Cromemco FDC - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

10 Jan 2012

----- Original Message:
Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:50:29 -0000
From: "James Attfield" <james at attfield.co.uk>
To: <cctech at classiccmp.org>
Subject: RE: Cromemco FDC

...
  Date: Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:53:19 -0500
 From: "Bill Sudbrink" <wh.sudbrink at verizon.net>
 Subject: RE: Cromemco FDC

 I have always found it interesting how quickly people will go chopping
 up circuit boards.  Before you do this, consider chopping up a ribbon
 cable instead.  Ribbon cables are cheap and easy to replace if you
 later change to a different make of drive or if you simply screw up
 making the modification.  I run SA-851's on my 16FDC with a simply
 modified ribbon cable. 
Bill, the Tandon 848's look like they have a pretty similar interface to the
SA-851. I have two TM-848-2's I would like to hook up - what chance do you
think that your modified cable might work (I'm with you on this one rather
than board cut'n'shut) and if so could you kindly email me the layout
off-list?

Jim
------------------------------- Reply:----------------------------

I'd be interested as well!

Quinnteam used to make and sell something called a Top Hat which consisted
of a pair of TM-848's mounted side-by-side horizontally across the top of a
Z-2; this was before the 64FDC came out so they made a number of mods to the
*drives * in order to work correctly with the 16FDC.

I've still got TM-848s out of scrapped Top Hats and they work well with the
16FDC, as well as unmodified TM-848s out of scrapped System 3's which work
with the 64FDC, but I've never taken the time to investigate just what's
involved in getting either drive type to work with the other FDC; this
thread has kind of reawakened my curiosity.

Maybe some folks on the Cromemco mail list have more information...

mike