swonk@ccicpg.UUCP (Glen Swonk) (05/04/89)
Has anyone out there had experience installing and using more than 2 floppy drives? Currently I have (1) 1.2M and (1) 1.44M floppys. I would like to have (2) of each. I haven't seen advertisements for a controller that can handle the additional drive or device drivers to support them. Also, is there a standard for supporting COM3 and COM4. Has anyone installed COM boards with such. The above system uses MS-DOS 3.3. thanks -- Glenn L. Swonk CCI Computers (714)458-7282 9801 Muirlands Boulevard Irvine, CA 92718 uunet!ccicpg!swonk
rde@ukc.ac.uk (R.D.Eager) (05/05/89)
Try the Compaticard (reviewed in Byte not too long ago). It can go in alongside
any existing controller, on a different port address, and supports up to 4
drives of 3.5, 5.25, or 8.0 at various densities.
--
Bob Eager
rde@ukc.UUCP
...!mcvax!ukc!rde
Phone: +44 227 764000 ext 7589hollen@eta.megatek.uucp (Dion Hollenbeck) (05/06/89)
From article <23341@ccicpg.UUCP>, by swonk@ccicpg.UUCP (Glen Swonk): > Has anyone out there had experience installing and using > more than 2 floppy drives? Currently I have (1) 1.2M and > (1) 1.44M floppys. I would like to have (2) of each. > > I haven't seen advertisements for a controller that can > handle the additional drive or device drivers to support them. > If you have an XT, no problem. The standard IBM floppy controller has a db37 external controller for supporting 2 external floppies. You merely need to set switches 7 & 8 on motherboard to tell BIOS you have 4 drives. The same card will work in an AT, but unless you have a BIOS which supports 4 drives in the setup (no switches on these puppies), you are SOL at getting the BIOS to recognize the extra two drives. There is one card called a 'Compaticard' which I have heard supports 4 floppies (maybe even has a driver which will replace BIOS INT 13h) or you can call JAMECO in Belmont, Ca. who sells 4 floppy controllers. You mentioned you had DOS 3.3. This may cause you a problem when attempting to use DRIVPARM. This works in DOS 3.2 but appears broken in 3.3 Dion Hollenbeck (619) 455-5590 x2814 Megatek Corporation, 9645 Scranton Road, San Diego, CA 92121 seismo!s3sun!megatek!hollen ames!scubed/
dchou@ncoast.ORG (David Chou) (05/11/89)
I have added a second floppy controller to my AT clone, but I found the process less than straigtforward. In my case, I needed a 1.44 drive in addition to my 1.2mb and 360kb drives. Here is what I eneded up doing: I used a SYSGEN OMNI-BRIDGE controller and set it up with its controller PROM at address CE00. This was necessary to avoid conflicts with a hard disk BIOS extension at address C800. The card requires a device driver to be implemented at startup. To connect this to a TEAC, I had to make a special ribbon connector. The drive was mounted in a case with a power supply from JDR. Advantages: The approach cost $80 for the card, $135 for the TEAC (now available for less), $50 for the case and power supply, and another $10-15 for the cables and connectors. It does work well and allows me to add 2-4 additional floppy drives. Disadvantages: Another on-off switch, more cables. A more serious problem is that the TEAC and/or controller scribbles garbage all over any disk installed in the drive on power off/on so I have to be sure not to leave a disk in the drive. The startup is lengthened due to some bizzare requirement for the SYSGEN card to wait 5-10 seconds during the initialization. I have also used the switch card accessory offered by IBM for their external 3.5 drive. It does seem better integrated, but does not support 1.44 or 1.2mb drives. David Chou ncoast!dchou@hal.cwru.edu