wooters@icsib13.berkeley.edu (Chuck Wooters) (12/12/89)
Hello- I need a bit of advice on installing a 1.2 Meg drive on my XT. I have a 360k drive now and I want to put in a 1.2 Meg as drive A, with the 360k as drive B. My floppy controller is on the same card as the clock/calendar, the serial port and etc (i.e. the hard disk controller is separate from the floppy disk controller.) There is a cable connected to the back of the floppy disk controller. The cable has two adapters on it. One of the adapters has a twist in the wire, the other one doesn't. (I think the one with the twist is for drive A). I connected the adapter with the twisted wires to the 1.2 meg and the other adapter to the 360k. The problem is that I get a general failure when I try to read from the 1.2 Meg (drive A). If I try to get a directory from the 360k (drive B), it tries to read from the 1.2 Meg. The light never goes on on the 360k drive. I hope this explanation is clear. Thanks in advance for your help. -Chuck Wooters wooters@icsi.berkeley.edu
JLI@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (12/12/89)
I believe that you need a different floppy controller which
can handle high-density drives (such as 1.2M and 1.44M), if
your floppy controller on the multi-function XT I/O board
does not support high-density drives (they usually don't,
except some new products). The regular XT multi-function
board only supports 360K drives and 720K (3.5", and with
DOS 3.2 or above) drives.
There many newly designed (not very new actually, we have
seen this kind of controller since two years ago) floppy
controllers you can buy through mail-order or at local
computer stores. However, you may run into a problem, that
is, since you already have a controller, you cannot put in
another controller with the same I/O address unless you can
disable the controller on your original multi-function board
(which may not be achievable for most older designs).
There are some floppy controllers that can co-exist with the
original controller. They configured themselves as the
secondary controller (such as the CompatiCard, etc.). With
this kind of controller, you can keep your original floppy
controller and drives and add additional drives (either low-
density or high-density) to your system.
So, there are many ways to handle this situation, but in my
opinion, the following two approaches might suit you.
(1). Trade in your multi-function board, and buy a floppy
controller that can handle high-density drives. Since
most this kind of controllers does not have Clock,
Serial/Parallel ports, etc., you have to buy an XT
multi-I/O board.
(2). Buy a floppy controller that can be configured as
secondary controller (we use the CompatiCard a lot,
but it is not the cheapiest one), and add a high-density
drive to your system.
I am not familiar with the recent prices of these products, but
you can easily find them in Computer Shopper, Byte, PC Magazine,
and many other publications.
I hope my observations answers most your questions. Good Luck!ear@wpi.wpi.edu (Eric A Rasmussen) (12/14/89)
In article <20557@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> wooters@icsib13 (Chuck Wooters) writes: > >I need a bit of advice on installing a 1.2 Meg drive on >my XT. I have a 360k drive now and I want to put in a 1.2 >Meg as drive A, with the 360k as drive B. stuff about cable deleted... Ok, first of all, unless you have a floppy controller for an XT that is specifically designed to support high density drives (1.2M and 1.44M), you cannot use your current controller. As far as I know, there are no multifunction cards that support high density drives in XT's. Therefore, it is quite likely that you will need to get another floppy controller card and a seperate I/O and clock card. The best high density floppy controller I have seen for an XT is the DTK Mini-Micro card. Second, if you are going from one floppy drive to two floppy drives, you must change some of the dip switches on your motherboard. For most clones, the proper settings are as follows: On switchblock 1 (sw1) you must set switch 7 off and switch 8 on for two floppy drives. For one floppy drive, 7 and 8 should both be on. Third, you are correct about the cable. The connector with the twist goes to drive A and the connector with the cable flat goes to drive B. The only other thing you usually have to check is that the drive select jumpers on your floppy drives are both set to DS1 if labeled 0-3, or on some mutant drives DS2 if the range is 1-4. Generally, you won't have to worry about changing the jumper because most drives come with it set correctly. Hope this helps. _ _ +-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+ |_ ,_ . _ |_} _ _ ,_ _ _ _ _ ,_ | ear@wpi.wpi.edu | |_ | | |_ | \ |_\ _> | | | |_| _> _> |_' | | | ear%wpi@wpi.edu | --< A real engineer never reads the instructions first! >-- +-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-+
BHB3@PSUVM.BITNET (12/14/89)
In article <19651@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>, JLI@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu says: > >I believe that you need a different floppy controller which >can handle high-density drives (such as 1.2M and 1.44M), if >your floppy controller on the multi-function XT I/O board >does not support high-density drives (they usually don't, >except some new products). The regular XT multi-function >board only supports 360K drives and 720K (3.5", and with >DOS 3.2 or above) drives. > >There many newly designed (not very new actually, we have >seen this kind of controller since two years ago) floppy >controllers you can buy through mail-order or at local >computer stores. However, you may run into a problem, that >is, since you already have a controller, you cannot put in >another controller with the same I/O address unless you can >disable the controller on your original multi-function board >(which may not be achievable for most older designs). > >There are some floppy controllers that can co-exist with the >original controller. They configured themselves as the >secondary controller (such as the CompatiCard, etc.). With >this kind of controller, you can keep your original floppy >controller and drives and add additional drives (either low- >density or high-density) to your system. > >So, there are many ways to handle this situation, but in my >opinion, the following two approaches might suit you. > > (1). Trade in your multi-function board, and buy a floppy > controller that can handle high-density drives. Since > most this kind of controllers does not have Clock, > Serial/Parallel ports, etc., you have to buy an XT > multi-I/O board. > > (2). Buy a floppy controller that can be configured as > secondary controller (we use the CompatiCard a lot, > but it is not the cheapiest one), and add a high-density > drive to your system. > >I am not familiar with the recent prices of these products, but >you can easily find them in Computer Shopper, Byte, PC Magazine, >and many other publications. > >I hope my observations answers most your questions. Good Luck! Jameco Electronics and JDR microdevices make cards for XT's that will control 1.44M, 720K, 1.2 M, and 360K floppy drives. They run about $50 for the 2 drive model and $60 for the 4 drive model. The Jameco 4 drive card I have in an 8 Mhz clone has the annoying problem of having to switch the PC to 5 Mhz speed to format other than 1.44M disks. I would buy the Western Digital Fox controller if you are looking for quality. PC Connection carries it even though it is not listed in their add. Brent H. Besler
BHB3@PSUVM.BITNET (12/14/89)
In article <20557@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>, wooters@icsib13.berkeley.edu (Chuck Wooters) says: > >Hello- > >I need a bit of advice on installing a 1.2 Meg drive on >my XT. I have a 360k drive now and I want to put in a 1.2 >Meg as drive A, with the 360k as drive B. > >My floppy controller is on the same card as the clock/calendar, >the serial port and etc (i.e. the hard disk controller is >separate from the floppy disk controller.) > >There is a cable connected to the back of the floppy disk >controller. The cable has two adapters on it. One of the >adapters has a twist in the wire, the other one doesn't. (I >think the one with the twist is for drive A). >I connected the adapter with the twisted wires to >the 1.2 meg and the other adapter to the 360k. > >The problem is that I get a general failure when I try to read >from the 1.2 Meg (drive A). If I try to get a directory from >the 360k (drive B), it tries to read from the 1.2 Meg. The >light never goes on on the 360k drive. > >I hope this explanation is clear. Thanks in advance for >your help. > >-Chuck Wooters >wooters@icsi.berkeley.edu The specific difference between controllers that will handle 1.2M and 1.44M floopy drives and those that won't is the data transfer rate. You will need a new controller. Brent H. Besler
akcs.amparsonjr@vpnet.UUCP (Anthony M. Parson, Jr.) (01/03/90)
There are available (such as the Super Multi I/O Card, from Gems, Inc as advertised in Computer Shopper) cards available for XT's that support any 2 drives in 360K,720K,1.2M, and 1.4 M in 3.5 or 5.25 combinations, along with clock, cal, 2 serial ports, but only 1 parallel port. Cost me $65, and 2 tries (the first was Very heat sensitive) but for several months the card has worked as advertised. Your need a controller card that will support HIGH density (1.2M and 1.4M floppies), AND IN ADDITION the computer's ROM BIOS may need to be changed (my BIOS didn't support the 3.5 inch floppy format, so I had to change in to an ERSO BIOS).