8 Apr
2006
8 Apr
'06
8:06 p.m.
Fred Cisin wrote:
*Some* workstation (I thought it was SPARCs) had SCSI floppies.
I also have a design for a SCSI<->4 floppy controller
that I did >15 years ago. I can try to dig up the schematics
and sources for it. But, I sspect many of the componentss
that it used are no longer available (?). I know getting
the 647180's as "engineering samples" was a real problem;
and I am not sure the 5380 (5830?) is even manufactured any
more... I was tickled that the PCB was exactly the size
of a 5" floppy (though it was designed for 8" media
originally -- a few extra wires in the diskette interface
cable and support for the "door lock", IIRC)
By far, the easiest thing to do would be a USB<->floppy
nowadays... microcontroller + floppy controller/COMBO
(unless you want to pinch pennies and do an Apple style
floppy controller implemented in software...)
I'll see if I can find my drawing set and any paperwork
(contractual obligations) governing it.
--don
On Sat, 8 Apr 2006, Don Y wrote:
I don't know of ANY USB nor SCSI 3.5" drives that DO use a
"conventional"
floppy within.
I don't know. I only use a USB *disk* -- and even then, only
if I don't have a SCSI HA in the machine I am moving to/from.
There are
lots of USB 3.5" 1.4M drives.
There are several SCSI 3.5" drives (most Floptical (usually SCSI) drives
can do 1.4M)
But I don't know of any of those that can be easily modified to support
5.25" or 8" drives.
If they use a conventional floppy within, the
5" and 3.5" use
nearly identical signals. The common USB drives do NOT convert USB to anything
even
vaguely resembling SA400.
The original requestor asked about an external USB or SCSI 5.25".
That MIGHT mean that he wants to hang the external drive on something
not completely PC compatible (such as a Mac, or a Dell laptop)
And I was suggesting handling the media on another machine
that *can* handle it. I don't have DLT's or MO's on all
my machines -- when I need to access this type of medium,
I go to a machine that *has*! :-/
Problem would be what assumptions
the firmware therein makes...
Let's solve the hardware problem first, THEN worry about the firmware.
Howzbout:
take a small PC, with either USB or SCSI, with appropriate drives, and use
the PC itself as a slave device controller.
Or, just write your media on the PC
and skip the interface altogether
:> (that's how I handle 8") You can *buy*
a SCSI<->floppy interface if you really want to spend
a lot of money on that. It just seems like a huge waste of $$$
(though I am sure there are cases where it might be desirable/needed)
I've had SCSI <-> ST506/412.
Do you know a source for a SCSI <-> SA400/800 ?