hard-sector 5 1/4 disk - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

3 Nov 2001

  UberTechnoid(a)home.com wrote:
...
  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. 
 Commodore 1541 type drive are serial and have a tremendous 
amount of handshaking to the interface. It's just a matter
of writting new interface routines. I've been able to transfer
one byte across the interface in about 50 clock cycles (loading
a 50K file in 12 to 13 seconds).

 UberTechnoid(a)home.com wrote:
...
  I thought they used a 6507 or 6510 processor...

 The C64 uses a 6510 which is a 6502 with a built in 6 bit 
I/O port and DMA. The 1541 uses a 6502. 

 UberTechnoid(a)home.com wrote:
...
  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). 
 I had a Aquarius disk drive at one time. It used those tiny diskettes 
that are smaller than the Compact floppies used on the Amstrad. I traded
the Aquarius drive to someone in Australia that had a pile of Aquarius
disks and no drive. I traded for a stack of Aquarius docs and a board
that allows me to use 1541s with my Aquarius.

  Regards,
  --Doug
=========================================
Doug Coward                
@ home in Poulsbo, WA

Analog Computer Online Museum and History Center
http://www.best.com/~dcoward/analog
=========================================