1 Nov
2001
1 Nov
'01
6:56 a.m.
This time I think I can say without making an a%% of myself that Commodore also did that
from
day one; most if not all their drives had CPU's to handle the IEEE interface ...
m
----------------Original Message--------------------
Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 18:21:49 -0500
From: Jeff Hellige <jhellige(a)earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: hard-sector 5 1/4 disk
The Atari 8-bit drives all had them that I can recall,
Percom, Indus,
Trak, etc.
The Indus GT was one nice drive and they made it for other
machines than just the Atari line. It was interesting to sit there
and listen to it while watching the track readout change. I've never
torn one apart to check but I'm told that they used a Z80 in the
drive to control everything which would be interesting since that'd
make the chip in the drive as powerful as the main CPU of the machine
it was attached to.
Jeff
1 Nov
1 Nov
12:50 p.m.
This time I think I can say without making an a%% of
myself that Commodore
also did that from day one; most if not all their drives had CPU's to handle
the IEEE interface ...
All 8-bit Commodore disk drives have CPUs, period, IEEE or no. Some older
drives have two, one for "IP" to accept commands over the Commodore serial
bus and one to act as FDC. 1541s and later drives have "schizophrenic" CPUs
that alternately switch between IP and FDC modes on interrupts. MFM-capable
drives like 157xs and 1581s have a special FDC (usually WD-1770 or 1772-type
controllers).
--
----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu
-- MOVIE IDEA: The Never-Ending E-mail Signature ------------------------------
10:35 a.m.
Cameron Kaiser wrote:
All 8-bit Commodore disk drives have CPUs, period,
IEEE or no. Some older
drives have two, one for "IP" to accept commands over the Commodore serial
bus and one to act as FDC. 1541s and later drives have "schizophrenic" CPUs
that alternately switch between IP and FDC modes on interrupts. MFM-capable
drives like 157xs and 1581s have a special FDC (usually WD-1770 or 1772-type
controllers).
I was at one time hoping to pick up a Commodore Disk cheap for floppy
drive for a computer I am building but never did because I did not have
the docs about the interface. 5 1/4 Single Density Single Sided drives
did not help either.Is the C64 drives the only external drives built
other than the Color Computer drives by Radio Shack?
Ben Franchuk.
BTW It is too bad OS/9 was a closed source OS.
--
Standard Disclaimer : 97% speculation 2% bad grammar 1% facts.
"Pre-historic Cpu's" http://www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk
Now with schematics.
2 Nov
2 Nov
5:10 a.m.
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6:46 a.m.
I'm pretty sure he isn't looking for those type drives. I think he wanted
to use an external ttl-signal level drive that had it's own on board
controller. That limits things to the Atari, Commodore line pretty much
as they are dirt common.
Other machines that used 'smart' floppy drives might be the Adam and
Aquarius. I never saw a drive for the Aquarius, but there was supposed to
be one. The COCO and Ti99 had parallel buss drive interfaces as did the
Apple (sorta).
If I were doing this, I'd probably try to get hold of a Trak, Percom,
Atr8000, or other drive which is able to run standard mechs as slaves.
Regards,
Jeff
In <m15zjhx-000IyNC@p850ug1>, on 11/02/01
at 07:10 PM, ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) said:
> I was at one time hoping to pick up a Commodore
Disk cheap for floppy
> drive for a computer I am building but never did because I did not have
> the docs about the interface. 5 1/4 Single Density Single Sided drives
I don't know which series of CBM drive you were
considering (the 2 main
interfaces being IEEE-488 and the serial interface used on the C64/C128),
but enough docs exist for you to use either type with other computers.
The serial protocol is pretty easy to bit-bang using a PIA/VIA type chip,
and the commands to send to the drive are documented.
I've managed to use an 8050 (IEEE-488 interface)
drive on a non-commodore
host, so it's clearly possible.
> did not help either.Is the C64 drives the only
external drives built
> other than the Color Computer drives by Radio Shack?
No, there are many machines that take external floppy
drives.
Off the top of my head :
TRS80 M1 (all drives external), M3/M4 (drives 2, 3
external), CoCo Apple
][
There's an external drive for the Apple Mac/Mac+ series.
Acorn BBC micro and Electron
FTS-88 (2 8" drives in a separate box to the main machine)
Intel MDS800 (ditto)
Xerox Daybreak (a 5.25" drive in a separate box that sits on top of the
CPU tower)
Most minis -- PDP8, PDP11, P800 series, etc (it's very rare to find a
disk drive that mounts in the CPU box on such machines, although it may
share a rack with the CPU)
IBM PC (!). (The original IBM disk controller card has a DC37 socket on
the back for 2 external disk drives)
Oric 1/Atmos (external 3" drives, the controller card is mounted inside
the case of drive 0)
Tatung Einstein (2 3" drives mounted internally, connector on the back
for 2 external 3" / 3.5" / 5,25" drives)
And doubtless many, many, more.
> Ben Franchuk.
> BTW It is too bad OS/9 was a closed source OS.
I'll second that :-) Nicest 8-bit OS I ever used.
-tony
--
-----------------------------------------------------------
Jeffrey S. Worley
Asheville, NC USA
828-6984887
UberTechnoid(a)Home.com
-----------------------------------------------------------
9:56 a.m.
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9:15 a.m.
--- Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Most minis -- PDP8, PDP11, P800 series, etc (it's
very rare to find a
disk drive that mounts in the CPU box on such machines, although it may
share a rack with the CPU)
If you extend the definition of PDP-8 and PDP-11 to include DECMateIIs,
and DECmate IIIs, then you've got the 5.25" floppy in the box. Same
goes for BA-23 and BA-213-based PDP-11s (the MicroPDP line) - RX50
right there. For OMNIBUS and UNIBUS boxes, though, you are correct.
-ethan
__________________________________________________
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10:02 a.m.
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11 a.m.
Most minis -- PDP8, PDP11, P800 series, etc (it's
very rare to find a
disk drive that mounts in the CPU box on such machines, although it may
share a rack with the CPU)
If you extend the definition of PDP-8 and PDP-11 to include DECMateIIs,
and DECmate IIIs, then you've got the 5.25" floppy in the box. Same goes for BA-23 and BA-213-based PDP-11s (the
MicroPDP line) - RX50
right there. For OMNIBUS and UNIBUS boxes, though, you are correct.
On the other hand, I must be going senile. I'd totally forgotten about
the BA23, etc. I think I have to consider the MicroPDPs and MicroVAXen as
minis. I could probably concoct a defintion where they were not, but that
would be cheating.
6:22 a.m.
Get an Atari drive instead. The interface of the C= drives is probably
just as well documented, but the drives were BUTT SLOW. The Atari drives
were factors faster.
Regards,
Jeff
I was at one time hoping to pick up a Commodore Disk
cheap for floppy
drive for a computer I am building but never did because I did not have
the docs about the interface. 5 1/4 Single Density Single Sided drives
did not help either.Is the C64 drives the only external drives built
other than the Color Computer drives by Radio Shack?
Ben Franchuk.
BTW It is too bad OS/9 was a closed source OS.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------
Jeffrey S. Worley
Asheville, NC USA
828-6984887
UberTechnoid(a)Home.com
-----------------------------------------------------------
8:53 a.m.
Ben Franchuk skrev:
I was at one time hoping to pick up a Commodore Disk
cheap for floppy
drive for a computer I am building but never did because I did not have
the docs about the interface. 5 1/4 Single Density Single Sided drives
did not help either.Is the C64 drives the only external drives built
other than the Color Computer drives by Radio Shack?
I'm not sure what you're referring to here. There are external drives for just
about every computer in existence.
BTW It is too bad OS/9 was a closed source OS.
Why? BTW, it still is closed-source AFAIK.
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
Vi m?ste vara r?dda om varandra
- det ?r det enda reciproka pronomen vi har.
11:16 a.m.
Iggy Drougge wrote:
When I wrote that I was thinking of OS/9 for the 6809, a rather dead
product.
OS/9 is still popular for the 68000.
Ben Franchuk.
--
Standard Disclaimer : 97% speculation 2% bad grammar 1% facts.
"Pre-historic Cpu's" http://www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk
Ben Franchuk skrev:
I'm not sure what you're referring to here. There are external drives for just
about every computer in existence.
I was thinking of more "Yes we have it but it really is a hardware hack!
- take no notice of the dead bugs inside " external drives compared to
the floppy is in that box over there.
BTW It is too
bad OS/9 was a closed source OS.
Why? BTW, it still is closed-source AFAIK.
3 Nov
3 Nov
10:28 a.m.
Ben Franchuk skrev:
Iggy Drougge wrote:
As I said, it's easier to mention the computers which don't have external
drives. PCs have them. Amigas have them. Ataris have them. Macs have them.
Well, I suppose that the only external floppies formy VAXstation and
DECstations would be SCSI ones, but that's probably the only computer I've got
which doesn't have them.
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
Goto: A programming tool that exists to allow structured programmers to
complain about unstructured programmers.
Ben Franchuk skrev:
I'm not sure what you're referring to here. There are external drives for
just about every computer in existence.
I was thinking of more "Yes we have it but it really is a hardware hack!
- take no notice of the dead bugs inside " external drives compared to
the floppy is in that box over there.
6 Nov
6 Nov
6:54 a.m.
New subject: External floppies (was Re: hard-sector 5 1/4 disk)
--- Iggy Drougge <optimus(a)canit.se> wrote:
Well, I suppose that the only external floppies formy
VAXstation and
DECstations would be SCSI ones, but that's probably the only computer
I've got which doesn't have them.
We needed a 5.25" floppy at work in 1986 so we could cut distribution
floppies to our customers with a MicroVAX, but no TK50 drive. We got
an RUX50 controller and an external RX50 for our VAX-11/750. It was in
the same external cabinet as an external TK50 for QBus MicroVAX (not
the same for a uVAX-2000) or an external RD52/RD53/RD54. My fading
neurons are feebly resonating that it was called a "Leprechaun box".
In any case, it was a buffered version of the 34-pin raw disk signals,
not SCSI or some other wiring scheme.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Find a job, post your resume.
http://careers.yahoo.com
1 Nov
1 Nov
1:23 p.m.
I saw a couple of those Commodore 1541 or so disk drives at the thrift store the
other day. Are they of sufficient interest that someone might want one?
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Cameron Kaiser" <spectre(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2001 7:50 PM
Subject: Re: hard-sector 5 1/4 disk
http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
This time I
think I can say without making an a%% of myself that Commodore
also did that from day one; most if not all their drives had CPU's to handle
the IEEE interface ...
All 8-bit Commodore disk drives have CPUs, period, IEEE or no. Some older
drives have two, one for "IP" to accept commands over the Commodore serial
bus and one to act as FDC. 1541s and later drives have "schizophrenic" CPUs
that alternately switch between IP and FDC modes on interrupts. MFM-capable
drives like 157xs and 1581s have a special FDC (usually WD-1770 or 1772-type
controllers).
--
----------------------------- personal page: Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University *
ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu
-- MOVIE IDEA: The Never-Ending E-mail
Signature ------------------------------
3:16 p.m.
I saw a couple of those Commodore 1541 or so disk
drives at the thrift store
the other day. Are they of sufficient interest that someone might want one?
At least for the moment, 1541s are fairly plentiful and easy to find. The
trick is if they're still in alignment, since many older versions had a
knack for slipping out. I'd say about 20% of the 1541s I run across are
shot in some manner, usually mechanical (which I'm not good at fixing,
although simple alignment problems can sometimes be corrected with a small
software program that bumps the heck out of the drive head until disks
are readable again -- hey, you've got nothing to lose and it sometimes
works!).
--
----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu
-- Honk if you're illiterate! -------------------------------------------------
2 Nov
2 Nov
5:26 a.m.
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6:45 a.m.
I thought they used a 6507 or 6510 processor...
Regards,
Jeff
In <m15zjnJ-000IyQC@p850ug1>, on 11/02/01
at 07:15 PM, ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) said:
But every serial-bus drive I've worked on (1541,
1570, 1571) only has 1
(6502) CPU in it.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------
Jeffrey S. Worley
Asheville, NC USA
828-6984887
UberTechnoid(a)Home.com
-----------------------------------------------------------
9:52 a.m.
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10:04 a.m.
I thought they used a 6507 or 6510 processor...
Most Commodore drives have 6502s or 6504s except for the oddball 1551 which
has a 6510T in it. These are just variant chips Commodore produced that
understand a 6502 instruction set but have different address bus sizes or
on-chip I/O.
--
----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu
-- All things are possible, except skiing through a revolving door. -----------
10:08 a.m.
All 8-bit
Commodore disk drives have CPUs, period, IEEE or no. Some older
drives have two, one for "IP" to accept commands over the Commodore serial
bus and one to act as FDC. 1541s and later drives have "schizophrenic" CPUs
Did any of the 'serial bus' drives have 2 CPUs? Most (all?) of the
IEEE-488 ones do, one for the interface, the other for the disk
controller. THey are both 6502-family devices, and are clocked on
opposite levels of the same master clock, so that only one attempts to
access memory at a given time. This makes it trivial for them to share
memory, and of course that's the way the 2 CPUs in a CBM drive communicated.
But every serial-bus drive I've worked on (1541, 1570, 1571) only has 1
(6502) CPU in it.
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21 comments
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