Plus-D drives...
Can anybody recommend somewhere that I might be able to find a 3.5" drive which would work with the +D interface?
(I'm doubting that just any 3.5" drive would do?)
(I'm doubting that just any 3.5" drive would do?)
Post edited by bobs on
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http://www.rwapsoftware.co.uk/spectrum/spectrum_storage.html
Rich is very accomodating.
http://www.rwapsoftware.co.uk/spectrum/spectrum_storage.html
Rich is very accommodating.
You can basically use any standard PC FDD floppy disk drive (not USB!) provided you have a PC power supply or similar. However there are two main problems:
1) a PC drive is normally configured as DS1 (slave) whereas the PlusD and Sinclair QL interfaces need a DS0 (master). Some of the older floppy disk drives have jumpers to allow you to select this, but not modern drives.
2) Most PC drives are HD disk drives (although there are also DD and ED disk drives). The PlusD can only address a DD disk - some people disable the HD disk detector sensor, or try with a bit of paper of the HD hole in the disk. Others just rely on the fact that the PlusD will try to address the disks as DD only. All of these methods are unreliable - you ideally need to use DD disks as all of the others can prove unreliable on another disk drive and certainly emulators may experience problems.
That said, yes, we have a small supply of externally boxed disk drives, and blank DD disks. However the small is rapidly reducing (I think I have one single drive left and 3 double drive units).
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I've not been this excited for a long time about some computer kit. It reminds me of waiting for Crash to come out. Ahh the good old days...
You mean a DivIDE Plus surely
www.rwapsoftware.co.uk
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Congrats on getting a PlusD it's an excellent piece of kit.
The DivIDE is going to be excellent but I think it would take away some of the feel good factor. i.e. a step closer to emulation. But it might not.
As Rich has said, reformatted MF2HD (High density floppies) will work, but the data on them is more likely to get corrupt in short order.
Get DS2DD from RWAP [lord I really hate that guy :) providing such a service...]
If he runs out there is the possibility of http://www.robotsltd.co.uk/ABB-S3-Floppy-disks.htm
never tried them though...
Just to put RWAP's prices into perspective - these guys want ?95 for a drive (ok they've modded them slightly for their robots I think)
BTW Rich, if you look here http://www.robotsltd.co.uk/ABB-s3-floppy-drives.htm
They say they can get many more drives it might be worth your while trying to find their source.
Crikey Blimey - another plug for me !! Must be my year :)
I can't believe these guys are asking ?95 for a bare disk drive - ok they probably have soldered some pins to make them DS0 but even so !!
The drives are not too difficult to find on ebay (you need to look closely at the pics and ask about jumpers), but external cases with a suitable psu are more difficult.
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These drives may be new rather than pre-owned. They would have to say if they were reconditioned - surely.
I've kept a hold of a couple of old external SCSI drive enclosures with PSU's - just in case.
Just outta curiosity are old amiga and/or ST floppy drives suitable? I know the Amiga had a funny format to the disks but that may have been driver rather than hardware related.
Yes they are stated to be new drives on the website - however, a standard HD floppy drive is available for around a third of that price - cannot imagine anywhere is still making DD floppy drives so they are probably old stock, but unused.
Not sure if you could use a floppy in a SCSI drive enclosure and PSU - does it have the right connectors and the other problem is finding a drive that fits the case, as they all have different holes, front plates and at least 3 different heights.
No idea about amiga and/or ST floppy drives - they should be suitable, provided that they have the standard connector on the back. I have seen a couple which have DIN sockets rather than an FDD lead.
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I think I read somewhere that if you short out pin 1 and 2 of a normal everyday floppy drive, it then works on a +3. It it works on a +3, it should be ok on a +D too.
A third the price? No, cos you can get everyday PC floppy drives for 6 quid, brand new. That's more like 14x the price..... 14x6=84
5 years after it's release, it's time for XP Pro :)
Looking forward to vista in 2012. The same year they turn off excellent quality analogue TV and leave me with sucky quality digital.
Anyway - ratios - To make my upgrade easy and completely reversible I've bought a new hard drive. It is exactly 16384 times the size of my first hard drive.
First drive 20MB, new drive 320 GB. Gosh that'' take forever to fill (he smiles naively.)
Upgraded the Ram too, I now have 65536 times more RAM than my original Speccy.
I had such a great feeling when I started the install.
But then when the install was finished I realised that XP had decided the new drive, on which the OS installed, would be F: and the old drive C: Despite the correct Master and Slave setting. Fking typical.
I hope its of some use to someone,
steve(spt)
Can you confirm that you have made no modifications to the drives?
yes, no mods at all, better still I'll take some photos and post a link here in an hour or two....
The floppy drives are standard PC type these happen to be both Sonys
Power supply was from maplins and connect to the floppies with this connector
This is what the back of the drives look like.
Now the cable, Note that there lines 10,11 and 12 have been twisted so one dirve answers to drive 1 and the other to drive 2.
No mods to the drives just a twist in the cable.
I have just found this image on an old harddrive which will help to tell you whats going on.
And these are just normal HD floppies?
Yes, normal HD PC floppies, they can read low density disks.
Your +D will not format to HD or read HD formatted disks, so you need DS DD 780K disks, or you can put some tape on the HD hole in over the disk. Then format it, but if you can get some DS DD disks as they seem to hold there data for longer.
The drive after the twist would be the A: drive, the one before it, the B: drive. It may be the other way around, but it doesn't matter. The principle is, if you didn't have the first twist, the first drive in the chain wouyld be the B: drive. Not a problem, as you'd feed the cable into the "top" drive first.
Gawd, it's so confuzzin :lol:
Still not clear that it matters.
Yes a twist matters to differentiate the two drives as d0 and d1 but does d0 have to be first on the cable? ie. PlusD twist d0 twist d1
Why not PlusD d1 twist d0?
Looking at the swtpc images it looks rather more like the latter.
I only ask because it would be less of a frig about with the cable.
And because things have to be explained slowly and clearly before I understand them :)
It just depends if you are going to put the drives into a case - normally it is easier to feed the cable in from the top of the case, and you would normally have DS0 above DS1 - having a double twist enables you to then have more of the cable sticking out of the back of the case. Without the double twist it is easier to feed the cable from the bottom of the case.
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With regards to using HD drives ... well bugger me but it works.
Well, I have it half working.
run and cat 1 works, cat 2 gives wrong DRIVE.
Have I got to recreate a system config that recognises two drives?
Or have I just screwed the cable? Hmmm not sure that CAT 1 would work under these circumstances coz D0 is at the end of the cable.
cost so far -> 40p could have been 0p but I bought smaller wire connectors. ?1 for 10 used 4.
Everything else is salvage.
No need to change the system config to get it to recognise 2 drives.
CAT 1 should be looking at DS0 so that appears correct - the signals are getting to the end of the cable.
CAT 2 is trying to find DS1. Have you tried swapping the 2 drives over to check it is not the drive which is struggling. Otherwise it could be a few things - remember not all drives are jumperless !! You need to ensure the PSU is good enough to power 2 drives as well.
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From earlier posts, DS1 (slave) is the default setting for floppies so if anything I would expect the DSO to fail.
I read somewhere about the PlusD sometimes leaving the drive light on after an access - I'm getting this on DS0 but can't remember what the cause was. Other than my faulty wiring.
If you're using Rich's system disk, you probably won't need a new sys file as I think the one supplied works just fine.
Do you want a copy of my boot disk? It's got several little utils on it etc :)
Will be interesting to know if you get the same result with the 2 drives swapped over.
According to the PlusD manual, it leaves the light on to indicate which was the last drive accessed. Therefore it looks as though it is trying to access DS0.
Just a thought (I have just had another customer with a similar problem) - are any of the other wires twisted over? A standard PC floppy drive cable comes twisted already (but the wrong wires for the Plus D)
The other thing I guess is to look up the drives on the internet - see if there are any solder joints to select DS0/DS1 (some drives let you do this) and whether you have the right wires twisted.
www.rwapsoftware.co.uk
www.sellmyretro.com
It's a proper PSU delivering 12 GRND GRND 5
Yes DEATH I'll try a copy of you sys disk. Before I get the screwdrivers out.
Cheers