    Where it says &quot;For Unit 0&quot; is this for drives
> > > > configured as unit 0 or to make the Amiga drive
> > > > DF0? Does it matter which end of the cable I
> > > > re-wire?
> > > >
> > > >    Which connector on the cable should the drive be
> > > > on if I use this on a (PC) dual drive cable?
> > > >
> > > > Matt K.
[/size]

[badalias]

I am watching an A1010 on e-bay, can I hook up 2 of these to an A1000 and end up with 3 880Kb drives?

[Noster]

Hi,

> I'm watching an A1010 on e-bay, can I hook up 2 of these to an A1000 and end up with 3 880Kb drives?

No problem, back that days, we had attached three external drives to an A1000 and made copy-parties :-)

Noster