9 Nov
1999
9 Nov
'99
10:43 a.m.
Rumor has it that Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) may have mentioned these words:
On Tue, 9 Nov 1999, Roger Merchberger wrote:
Hmmmm... Looks like I need to grab the controller catalog # (and other
specifics) and keep it in my Palm...
P.S. To keep this on-topic, does anyone have
instructions on the hack to
convert the above-mentioned floppy controller to be able to handle 3.5" HD
floppy drives? I'd *love* to have a 1.44Meg floppy formatted under OS/9...
:-) Also, is there any way (without reconstructing the 6 million dollar
man...) to get two floppy controllers online using the MultiPak?
My recollection was that there were several different vartieties. Each
one will have slightly different issues. To add 3.5" HD floppies, you will need to provide
a different clock, way
to change it back and forth, and support for one more signal to the drive.
I know you need a different clock (500Khz signaling rate vs. 250Khz for
double-density) but I'd like to know if it's as simple as a DPDT switch &
another crystal, or are there more things to keep a lookout on (like
different buffers, software changes WRT timing issues, stuff like that...).
Why do you want to run more than one FDC? If it is to
run 4 instead of 2
drives, you can do that with minor hardware and software hacks to a
controller.
Well, IIRC the most drives you can hang off of one controller is 4 SSDD
drives, or 3 DSDD drives because the Side Select signal was used for one of
the drive select pins. (Again, I think... If I'm wrong, please enlighten
me.) I was looking to hang 3 DSDD & 3 DSHD drives off my CoCo... purely for
shits & giggles. If it's a ton of hardware work, "nevermind" comes to
mind.
However, if it's some hardware & hacking some device drivers, then... I've
always wanted to hack around with the device drivers of OS-9... :-)
Just musings of random tinkering... ;-)
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger --- sysadmin, Iceberg Computers
Recycling is good, right??? Ok, so I'll recycle an old .sig.
If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead
disarmament should *not* be your first career choice.