> When it comes to floppy drives, if neither Chuck
nor
> I have EVER SEEN one,
> then you are not going to find one available.
On Mon, 8 Jan 2007, Chris M
wrote:
sure sure. You just wait. I'll find you one.
I hope so! Those rare beasts can be a lot of fun
You need
different "encoding" circuitry for the disk
controller.
I should have mentioned I wasn't intending to use
such a monster with a pc. Macs do the gcr thing, but
they don't usually have 5.25" drives. I did a bit or
reading, and am led to ask if the encoding couldn't be
handled in software.
IFF you have access to the drive between the drive and the disk
controller.
Regular, ordinary, standard 360K drives can be used to read and write
Apple ][ diskettes when used with appropriate controllers, such as flux
transition boards that interrupt the cable between the controller and
drive. For PC, those include "Apple Turnover", "Matchpoint"?,
Central
Point "Option board", and "Catweasel". Read an entire track of
pulses
into a buffer, and write some relatively trivial software to "de-nibblize"
the data into bytes. "Beneath Apple Dos" has some simple explanations of
that particular GCR pattern.
Macintosh GCR diskettes (400K/800K) require a wider range of data transfer
rates, but can be done with the "DELUXE Option Board" or the
"Catweasel".
For Commodore diskettes, it is easiest to interface the Commodore
external drive, with its built-in controller circuitry, to your computer.
I'm partial to the MSD external after-market drive, because it also
supports IEEE-488.
Sirius/Victor 9000 diskettes should be doable with the flux transition
boards, but last time that I needed to, there was a Victor 9000 handy, so
we just shoved the data through the serial port.
O man what are you telling me. I have a desktop cnc
mill that has a variable speed dc motor. If I want
more rpms I just pump in more emfs. 70, 80, 90 volts.
That kind of juice will get that puny drive to comply
LOL LOL LOL LOL
OK
You just need to blow out the pesky motor speed control circuitry on the
drive, without damaging the data circuitry. Shouldn't be TOO hard.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at
xenosoft.com