glenb@hpnmdla.HP.COM (Glen Baker) (01/13/89)
I recently went out and bought myself an A500. One of the first things
that I've discovered is that I doubt I'll be able to live with only the
internal disc drive (talk about a pain!..insert disc, insert disc....). I
took a look at the external drive connector and waddya know, it's pin for
pin compatable with the connector on the back of the SONY MP-F73W-50 1 MB
drive. It seems to me that I should be able to just hook a cable up to one
of these pups and I'll be cookin' with Crisco (tm). Does anybody have any
experience with this sort of thing? Is it REALLY that easy?
Thanks,
glen
----------------------+----------------------------------------------------+
|Glen Baker | "Hmm, it costs a lot of money and I'll never |
|glenb@hpnmd.HP.COM | use it....I'll take two!!" |
+---------------------+----------------------------------------------------+jms@antares.UUCP (Joe Smith) (01/17/89)
In article <620004@hpnmdla.HP.COM> glenb@hpnmdla.HP.COM (Glen Baker) writes: >I took a look at the external drive connector and waddya know, it's pin for >pin compatable with the connector on the back of the SONY MP-F73W-50 1 MB >drive. ... Is it REALLY that easy? You can plug a 5.25 disk or a 3.5 disk into that external drive connector. The way the Amiga can tell the difference is that it sends a "what kind of drive are you" signal to the disk, and it replies with an "I'm an Amiga 3.5 inch disk" or "I'm an Amiga 5.25 inch disk" pattern back. The trackdisk.device will get upset when the Sony doesn't answer. I'd like to know if there is an easy hack (maybe even a flip-flop or two) to provide this signal. On a related question: Is it possible to take any old half height 5.25 inch 360K disk, put it in the A2000, and have it work with programs such as DOS-2-DOS without this ID signal? The external 5.25 disk for the A1000 is too expensive for me (and getting difficult to find) and I don't want to have to buy the BridgeBoard just to read and write MS-DOS 5.25 disks. -- +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | TYMNET:JMS@F29 CA:"POPJ P," UUCP:{ames|pyramid}oliveb!tymix!antares!jms | | INTERNET:(Real Soon Now) Amiga Hacker PHONE:Joe Smith @ (408)922-6220 | +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
tomb@hplsla.HP.COM (Tom Bruhns) (01/20/89)
>In article <620004@hpnmdla.HP.COM> glenb@hpnmdla.HP.COM (Glen Baker) writes: >>I took a look at the external drive connector and waddya know, it's pin for >>pin compatable with the connector on the back of the SONY MP-F73W-50 1 MB >>drive. ... Is it REALLY that easy? > >You can plug a 5.25 disk or a 3.5 disk into that external drive connector. >The way the Amiga can tell the difference is that it sends a "what kind of >drive are you" signal to the disk, and it replies with an "I'm an Amiga 3.5 >inch disk" or "I'm an Amiga 5.25 inch disk" pattern back. The trackdisk.device >will get upset when the Sony doesn't answer. > >I'd like to know if there is an easy hack (maybe even a flip-flop or two) to >provide this signal. I've seen hacks for both 5.25 and 3.5 drives posted to many Amiga BBS's. I put together one that was a combo of both, to handle up to three drives. Works fine. Is indeed quite simple. Please check your local BBS ... file usually includes an IFF pic of the schematic. > >On a related question: Is it possible to take any old half height 5.25 inch >360K disk, put it in the A2000, and have it work with programs such as >DOS-2-DOS without this ID signal? The external 5.25 disk for the A1000 is >too expensive for me (and getting difficult to find) and I don't want to have >to buy the BridgeBoard just to read and write MS-DOS 5.25 disks. Can't you just do the same hack for the 2000 to use the drive externally? That is, won't an external 1000 drive work on the 2000? (I'm interested in the answer to this, since I am considering getting a 2000 to replace my 1000...) >-- >+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ >| TYMNET:JMS@F29 CA:"POPJ P," UUCP:{ames|pyramid}oliveb!tymix!antares!jms | >| INTERNET:(Real Soon Now) Amiga Hacker PHONE:Joe Smith @ (408)922-6220 | >+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ >---------- Tom Bruhns tomb%hplsla@hplabs.hp.com
ssd@sugar.uu.net (Scott Denham) (01/24/89)
In article <5160020@hplsla.HP.COM>, tomb@hplsla.HP.COM (Tom Bruhns) writes: > >In article <620004@hpnmdla.HP.COM> glenb@hpnmdla.HP.COM (Glen Baker) writes: > >On a related question: Is it possible to take any old half height 5.25 inch > >360K disk, put it in the A2000, and have it work with programs such as > >DOS-2-DOS without this ID signal? The external 5.25 disk for the A1000 is > >too expensive for me (and getting difficult to find) and I don't want to have > >to buy the BridgeBoard just to read and write MS-DOS 5.25 disks. > Can't you just do the same hack for the 2000 to use the drive externally? > That is, won't an external 1000 drive work on the 2000? (I'm interested > in the answer to this, since I am considering getting a 2000 to replace > my 1000...) As you correctly surmised, it is possible to use the same hardware hack to hang an extra 5 1/4 or 3.5" disk on a 2000. I built such a gadget when I had a 1000 and had no problem with the hardware when I traded up to a 2000. HOWEVER......... Note that above I said no "hardware" problems. There is a software problem that may get you in the above scenario. There is a BUG in Kickstart 1.2/1.3.3 that causes the trackdisk device to reject perfectly valid raw I/O packets if you have a drive at df0: and one at df2: (the first external on a 2000) but no drive at df1: (the second 2000 internal drive). This renders the external 5 1/4 drive useless for transferring MS-DOS files with the PCUtilites packages that came with 1.2. I don't know if DOS-2-DOS will have the same problem - if they go through trackdisk, the almost certainly will. If they go straight to the hardware there's no problem. I was told that the error is that trackdisk is checking the wrong location on a raw I/O request, and if there's not a DF0, that location will probably contain values such that the I/O request will fail. I confirmed by borrowing a second internal drive that the problem does not occur on a 2-drive 2000, though. SO... if you want to be able to do this sort of thing before 1.4 comes out (which is supposed to have this fixed), keep your 1000 or get a 2-drive 2000! > >-- Scott Denham Houston TX
tomb@hplsla.HP.COM (Tom Bruhns) (01/25/89)
> >Note that above I said no "hardware" problems. There is a software problem >that may get you in the above scenario. There is a BUG in Kickstart 1.2/1.3.3 >that causes the trackdisk device to reject perfectly valid raw I/O packets >if you have a drive at df0: and one at df2: (the first external on a 2000) >but no drive at df1: (the second 2000 internal drive). This renders the >external 5 1/4 drive useless for transferring MS-DOS files with the >PCUtilites packages that came with 1.2. I don't know if DOS-2-DOS will >have the same problem - if they go through trackdisk, the almost certainly >will. If they go straight to the hardware there's no problem. I was told >that the error is that trackdisk is checking the wrong location on a raw >I/O request, and if there's not a DF0, that location will probably contain >values such that the I/O request will fail. I confirmed by borrowing a >second internal drive that the problem does not occur on a 2-drive 2000, >though. SO... if you want to be able to do this sort of thing before 1.4 >comes out (which is supposed to have this fixed), keep your 1000 or get >a 2-drive 2000! > >> >-- > > Scott Denham > Houston TX >---------- -- Hmmm. Thanks for the info! That explains something I think I saw posted at a local BBS that was supposed to make the 2000 think the external drive was the second internal drive. If such a hack exists, maybe you would find it useful... maybe someone else could comment, 'cause not being a 2000 owner, I didn't pay much attention to it at the time. More to the poster who was interested in the HW hack to put external drives on whatever machine: if you can't find it locally, I'd be happy to send you a disk w/ it and my notes on making it work (the 5.25 drive I got didn't like the amiga's timing...) Tom Bruhns tomb%hplsla@hplabs.hp.com
ssd@sugar.uu.net (Scott Denham) (01/26/89)
In article <5160022@hplsla.HP.COM>, tomb@hplsla.HP.COM (Tom Bruhns) writes: > Hmmm. Thanks for the info! That explains something I think I saw posted > at a local BBS that was supposed to make the 2000 think the external drive > was the second internal drive. If such a hack exists, maybe you would > find it useful... maybe someone else could comment, 'cause not being a > 2000 owner, I didn't pay much attention to it at the time. > > Tom Bruhns I think I know the "fix" of which you speak, which is to make the external drive on the 2000 answer to the name of df1 as well as (or instead of) DF2. I think this is for brain-damaged software that assumes all the worlds Amigas have only DF0: DF1: DH0: and RAM:. Real clever, that. I don't think it does a thing to help the problem that I was speaking of, as that one has to do with something deeper within the device driver logic rather than just the filing system. If you have the details of how you built your 5.25" interface, I'm sure jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu would be more than happy to receive details of same. I kind of evolved mine as I went from the original piece in Amazing Computing and so don't have a very clean schematic diagram to send. Scott Denham
tope@enea.se (Tommy Petersson) (01/30/89)
In article <5160022@hplsla.HP.COM> tomb@hplsla.HP.COM (Tom Bruhns) writes:
:>
:>Note that above I said no "hardware" problems. There is a software problem
:>that may get you in the above scenario. There is a BUG in Kickstart 1.2/1.3.3
:>that causes the trackdisk device to reject perfectly valid raw I/O packets
:>if you have a drive at df0: and one at df2: (the first external on a 2000)
:>but no drive at df1: (the second 2000 internal drive). This renders the
:>external 5 1/4 drive useless for transferring MS-DOS files with the
:>PCUtilites packages that came with 1.2. I don't know if DOS-2-DOS will
:>have the same problem - if they go through trackdisk, the almost certainly
:>will. If they go straight to the hardware there's no problem. I was told
:>that the error is that trackdisk is checking the wrong location on a raw
:>I/O request, and if there's not a DF0, that location will probably contain
:>values such that the I/O request will fail. I confirmed by borrowing a
:>second internal drive that the problem does not occur on a 2-drive 2000,
:>though. SO... if you want to be able to do this sort of thing before 1.4
:>comes out (which is supposed to have this fixed), keep your 1000 or get
:>a 2-drive 2000!
:>
:>> >--
:>
:> Scott Denham
:> Houston TX
:>----------
:--
:Hmmm. Thanks for the info! That explains something I think I saw posted
:at a local BBS that was supposed to make the 2000 think the external drive
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
:was the second internal drive. If such a hack exists, maybe you would
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
:find it useful... maybe someone else could comment, 'cause not being a
:2000 owner, I didn't pay much attention to it at the time.
:
:More to the poster who was interested in the HW hack to put external
:drives on whatever machine: if you can't find it locally, I'd be happy
:to send you a disk w/ it and my notes on making it work (the 5.25 drive
:I got didn't like the amiga's timing...)
:
:Tom Bruhns
:tomb%hplsla@hplabs.hp.com
I have heard and read about this hack, what is the final word: will it
or will it not work? Is it possible to have an external drive as df1:
without having to use any software fix (like AssignDev). Is it possible
to have three external drives to a B2000 as df1: to df3: in the same way?
Tommy P.