10 Dec
2005
10 Dec
'05
8:52 p.m.
On Sat, December 10, 2005 8:11 pm, Roger Merchberger said:
I can't speak for 3.25, but Amdek made (or at least packaged) 3" floppy
drives/disks for at the very least the Tandy Color Computer. If I'm not
mistaken (which entirely could be) they were 'electrically compatible'
with
standard (read: IBMish) 5.25" drives. Also IIRC (tho this very well could
be wrong) Tony at least once mentioned they were available for a UK
machine... Beeb? Acorn? I *think* Acorn, but don't quote me on that.
Add me to the 'I've not seen a 3.25 either but I've read about them'
list.
As for 3", they were used in the UK by the budget home computer brands -
Sinclair, Amstrad, Tatung, Oric (Tangerine) etc. It was a while before the
brands that were still left started using 3.5"....1986 or thereabouts
IIRC.
Sinclair themselves, ie led by Clive Sinclair, never made or packaged any
sort of floppy drive but once Amstrad bought the rights in '86 they
released machines like the Spectrum +3, and under their own brand the
CPC664, CPC6128,CPC6128+ and the venerable PCW series of word processors
that revolutionised home word processing.
Tatung built 3" drives into the Einstein and Tangerine put 3" drives out
in france with the Oric Stratos, not many of those got to the UK.
Enterprise had planned 3" drives for the 64 and 128 but ended up producing
a Shugart interface for 5.25 drives before going bust.
--
adrian/witchy
Binary Dinosaurs creator/curator
www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the UKs biggest home computer collection?