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Author Topic: Can somebody tell me what this is please??  (Read 5348 times)

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Offline lewis_sladeTopic starter

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Can somebody tell me what this is please??
« on: February 16, 2013, 05:33:55 PM »
I brought a bundled package of Amiga bits, and this was amongst it, what is it please??? I have no idea...

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Offline mikeymike

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Re: Can somebody tell me what this is please??
« Reply #1 on: February 16, 2013, 05:50:25 PM »
I'm not saying I know I'm right, but I think it is highly suggestive that the light in the centre is labelled 'df1'.  'WP ON' could mean "write protect".  Side A and B are obvious if I follow my opening assumption.  My bet is it plugs into a floppy drive external connector and with a piece of software listening to it, drive accesses could be analysed perhaps for software debugging maybe?  Is there a switch on it for toggling write protection?  Could that be done in software?
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Offline commodorejohn

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Re: Can somebody tell me what this is please??
« Reply #2 on: February 16, 2013, 05:51:24 PM »
Looks like some kind of floppy-disk activity monitor...
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Offline Lurch

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Re: Can somebody tell me what this is please??
« Reply #3 on: February 16, 2013, 05:51:26 PM »
Assuming going by the label on the front some sort of floppy drive copy protection bypass/fix?

What's inside it?
« Last Edit: February 16, 2013, 05:55:32 PM by Lurch »
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Offline mrmoonlight

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Re: Can somebody tell me what this is please??
« Reply #4 on: February 16, 2013, 06:33:47 PM »
Quote from: lewis_slade;726589
I brought a bundled package of Amiga bits, and this was amongst it, what is it please??? I have no idea...
 
Well i havent a clue ,but it looks interesting ,it must have some thing to do with a Floppy because of the read and write ,i cant wait for someone to come up with the answer,certainly a good ,what is it question, Brian.:D:D
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Offline lewis_sladeTopic starter

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Re: Can somebody tell me what this is please??
« Reply #5 on: February 16, 2013, 07:34:14 PM »
Thank you everyone for your comments so far, it is a curious thing, the guy I brought it off didn't know much about it either...

Here is an image taken from the back

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Offline commodorejohn

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Re: Can somebody tell me what this is please??
« Reply #6 on: February 16, 2013, 07:54:50 PM »
Have you opened up yet? What's inside might give you more of a clue...
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Offline lewis_sladeTopic starter

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Re: Can somebody tell me what this is please??
« Reply #7 on: February 16, 2013, 08:09:54 PM »
OK, just prized it open, and, there's not too much in there that I can make sense of! Could this be some home-made thing?

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Offline commodorejohn

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Re: Can somebody tell me what this is please??
« Reply #8 on: February 16, 2013, 08:19:18 PM »
Well, that's pretty simple alright. Looks like it just runs a handful of wires from the connector through LEDs, and then I presume out to the pass-through connector. As before, I think this is probably a simple disk-activity monitor, though why you would need that I don't know.
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"\'Legacy code\' often differs from its suggested alternative by actually working and scaling." - Bjarne Stroustrup
 

Offline Lurch

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Re: Can somebody tell me what this is please??
« Reply #9 on: February 16, 2013, 09:29:49 PM »
Was hoping for more, but as has been said looks like it just shows what the floppy drive is doing.Switch on the back probably disables it or the floppy drive.
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Offline mikeymike

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Re: Can somebody tell me what this is please??
« Reply #10 on: February 16, 2013, 09:36:11 PM »
Isn't the floppy access LED and the beautiful drive music enough?
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Offline lewis_sladeTopic starter

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Re: Can somebody tell me what this is please??
« Reply #11 on: February 16, 2013, 10:00:00 PM »
Thanks everybody, maybe this was someones project at School or something :banana:.

Any more strange objects and I shall return...

Be well x
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Offline Kesa

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Re: Can somebody tell me what this is please??
« Reply #12 on: February 16, 2013, 11:56:36 PM »
What does the sideA and sideB mean? Sounds like a cassette/tape drive. Maybe a C64 fan made this?
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Offline Matt_H

Re: Can somebody tell me what this is please??
« Reply #13 on: February 17, 2013, 12:07:00 AM »
Quote from: Kesa;726633
What does the sideA and sideB mean? Sounds like a cassette/tape drive. Maybe a C64 fan made this?


Nope. DD/HD floppies do have 2 sides, it's just that they're both handled internally so there's no disk flipping.
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Offline Kesa

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Re: Can somebody tell me what this is please??
« Reply #14 on: February 17, 2013, 01:24:39 AM »
Quote from: Matt_H;726635
Nope. DD/HD floppies do have 2 sides, it's just that they're both handled internally so there's no disk flipping.

True. But why would anyone want to know which side of the disk is in use? A cassette on the otherhand might be different. Some tape equipment have counters on them whereas diskdrives seldom do.
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