FloppyPUter was re:Hard-sector 51/4 disk

In <f05001900b806377d63da(a)[64.157.58.17]>7]>, on 10/31/01 at 06:21 PM, Jeff Hellige <jhellige(a)earthlink.net> said: Either you knew something about this allready and forgot or are just darn smart. The Indus GT disk drive was made for; of course the Atari8bit, and I think the Apple II and C64 machines. The same company that made the Indus is the company that made the Rana1000. I know this because the drives are allmost identical including the shells. Rana Systems became Indus which later became Future Systems. The Indus GT had a non-standard, belt-driven 1/2 height mechanism. Allmost all the electronics driving the mech were located on the Indus controller board mounted beneath. The controller had it's OWN Z-80 processor and some ram. I think something like 2k. You could add a 64k CP/M adapter card to a pinedge connector on the controller. I never saw this board in person, but that it existed at least in proto form is certain. Later Indus and Future systems GT's omitted the cp/m board connector but the pads were still there. There was quite a bit of talk about it back in the day. An Indus owner could get CP/M without having to buy an ATR8000 to do it. I think the Indus CP/M module was going to cost something like $149.00 - $199.00 vs a 64k ATR8000 at $400.00 plus. A couple of things about this drive that would have made it a pretty poor performer as a CP/M machine: The mech was non-standard, single-sided, MFM/FM meaning that disk interchangability would be interesting ( it allways was anyway right guys ). Unless the CP/M card also extended the drive's ability to use standard mechs as slaves then it wouldn't really be able to compete with the ATR or that other similar CP/M interface for the Atari. I've owned several Indus and Rana drives. The Rana wasn't too reliable due to alignment problems (no trk0 sensor) and because it just had trouble reading it's own data even on a good day. The Indus GT had a track 0 sensor but had similar trouble reading it's own data. Frankly, I think the Atari 810, and 1050 were the only bulletproof drives made for the Atari 8 bits. I've owned four or five ATR8000's, two Percom double-density drives, three Rana 1000's, three Indus GT's, several 810's, several 1050's, and a couple of XF551's. After years of dinking with hopes of reliable storage from the third-party drives, I archived all my disks using my USDoubler 1050. I never filed a disk in it's box that was formatted or written with any other drive because I couldn't trust them. I ran my bbs on the ATR and/or the Percom with four 80trk DS/DD mechs because I didn't have any other mass storage solution to do it on. Most Atari software is on SS/SD disks anyway so the 1050 could do the job without a problem. BTW, the XF551 wasn't much better than the Percom or the ATR for reliable data retreival. Come to think, why is this? Why is it so hard to make a reliable disk drive? My Percom with a new rom/daugtercard from the company and new Newtronics mechs just sucked. The 1050 with the USDoubler, the SuperArchiver, and the Happy enhancements was allways bulletproof and the competition couldn't do that. I haven't been able to test the 815, that other ATR8000-like cp/m controller, or the Trak. The only third-party Controller worth it's salt I've owned (and still do) is Bob Puff's FloppyBoard for the Black Box. It is the end-all-be-all enhancement for the Atari 8-bit and is just as reliable as a 1050 while being able to use 3.5" high-density mechs. Course anything Bob made or sold was awesome. Ironicly, I use the same mechs on the Floppy Board I used to use on my ATR and Percom so it sure wasn't the mechs. Regards, Jeff P.S. If you are wondering why I've had so many drives. It isn't because they died or anything, I often traded Atari gear back then and aquired systems retired by other folks as well. -- ----------------------------------------------------------- Jeffrey S. Worley Asheville, NC USA 828-6984887 UberTechnoid(a)Home.com -----------------------------------------------------------