blgardne@esunix.UUCP (Blaine Gardner) (08/17/87)
Regarding my postings of a month ago on homebrewing a 5.25" 80 track
(880K) disk drive:
As pointed out by George Robbins the `5.25"' and `3.5"' Amiga adapter
circuits in the A1000 expansion specs are really `40 track' and `80
track' circuits. Once I switched to the 3.5" circuit the 5.25" drive
formatted one of my old Apple II floppies to 880K. The thing works like a
champ now.
But the drive doesn't generate the diskchange signal that the Amiga
wants to see (you were right George, it was the drive's fault). Can
someone give me some help with generating this signal? I imagine it
could be generated from the write-protect sensor, but what kind of
signal does the Amiga expect to see? Can anyone give me some specifics?
The other question I've got is how will this 80 track drive work with
the Amiga or Dos-2-Dos MS-DOS utilities that are assuming a 40 track IBM
style disk format? Can either of them be convinced to make the 80 track
drive read & write like a 40 track drive?
Thanks in advance for any help.
P.S. There appears to be no truth to the rumor that 007 H.Q. is using an
Amiga in "The Living Daylights". I saw it again last night, and no
matter how hard I looked, I couldn't make any of their hardware
look like an Amiga. (Now if the Amiga could just get the kind of
advertizing that Phillips had in the movie!)
--
Blaine Gardner @ Evans & Sutherland 540 Arapeen Drive, SLC, Utah 84108
UUCP Address: {ihnp4,ucbvax,decvax,allegra}!decwrl!esunix!blgardne
Alternates: {ihnp4,seismo}!utah-cs!utah-gr!uplherc!esunix!blgardne
seismo!usna!esunix!blgardnegrr@cbmvax.UUCP (08/18/87)
In article <453@esunix.UUCP> blgardne@esunix.UUCP (Blaine Gardner) writes: > > P.S. There appears to be no truth to the rumor that 007 H.Q. is using an > Amiga in "The Living Daylights". I saw it again last night, and no > matter how hard I looked, I couldn't make any of their hardware > look like an Amiga. (Now if the Amiga could just get the kind of > advertizing that Phillips had in the movie!) Pretty blatent, huh? You can be sure that Phillips paid big $$$, in one form or another, for those little shots. I hadn't heard any Amgia rumor, else I would have tried to look for one. I don't know though, there were certain distracting elements scattered here and there throughout the film. -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {ihnp4|seismo|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing arpa: cbmvax!grr@seismo.css.GOV Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)
blgardne@esunix.UUCP (Blaine Gardner) (08/20/87)
in article <2228@cbmvax.UUCP>, grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) says: > In article <453@esunix.UUCP> blgardne@esunix.UUCP (Blaine Gardner) writes: >> P.S. There appears to be no truth to the rumor that 007 H.Q. is using an >> Amiga in "The Living Daylights". I saw it again last night, and no >> matter how hard I looked, I couldn't make any of their hardware >> look like an Amiga. (Now if the Amiga could just get the kind of >> advertizing that Phillips had in the movie!) > Pretty blatent, huh? You can be sure that Phillips paid big $$$, in one form > or another, for those little shots. I hadn't heard any Amgia rumor, else I > would have tried to look for one. I don't know though, there were certain > distracting elements scattered here and there throughout the film. ^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^ Like Maryam D'Abo maybe? :-) I heard this rumor over on rec.arts.movies, one of the posters over there thought that he might have seen an Amiga in the backgound of Bond's HQ while 007 was talking to Q and Moneypenny. There was one monitor that looked a bit like the A1080, but it was sitting on a very large chassis that looked more like a cash register than an Amiga. Maybe Commodore can get the Amiga a bit part in the next Bond flick. :-) -- Blaine Gardner @ Evans & Sutherland 540 Arapeen Drive, SLC, Utah 84108 UUCP Address: {ihnp4,ucbvax,decvax,allegra}!decwrl!esunix!blgardne Alternates: {ihnp4,seismo}!utah-cs!utah-gr!uplherc!esunix!blgardne seismo!usna!esunix!blgardne
jdow@gryphon.CTS.COM (Joanne Dow) (08/22/87)
In article <453@esunix.UUCP> blgardne@esunix.UUCP (Blaine Gardner) writes: >Regarding my postings of a month ago on homebrewing a 5.25" 80 track >(880K) disk drive: > >As pointed out by George Robbins the `5.25"' and `3.5"' Amiga adapter >circuits in the A1000 expansion specs are really `40 track' and `80 >track' circuits. Once I switched to the 3.5" circuit the 5.25" drive >formatted one of my old Apple II floppies to 880K. The thing works like a >champ now. > >But the drive doesn't generate the diskchange signal that the Amiga >wants to see (you were right George, it was the drive's fault). Can >someone give me some help with generating this signal? I imagine it Er, I didn't use the write protect sensor. In my pair of drives I went to Radio Shack (Well - it was handy...) and bought a couple micro-switches with long thin paddles. I found a convenient place on the electronics board to mount them such that i could bend the paddle so that the switch would change state depending on whether the door was open or closed. I took this switch closure and gated it with the drive select to feed back through an open collector gate (with the correct polarity of course) to the CHNG* line. You want CHNG* to be asserted whenever the drive is selected AND the door is open. (I also gated this with the motor on signal inside the drive. THus I get very good centering of the disks I insert. And for clicky reasons I leave those hungry mouths properly fed MOST of the time.) Hope this helps some. -- <@_@> BIX:jdow INTERNET:jdow@gryphon.CTS.COM UUCP:{akgua, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, ihnp4, nosc}!crash!gryphon!jdow Remember - A bird in the hand often leaves a sticky deposit. Perhaps it was better you left it in the bush with the other one.