3 Jun
2007
3 Jun
'07
3:37 p.m.
On Sun, 3 Jun 2007, Grant Stockly wrote:
What I would really like to do is find some way of
connecting a 3.5" disk
drive to the MITS hard sectored controller card set. This would give me
the 300 or so K and allow me to run MITS basic off of the disk. Do you
know anything about how to do that? Is it possible? Maybe with a PLD to
deal with soft/hard sectored stuff?
Can you modify the 3.5" drive to give pulses at various additional points
in its rotation?
I have not investigated anything yet so I am not sure
what it would
take. If its possible I'm sure I could get it done.
I think that it would be easier to stick with the soft-sector controller.
First, get it working with 8" (about 250K)
Then put in a 5.25" 1.2M drive and lie to the machine and say it's 8"
(1.2M was designed for doing that)
Then put in a 3.5" drive and continue the lie.
To minimize the lie, use a 3.5" that can be jumpered for 360 RPM
OK, you've got over 200K. AND, all of the "standard" CP/M 8"SSSD
stuff
will match up.
Will the controller support double sided? or can it be modified for it?
If so, you can get over 400K.
Now put a 300RPM drive in. Modify the BIOS to support 80 track 5.25" and
tell the machine that that is what it has.
The virtual 8" will have over 400K, and the virtual 5.25" 80 track will
have between 300 and 400K depending on format choices.
All without any significant hardware issues.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com