IBM 6360 8 inch floppy drive

[Paul Berger]

On 2016-06-28 3:32 AM, David Walton wrote:
> Hi
> I collect vintage IBM laptops, have just joined the community, and wonder if anyone can help with the following:
>
> 1.  Can write a Teledisk image of concurrent CP/M for Displaywriter to two 8 inch floppy disks which I can supply?
>
> 2. Can solder a cable fie me which will interface an ibm 6360 8 inch floppy to a PC. I am unable to do this myself.
>
> 3. I have an external 5.25 floppy adapter/a inside an ibm ps/2 p70 and wonder if the external 37 pin connector is pin compatible with the 37 pin connector of the ibm 6360 8 inch floppy drive?
>
> I thought about connecting two out of the 3 cables from this drive to an IBM displaywriter (supplying the correct voltages etc) and the 37 pin connector to my external 5.25 adapter/a card?
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> David
If you want to create diskettes from images to use with your 
Displaywriter you would be much further ahead to obtain a 8" diskette 
drive with an "industry standard" interface.  The 6360 diskette unit has 
a drive controller built into into it so the external connection is to 
the system bus rather than to a diskette controller like the external 
floppy connector you have for your PS/2 system.  Even the raw drives do 
not have a standard interface and are missing some of the signals that 
are found on industry standard drives.  The signals for controlling head 
motion are different, however that could be gotten around with a little 
logic, but the big problem will be the IBM drives do not have a track 
zero signal.  On the IBM drives, when they are initialized they do about 
80 outward steps to ensure the head is at track zero.  The first 
generation R/W drives the 33FD or Igar made an unforgettable noise when 
seeking zero on the drives like the ones in the 6360 it is less noticeable.

Paul.