4 May
1997
4 May
'97
3:42 p.m.
Whilst in a self-induced trance, Steven J. Feinsmith happened to blather:
I have a few comments on what each of you said:
Steven: Notice that Susan wrote "Currently," at the beginning of the
sentance. That means that altho the 3.5" disk drives weren't available at
the time of the machine's introduction, you can easily get any machine that
uses the standard 34-pin floppy interface to use a 3.5" disk drive. I
currently use 3.5" drives on both my Atari 800 and my Tandy Color Computer
3, neither of which had 3.5" drives available at the time of their
introduction. Provided you were replacing an 80TkDSDD 5.25" (or lesser)
drive with an 80TkDSDD 3.5" drive, you would not need a new BIOS, as the
drives are electrically equivilant.
Steven: Also, SASI and SCSI are *different*, SASI being the precursor of
SCSI. Altho they are *somewhat* compatible IIRC, SCSI did have extra
features that could not be used with a SASI interface.
Susan: You're sentance above is slightly misleading, however, as there were
no 96tpi 3.5" drives that I've ever heard of (and I own some *weird* ones!)
Everything from the 200K SSSD Tandy Portable Disk Drive 2 (used for Tandy's
*early* non-MSDOS laptops) right on up to the 2.88Meg ED drives are 135TPI.
Hope this helps!
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger Merchberger | If at first you don't succeed,
Programmer, NorthernWay | nuclear warhead disarmament should *not*
zmerch(a)northernway.net | be your first career choice.
Susan M Johnson wrote:
Currently,
the H/Z-100 can run 8", 5 1/4" (40 & 96 tpi), and 3 1/2" (96
& 135 tpi) floppy disk drives; MFM hard drives (also RLL, although not
common), tape drives, and SCSI drives. CD-ROM drives are also possible.
During days of H/Z-110 and 120... there are only two floppy disk drives,
5.25" and 8". The 8" system was short lived. There was never using
3.5"
but some people successful attempted this way when H/Z-100 were no
longer
in market. They have to write a special software included BIOS to work
with 3.5" drive. SCSI system on H/Z-110 or 120 was very rarely. Those
days it was called SASI. There was never using tape drive or CD-ROM
drives
because H/Z-110 or 120 never use with IDE or EIDE. But it can use with
SCSI based interfaced. 
4 May
4 May
6:13 p.m.
I think AT&T made some funky 96 tpi drives in the 80's. (Probably to
match their 96tpi 720k 5 1/4" drives) My PC6300 has support for them
in the bank switches so I suppose *someone* made them *somewhere*
Les
8 May
8 May
6:15 a.m.
New subject: The List! & books involving computers
On Sun, 4 May 1997, Roger Merchberger wrote:
Right, the 3.5" drive support was not part of the original Heath/Zenith
design; it was provided later by some members of a user group. You can
use either the 34-pin interface or the 50-pin interface to run it. (Z-100
has both interfaces, the 50-pin floppy interface being the one you also
use for the 8" drives.)
Whilst in a self-induced trance, Steven J. Feinsmith
happened to blather:
8" system short lived?? Hmm, guess there are numerous H/Z-100 users out
there who don't know that :)
Susan M Johnson wrote:
>> Currently, the H/Z-100 can run 8", 5 1/4" (40 & 96 tpi), and 3
1/2" (96
>> & 135 tpi) floppy disk drives; MFM hard drives (also RLL, although not
>> common), tape drives, and SCSI drives. CD-ROM drives are also possible.
>
>During days of H/Z-110 and 120... there are only two floppy disk drives,
>5.25" and 8". The 8" system was short lived. There was never using
>3.5 but some people
successful attempted this way when H/Z-100 were no
longer
in market. They have to write a special software included BIOS to work
with 3.5" drive. SCSI system on H/Z-110 or 120 was very rarely. Those
days it was called SASI. There was never using tape drive or CD-ROM
drives
because H/Z-110 or 120 never use with IDE or EIDE. But it can use with
SCSI based interfaced.
I have a few comments on what each of you said:
Steven: Notice that Susan wrote "Currently," at the beginning of the
sentance. That means that altho the 3.5" disk drives weren't available at
the time of the machine's introduction, you can easily get any machine that
uses the standard 34-pin floppy interface to use a 3.5" disk drive. I Steven: Also, SASI and SCSI are *different*, SASI
being the precursor of
SCSI. Altho they are *somewhat* compatible IIRC, SCSI did have extra
features that could not be used with a SASI interface.
The SCSI support wasn't part of the original design, either. An add-in
board to provide that capability was designed, built, and put into
production a few years ago by several members of the user group. I am
now using a 170 Meg SCSI drive (not SASI) on my computer as a result.
Susan: You're sentance above is slightly
misleading, however, as there were
no 96tpi 3.5" drives that I've ever heard of (and I own some *weird* ones!)
Everything from the 200K SSSD Tandy Portable Disk Drive 2 (used for Tandy's
*early* non-MSDOS laptops) right on up to the 2.88Meg ED drives are 135TPI.
Hope this helps!
Roger "Merch" Merchber
Yup, I screwed up on that. Should have said that it now supports
double-density and high-density 3.5" drives. You can either use a regular
MS-DOS format (720 K or 1.4 M), or a non-standard format that results in
800 K or 1.8 M disks. I've got a dual-density 3.5" drive that works great
at either DD or HD, standard or non-standard formats. It is also possible
to use a quad-density drive although I don't personally have one.
On another matter, I think someone mentioned something about compiling a
list of books/movies that involve computers. _The Moon Is A Harsh
Mistress_ by Robert A. Heinlein involves a sentient computer who helps
guide a revolution on the moon against Earth. Unfortunately, while the
revolution was successful, the computer was no longer sentient at the
end. :( I can't remember if the computer had a name.
Susan
6:51 a.m.
New subject: The List! & books involving computers
On Thu, 8 May 1997, Susan M Johnson wrote:
On another matter, I think someone mentioned something
about compiling a
list of books/movies that involve computers. _The Moon Is A Harsh
Mistress_ by Robert A. Heinlein involves a sentient computer who helps
guide a revolution on the moon against Earth. Unfortunately, while the
revolution was successful, the computer was no longer sentient at the
end. :( I can't remember if the computer had a name.
Mycroft Holmes. One of my favorite books, and probably one of the two
novels most influential on modern libertarianism, after Ayn Rand's
_Atlas Shrugged_. For those so inclined, I heartily recommend that you
web over to <http://www.pulpless.com> for the current top libertarian SF
novel: _Kings of the High Frontier_ by Victor Koman. A damned good book
IMAO. End of plug. Besides being a good writer, Vic is an old
acquaintence.
Other fiction concerning computers:
_The Adolescence of P-1_ by Thomas K. Ryan. A sapient program occupies
every IBM mainframe connected to teleprocessing. Seventies technology
and terminology, written back then by an actual IBM jock.
_The Shockwave Rider_ by John Brunner. The country is all wired and
privacy is difficult except for one individual who has the "savant"
ability (and a stolen identity code) to rewrite his whole record on the
fly. This book introduced the world to the terms "worm" and "phage"
which have since become stock vocabulary in the computer field.
_The Two Faces of Tomorrow_ by James P. Hogan. Before installing
artificial intelligence in the world-wide control networks, experiment
with it in the "controlled" environment of a space colony. Attack it and
see if it will learn to defend itself.
All three books are from the late seventies and it shows. No problem,
they're still good books just like a TRS-80 Mod One and an Apple II from
the same period are still good computers.
--
Ward Griffiths
"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within
the system, but too early to shoot the bastards." --Claire Wolfe
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gram＠cnct.com -
more＠camlaw.rutgers.edu -
sjohnson＠GAS.UUG.Arizona.EDU -
zmerch＠northernway.net