Creating a floppy drive exerciser

[Fred Cisin]

On Mon, 4 May 2015, Alexandre Souza wrote:
>   Well, things came to a point I have NO 360K drive I can attest it is 
> working properly and aligned.
>   I have some AAD alignement diskettes, but I need something to exercise the 
> drive. Google seems not to know what a "floppy drive exerciser" is. Do people 
> have some tips of schematics, programs, or will I have to roll my own? :)

The CHEAPEST exorcisor, but containing a lot of extraneous other 
"features", such as BASIC in ROM, that are not in a dedicated
exorcisor, is a microcomputer.
You need a 20MHz dual trace scope, the analog alignment diskette,
and enough computer functionality to select the drive, move the
head to the correct track, and issue a READ command.  For the
purposes of using an AAD, the exorcisor does not do anything
other than substitute for a computer.  Some have some other useful
features, but not needed for using an AAD.

A DDD (Digital Diagnostic Diskette) is generally considered to not be
as accurate for alignment as an AAD, but it does not require a scope,
and does require a little bit more software.


--
Grumpy Ol' Fred     		cisin at xenosoft.com