25 Mar
2012
25 Mar
'12
10:08 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
What model disk controller board do you have? If
it's the late model
one (with both 50 pin/J0 and 34 pin/J3) headers, it's pretty simple to
get 3.5" HD drives going on it. I'm not suggesting it as a permanent
affair, just eliminating another thing as a potential problem.
I haven't kept track of which boards were originally in which machine,
but the one I'm using now is the newer board that does have both 50 and
34 connectors.
I'm currently using to external slimline 8" drives, a Mitsubishi
M2896-63 as drive 0, and a Qume 242 as drive 1. Of all the 8" drives I
had at my immediate disposal, these were the only two that were actually
working.
I really like the Mitsubishi as a replacement for a full-height drive,
because it actually has a head load solenoid. The Qume, like the Tandon
TM848-2 that Radio Shack used, wants to keep the heads loaded all the
time and start and stop the motor. That's probably better for disk
life, but not convenient for replacing a full-height drive that runs the
motor continuously and uses a head load solenoid. I'd like to get more
half-height drives, Tandon, Mitsubishi, or Qume, but they seem to have
become very expensive. I should have bought a lot of them in the early
1990s when they were going for peanuts.
For that matter, I wish I'd bought more Teac 3.5-inch floppy drives back
when the local stores had new ones for around $12 each. Even those seem
to be getting expensive now.