10 Oct
2005
10 Oct
'05
4:17 a.m.
At 20:16 09/10/2005 -0500, you wrote:
Dave Dunfield wrote:
Actually, it never occured to me that anyone would try to do this by booting
- Run ImageDisk, select the drive etc. and
execute the A)lign/Test function.
Sadly, the drive is so far off that I can't get the thing to boot at all to run
ImageDisk :-( But thanks for the instructions; I will clip'n'save them. from the drive. I was thinking that you would pull the
drive and drop it onto
a working system.
One thing I have on my bench which is very handy, is the PC has modified drive
cable which brings drive 'B' out to a 37-pin 'D' connector on the back,
and
a plug-in cable to allow me to easily connect external drives. I use this both
for testing drives, and for imaging from/to 5.25" and 8" drives.
I have details/photos on how to make the cables and adapters posted to my site.
Look at "Disks/Software images" near the bottom, and then "notes on
connecting
an 8" drive.
Regards,
Dave
--
dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Collector of vintage computing equipment:
http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html
10 Oct
10 Oct
9:23 a.m.
One thing I have on my bench which is very handy, is
the PC has modified drive
cable which brings drive 'B' out to a 37-pin 'D' connector on the back,
and
a plug-in cable to allow me to easily connect external drives. I use this both
for testing drives, and for imaging from/to 5.25" and 8" drives.
I hve a commercial drive tester that uses the same sort of idea. There
are extension cables that you connect to the Drive B signal connector and
power connecotr, and route them outside the PC to the drive under test.
And a little box containing a microcontroller, ADC, and a frw other bits
that you connect to the PC's serial port (it takes its power from there).
And some MS-DOS software to control the whole thing.
You run the software and select the type of drive you're working on (it
has a large datahase of these, but alas no 3" ones, I think it does cover
8", and certainly covers 5.25" and 3.5", including the old Sony 600rpm
ones, and the PS/2 ones, for which you need cable adapters which I don't
bave). The software then displays a picture of the drive PCB (drawn with
the IBM line-drawing characters, even I can use this on an MDA
display...) which shows where to connect the clip leads from the ADC box.
I can't remember what they all are, but 2 of them go to the differential
amplifier output testpoints in the read circuit, one goes to the track0
sensor, one to the index sensor, and so on.
Yo uput an alignment disk -- a real analogue catseye disk -- in the drive
under test. It'll do things like move the head to the alignment track,
then use the ADC box to work out (from the signals on the read amplifier
outputs) how far the head is out of alignment. You can essentially do a
'propper' drive alignment without a 'scope.
I rarely use it, though. I have a normal drive exerciser and a 'scope,
and find those easier to fit on the bench than a PC.
-tony
1:53 p.m.
Dave Dunfield wrote:
Excuse me as I remove my foot from my mouth. I've been working with the old
hardware for so long it never occured to me to remove it and work with it on
another machine! What a dufus am I...
Sadly, the
drive is so far off that I can't get the thing to boot at all to run
ImageDisk :-( But thanks for the instructions; I will clip'n'save them.
Actually, it never occured to me that anyone would try to do this by booting
from the drive. I was thinking that you would pull the drive and drop it onto
a working system. One thing I have on my bench which is very handy, is
the PC has modified drive
cable which brings drive 'B' out to a 37-pin 'D' connector on the back,
and
a plug-in cable to allow me to easily connect external drives. I use this both
for testing drives, and for imaging from/to 5.25" and 8" drives.
Ironically, I have a 5150 with the full-length FDC with a very long port on it
(something like 40-pin female?) that I assume I could connect drives to... but
I have no idea what the pinout is or where to obtain a cable. I am not the
soldering type (watch me duck as the flying tomatoes come from the peanut gallery)
I have details/photos on how to make the cables and
adapters posted to my site.
Look at "Disks/Software images" near the bottom, and then "notes on
connecting
an 8" drive.
Will do, thank you.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
9:47 a.m.
Ironically, I have a 5150 with the full-length FDC
with a very long port on it
(something like 40-pin female?) that I assume I could connect drives to... but
It's a DC37 socket, 37 pins.
I have no idea what the pinout is or where to obtain a
cable. I am not the
soldering type (watch me duck as the flying tomatoes come from the peanut gallery)
And you can actually make the cable without soldering!. The external
cable is like the intneral drive cable in that it has the 'IBM twist' but
with a DC37 plug on the controller end, not a card edge connector (or
header socket for the AT floppy drive cable).
If you only want to link up one external drive, then what you need is :
A 34 pin IDC connector to fit the signal connector on the drive. In your
case, an IDC 34 pin card edge connector.
A length of 34 way IDC ribbon cable.
An IDC DC37 plug.
IDC == Insulation Displacement Connector. This sort of connector can be
crimped onto the cable without stripping or separating the individual
wires, and without soldering.
Fit the edge connector onto one end of the cable, so that the marked edge
of the cable corresponds with pin 1. That is, when the connector is
plugged into the drive, the marked edge of the cable is at the pin 1 end
of the drive edge connector. Slot the cable into the connector, make sure
it lines up with the 'tines' and is at right angles to the connector, and
then carefully squeeze the connector together in a bench vice.
Fit the DC37 plug on the other end of the cable. At this end, the marked
edge of the cable shoubd be towards the pin 1 end of the connector --
that is the top edge when the connector is plugged into the IBM PC/Xt
controller. And the top 3 pins are not connected -- that is the cable
should align with the _bottom_ 34 tines in the plug. Again, make sure
it's perpendicular, and crimp it in the vice.
That's it.
As regards software, I'd keep the mainboard switches set to say you have
2 drives -- the 2 intenral drives -- installed, and use DRIVER.SYS for
the external ones. That way, your hard disk remains as C:, etc.
I do wonder how you're going to maintain classic computers if you don't
like soldering though. I claim to be more of a hardware type, and not a
programmer. By that I mean that I couldn't write an OS or a compiler
or... from scratch. But I know enough about programming to be able to
write little data conversion programs, or to understand enough machine
code to know what the bytes on my logic analyser screen mean, or...
In the same way, while you might not want to design a processor or even
dive into a PDP11/45 CPU (with around 1000 ICs...), I do feel that you
probably should learn how to make cables, enough digital electronics to
be able to trace through simple logic circuits, and so on.
-tony
2:30 p.m.
Dave Dunfield wrote:
> One thing I have on my bench which is very handy, is the PC has modified drive
> cable which brings drive 'B' out to a 37-pin 'D' connector on the
back, and
> a plug-in cable to allow me to easily connect external drives. I use this both
> for testing drives, and for imaging from/to 5.25" and 8" drives.
On Mon, 10 Oct 2005, Jim Leonard wrote:
Ironically, I have a 5150 with the full-length FDC
with a very long port on it
(something like 40-pin female?) that I assume I could connect drives to... but
The FDC of the 5151 was a "2/3 length" card.
DC37. to connect drives to.
I have no idea what the pinout is or where to obtain a
cable.
I have details/photos on how to make the cables
and adapters posted to my site.
Look at "Disks/Software images" near the bottom, and then "notes on
connecting
an 8" drive.
Will do, thank you.
7013
days inactive
7013
days old
4 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
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ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
dave04a＠dunfield.com -
trixter＠oldskool.org