31 Dec
1997
31 Dec
'97
5:09 p.m.
On Thu, 1 Jan 1998, Bill Richman wrote:
Is the SA-400 the standard Northstar floppy drive?
I've been running
a Northstar floppy controller in my IMSAI, using just a couple of
plain old IBM-XT floppy drives. I was clued in by someone else on
this list that they would work, and they seem to be fine; even
handling the original hard-sectored diskettes! I was under the
impression that the sectoring was at least in part determined by the
drive, but have been told (and have seen for myself) that this is not
so; it's determined by the controller. Hope this helps!
You are correct, Bill. I have substituted a half-high 720k 5.25" drive
for the full high 100tpi drive on a 16-hard-sector Vector Graphics quite
successfully.
On Tue, 30 Dec 1997 19:37:37 -0600 (CST), you wrote:
- don
donm(a)cts.com
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Don Maslin - Keeper of the Dina-SIG CP/M System Disk Archives
Chairman, Dina-SIG of the San Diego Computer Society
Clinging tenaciously to the trailing edge of technology.
Sysop - Elephant's Graveyard (CP/M) - 619-454-8412
*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*
see old system support at http://www.psyber.com/~tcj
I've got a Northstar Horizon that I'm starting to restore. The Northstar
manual indicates that the Northstar disk controller wants to talk to one
or two SA400s, which sounds about right considering the time period.
Problem is the only SA400s, or similar, that I have are in my SWTPC 6800
and I don't want to pull them. I know that the SWTPC will accept an
MPI-51 as a replacement for an SA400 (but not an SA400 on a controller
that expects to see MPI-51s since they have a slightly higher step rate).
Could I use an MPI-52, and under what conditions, as a replacement for
the SA400s that the Northstar wants to see? If so, why? If not, why not?
Thanks...
Anthony Clifton - Wirehead
-Bill Richman
bill_r(a)inetnebr.com
http://incolor.inetnebr.com/bill_r
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