cctalk Digest, Vol 37, Issue 34 - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

15 Sep 2006

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 From: "Teo Zenios" <teoz at neo.rr.com>
 To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <
 cctalk at classiccmp.org>
 Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 21:24:08 -0400
 Subject: Odd external Amiga floppy drive
 I got an ebay find in the mail today, an external floppy drive with a port
 for another floppy. The odd thing about this drive is that the cable going
 to it is 25 pin while the connector on the back for an additional drive is
 the normal 23 pin variety.

 I opened the case up and found a Citizen OSDC-45C drive which I believe is
 a 720K DD drive along with a circuit board populated with a cap, some other
 small caps, and 2 chips (Tesla MH7438 and HD 74LS74AP OL15).

 My original idea was to swap out the 720K drive and install a 1.44MB PC
 one for a Planar Cleanscreen 486 LCD system I have (plus do some rewiring as
 needed), but I wonder what this drive is actually for.

 Any ideas? 

Ummm, is it for an Amiga?

It may be a third-party amiga drive (can you post a picture, maybe - a link
to the orig. Epay auction would do if it has a picture).  Regular floppy
drives could be used on the Amiga floppy port with the addition of a latch
(which is what the extra circuit board contains).  (I think the original
Amiga external floppy drives (A1010) had a modified drive thus not needing
the extra latch)

Is the cable going to it really 25 pins? It was common for Amiga floppy
drives to be chainable (thus all connectors 23 pin), so you could have up to
4 drives total.

Joe.