On 27 Sep 2010 at 11:05, Fred Cisin wrote: As is plain old floppy (e.g. Teac FD235HS). --Chuck

I think the problem is that many modern motherboards don't have the pins of the second drive select and MotorOn signal wired up. Whether the signals exist on accessible pins of an I/O chip I don't know (if they do, it may be possible to add jumper wires, but some people are afraid of soldering to motherboards). If the pins on the connector are not driven, then no amount of software will let ou use a second drive. [...] You also want to switch the MotorOn line. That needs a DPDT switch (one pole switches the mototherobard drive sleect line to the right drive, the other pole handles MotorOn). Not dififcult to do, of course. -tony

Alexandre wrote.... I noticed on the FDC on the mainboard, there's maybe 2 or 3 pins that are noticably absent from the normal connector. Perhaps they absconded with the signals. I know absolutely nothing about the floppy drive interface & cable signals. However, I need to build a custom cable anyways (as the existing cable has an odd placement of the connectors, causing major twists in the ribbon cable to get them right). I did notice that when powering up the system, the 3.5 floppy drive light flashes for a moment but the 5.25 drive never flashes. On an Old Tyme mainboard, this exact cable situated as it is now - definitely worked for both drives. Uggg. And mess up my nice rackmount Herc setup? No way ;) I recently added a wireless bridge/switch to the rack, so that I can get internet to the thing down in the basement from my wireless router upstairs. That part works like a champ. Once this is all done, I'll have to look for a TCP stack for DOS. I think Trumpet Winsock was strictly a windows thing. But perhaps DRDOS (full install, not minimal) has support for this. But not thinking I'll find a packet driver for a modern mainboard on-board NIC. I was also thinking of putting a third partition on the drive, for those few times when I absolutely must boot up windoze for some reason or another. It will be a few days before I can try this option. Wife has a big "to-do" at our house so the next couple days will be honey-do's to get ready for it. Then I can get back to it and try. If not, perhaps someone can give me the pinouts or diagram of how to lash up a cable that that connects to the mainboard, lets drivesel go to the switch, and then hits the 5.25 edge-card connector and the 3.5 IDC connector. I have an IBM terminal question, but I'll start a new subject for that solicitation ;) Best, J

On a normal flopy conenctor the pins are numbered like this 1 2 3 4 5 6 ... 31 32 33 34 Pin one is normally marked, it's near the coloured edge of the cable. Now, on PC floppy drives, all the odd numbered pins -- the entire column -- are grounds. All the signals are on even numbered pins [I specified PC drives here, becuase in a few systemsm, there are drives with 34 pin connecotrs that don't have a speparate power conenctor. Instead some of the odd numbered pins are +5V, some are +12V, and the rest are grounds. Also, I have pet drives where there's an active signal on pin 1, but not in PCs] Ok after that aside... 17 grounds is enoguh for anyone, and it wasn't uncommon for one of those pins to be missing on some machines, and the corrisopondign hole on the socket (on the cable) to be blocked up. That way, the cable would only fit the floppy drive conenctor (other 34 pin conenctors i nthe machine had different pins missing), and only the right way round. Made it easier for field servoids... If your floppy connector is misisng a couple of odd-numbered gound pins, then nothing to worry about. But if it is missing some signal pins, it's quite posible (likely?) that what's misisng are the drive sleect and motor on signals for the second drive. Using the pin numbering I've shown, what pin numbwes are not rhere. IIRC it's 10,12,14,16 that carry the drive sleect and motor on lines on a PC. -tony