brian@.Waterloo.NCR.COM (Brian W. Gamble) (02/13/91)
I think my last post must have landed in the bit-bucket... Oh well... If all else fails, try again... I've got an Atari ST (one of the old Nov.20/85 1040's) and just bought a 1.44M floppy drive to attach as drive B:... QUESTION ONE Do you need to do anything special to get 1.44M out of it? I can't seem to get it to read a HD disk... I've found a SW/PD formatter called Diamond Format, which formats to 1.44M (or 1.6M if you use more sectors than usual). It also seems to be a stand-alone portion of a hard drive backup program. Do I need to find a special driver or something? The drive works fine as a double density... QUESTION TWO Does anyone know where I could find a 14 pin DIN (ie, the ST's external floppy drive port) plug adapter, that has a female 34-pin (ie, the floppy drive's bus) port on the other end? Or am I doomed to building one? Given the half-dozen or so 3rd party manufacturers of external drives for the ST, a part like this HAS to exist, right? Chris Herborth, [Guest-posting with Brian Gamble, esq.] Note from Brian Gamble: Neither one of us knows much about these Atari news groups. Post replies as you see fit, or EMail to me at the address below. I will see that Chris gets any EMail promptly. Thanks for your help -- Brian W. Gamble, Brian.Gamble@Waterloo.NCR.COM NCR Canada Ltd. E&M Waterloo Charter Member -- The ShoeString Racing Team
ekrimen@ecst.csuchico.edu (Ed Krimen) (02/17/91)
brian@.Waterloo.NCR.COM (Brian W. Gamble) writes: - QUESTION ONE - Do you need to do anything special to get 1.44M out of it? I can't - seem to get it to read a HD disk... I've found a SW/PD formatter - called Diamond Format, which formats to 1.44M (or 1.6M if you use - more sectors than usual). It also seems to be a stand-alone portion - of a hard drive backup program. Do I need to find a special driver - or something? The drive works fine as a double density... There is a product called the PowerDrive. It comes in two parts: a drive controller replacement and a 1.4meg drive. You can buy the drive separately, but you must by the special controller from them. I think it uses the faster WD1772 (is that the right part #?) controller chip. The board itself costs $139.95. I think they recommend a Teac drive. A friend of mine has this installed on his 4meg STe. He says, not only is the 1.44meg drive faster, but his external 720K Indus drive jams. He says you can see on the track reading that it's much faster. However, he adds that there is some incompatibility with copy-protected games. DreamPark Development 1390 So. 1100 E. Suite 104 Salt Lake City, Utah 84105 (801)-484-9809 - QUESTION TWO - Does anyone know where I could find a 14 pin DIN (ie, the ST's external - floppy drive port) plug adapter, that has a female 34-pin (ie, the - floppy drive's bus) port on the other end? Or am I doomed to building - one? Given the half-dozen or so 3rd party manufacturers of external - drives for the ST, a part like this HAS to exist, right? Try Best Electronics (408) 243-6950. -- Ed Krimen ............................................... ||| Video Production Major, California State University, Chico ||| INTERNET: ekrimen@ecst.csuchico.edu FREENET: al661 / | \ SysOp, Fuji BBS: 916-894-1261 FIDONET: 1:119/4.0