On Fri, 4 Mar 2005, Eric Smith wrote: D'oh! I have a Qume (I think) half-height but it has a funky (6 pins) power connector. I have another one (maybe that's the Qume model?) that has a wholly non-standard data connector. I also have a subsystem with 2 MPI Model 42 half-height drives. I tried that but could not get it to work at all (heads would not engage, though the drives did seem to select). I have no data on them so I had to give up. I'm sure I have some more but I ran out of time to look. Will try again tomorrow... -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

From: "Geoff Reed" <geoffr at zipcon.net> Sent: Saturday, March 05, 2005 11:55 AM To my knowlegde +5v & +24v are required by all 8" drives, other voltages vary from drive to drive. Before plugging in power connectors veryify voltages. Randy

From: "Vintage Computer Festival" <vcf at siconic.com> Sent: Friday, March 04, 2005 10:08 PM I've done it and have never had any trouble. I use a Compaq P100 since it handles FM & a Mitsubishi 1/2 height 8" drive. I've only used it with 22disk, Teledisk, and Anadisk. They all work fine but 22disk has to be v1.41, later versions do not work with 8" drives. A few things to remember when dealing with classic disks on PC's: Use a real DOS not a DOS window. Make sure drive is OK (clean it & run RPM tests). Make sure your computer handles the format, 8" drives use the same data transfer rate as PC HD drives and standard PC controllers (8 bit 360K controllers) will not handle 8" drives. Most PC controllers don't handle FM. Get 22disk v1.41 and try some 8" MFM formats (format, write, read back). Only try FM (such as SSSD) after you have MFM working. Double check your cable. The TG43 signal can be ignored until you have a problem. No matter what the first half of the disk should always be OK. I am working on creating a page with drive info similar to Herb Johnson's but more oriented to cleaning and hooking up to PC's. Here are a couple of links to check out: http://home.iae.nl/users/pb0aia/cm/8-525.html http://nemesis.lonestar.org/computers/tandy/hardware/model16_6000/floppyfix… The TG43 signal is used by truly old 8" drives. Most 8" drives ignore it. The problem was handles by having "smarter" floppy drives. Early 8" drives were built with discrete logic and mediocre heads later they used LSI chips and better heads. The newer 8" drives "knew" when to change the head current rather than relying on the host controller. If you have trouble with the outer tracks (it is a writing problem) then you can buy a board from dbit to generate the TG43 signal. Randy www.s100-manuals.com