logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan) (03/29/89)
I walked into our local atari store saturday looking to buy a double sided 3-1/4 inch drive for my 520 ST (I still have the original single sided drive that came with it in 1986.) When I saw the price was $300.00 I turned around, made it look like I was just browsing, and then I left. Heck, my 30 meg Supra barely cost twice as much -- what a rip off. Does any third party hardware place sell double sided floppy drives (it is very incovenient to use software that is only distributed on DS disks.)? I see mail order places with price info on Indus drives, but they only list model numbers -- I'm not even sure they are 3-1/4". Anybody have any recommendations? Thanks, -- - John M. Logajan @ Network Systems; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428 - - ...rutgers!umn-cs!ns!logajan / logajan@ns.network.com / john@logajan.mn.org -
brianp@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Brian Peterson) (03/29/89)
In article <1227@ns.network.com> logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan) writes:
->I walked into our local atari store saturday looking to buy a double sided
->3-1/4 inch drive for my 520 ST (I still have the original single sided
->drive that came with it in 1986.) When I saw the price was $300.00 I turned
...
->Does any third party hardware place sell double sided floppy drives (it is
...
What is involved in putting a generic floppy drive onto an ST?
There are 3.5" drives listed for cheap in a PC ad in
Bay Area Computer Currents magazine. They are TEAC 720k for $79,
TEAC 1.44M for $89, and SONY 1.44M for $99. Also, 'universal floppy'
controller (for 1.44, 1.2, 720, 360) for $45.
Would one of these things need box, power supply, and cable?
And knowledge of which floppy-drive outputs go to the Atari interface?
Also, what's the deal with a 1.44M floppy drive? Looks like it crams
stuff on at double density. Would those be compatible with regular
disk formats, maybe by using some special mode to read 720k disks
instead of 1.44M disks?
Thanks!
Brian Peterson, ...!ucbvax!ucbernie!brianp (brianp@ernie.berkeley.edu)clf3678@ultb.UUCP (C.L. Freemesser) (03/30/89)
If you still have that SS drive (I will assume it is an Epson drive), you can stick your own DS mech in it and save quite a bit of money. I recommend the Toshiba ND-354 drive. Never heard anything bad about it. Do NOT get the ND-352 though (it doesn't work right). It's just a matter of plugging in the mech, setting the jumper on the drive to D0, setting the other jumpers (if there are any) to the proper settings, and away you go! Personally, I'm using a Tandy 3.5 drive (Teac mech). Works great, but the jumper you need to run from pin 2 to 28 causes the write protect to "stay on" all the time. PLEASE PLEASE ATARI, PUT OUT TOS 1.4 so this is fixed! :^) =cf=
hyc@math.lsa.umich.edu (Howard Chu) (03/30/89)
In article <28593@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> brianp@ernie.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Brian Peterson) writes: %In article <1227@ns.network.com> logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan) writes: %->I walked into our local atari store saturday looking to buy a double sided %->3-1/4 inch drive for my 520 ST (I still have the original single sided %->drive that came with it in 1986.) When I saw the price was $300.00 I turned %... %->Does any third party hardware place sell double sided floppy drives (it is %... % %What is involved in putting a generic floppy drive onto an ST? %There are 3.5" drives listed for cheap in a PC ad in %Bay Area Computer Currents magazine. They are TEAC 720k for $79, %TEAC 1.44M for $89, and SONY 1.44M for $99. Also, 'universal floppy' %controller (for 1.44, 1.2, 720, 360) for $45. %Would one of these things need box, power supply, and cable? %And knowledge of which floppy-drive outputs go to the Atari interface? % %Also, what's the deal with a 1.44M floppy drive? Looks like it crams %stuff on at double density. Would those be compatible with regular %disk formats, maybe by using some special mode to read 720k disks %instead of 1.44M disks? Yep - case, power supply, and cable. That's all, for a 720K drive. These are already "double density" - 1.2 meg is "quad" and 1.44 is "high" density, requiring a different controller. Anyone know if Western Digital has a new controller chip that does everything the 1772 does in the ST, with high density support? Is that universal controller a board for a PC? -- -=- PrayerMail: Send 100Mbits to holyghost@father.son[127.0.0.1] and You Too can have a Personal Electronic Relationship with God!
jlemon@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Jonathan Lemon) (03/30/89)
In article <610@stag.math.lsa.umich.edu> (Howard Chu) writes: >In article <28593@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> (Brian Peterson) writes: >%What is involved in putting a generic floppy drive onto an ST? >%Would one of these things need box, power supply, and cable? >%And knowledge of which floppy-drive outputs go to the Atari interface? > >Yep - case, power supply, and cable. That's all, for a 720K drive. No adaptor? I can just buy the case, cable, pwr supply, drive, and plug it into my ST? If so, then I really am going to have to get one ASAP. It's cheaper than whatever 3rd party manufacturers offer. Also, which drives are good and which ones aren't so good? Teac, Toshiba are two companies which are often mentioned in the ads. -- Jonathan ...ucbvax!cory!jlemon or jlemon@cory.Berkeley.EDU
rjd@brunix (Rob Demillo) (03/30/89)
In article <1227@ns.network.com> logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan) writes: >I walked into our local atari store saturday looking to buy a double sided >3-1/4 inch drive for my 520 ST (I still have the original single sided >drive that came with it in 1986.) When I saw the price was $300.00 I turned >around, made it look like I was just browsing, and then I left. Heck, my >30 meg Supra barely cost twice as much -- what a rip off. > >Does any third party hardware place sell double sided floppy drives (it is >very incovenient to use software that is only distributed on DS disks.)? > >Anybody have any recommendations? > Um, actually it is a 3.5" drive, not 3.25". Anyhow...you can get an Atari SF-314 drive mail order for $200.00. This is an excellent price for a company original drive. (Don't believe me? Try looking at Mac drive prices sometime...honestly, I sometimes wonder about ST owners...it sometimes seems like they have *no* idea what other computer owners are paying..."Jeez! My local computer dealer actually wants me to pay $1000 for a Mega 2 computer...what a rip off!" Yeah, go price an SE sometime, and we'll talk...) Anyway, as to 3rd party drives: Here at the Planetary Lab, we have about 10 STs of various sizes/shapes, etc. We purchased about 3 DSDD drives from Future Systems. (The GTS-100 drives.) I have mixed feelings about them: I wish they worked, is my big problem, because they would be great... They are small, ruggedly built, and have an LED indicator showing the sector number the drive is currently accessing. A *very* nice feature for the sort of stuff we do around here!!! However, there have been problems: (1) One of the drives was DOA. It instantly started managling disks the second it was plugged in. The is *not* a good random sampling: 1 out of 3 DOA. (2) On occasion, we have not been able to read disks formated on the GTS-100 in other Atari or IBM disk drives. (3) We have has real queer results plugging the GTS-100's into the Megas. On occasion, the Megas will not recognize the 'B' drives. So, for the time being I would recommend byting (hyuck, hyuck) the bullet and getting an Atari SF314 mail order. (I bought my personal SF314 from Abby's mail order. It was $199.00, and arrived in about 4 days...) Hope this helps... - Rob DeMillo | UUCP: ...ima!brunix!rjd Brown University | BITnet: DEMILLO%BRNPSG.SPAN@STAR.STANFORD.EDU Planetary Science Group | Reality: 401-863-3769 "I say you *are* the Messiah, Lord! And I ought to know, I've followed a few!"
clf3678@ultb.UUCP (C.L. Freemesser) (03/31/89)
A few questions came up about hooking up a PC/XT mech to an ST. Since I have done this, and have done ALOT of research into this, I'll put in my two cents worth of info. Simply put, the ST has a built-in drive controller. This means that the disk drives we use are "dumb drives", obeying whatever the computer tells it to do. This is a great opportunity for hardware hackers to build their own drive. All you have to do is get a 720k mechanism, a power supply that has +5 and +12 lines (like a PC power supply), and a data cable. The mech is probably the worst part of the thing. Some will work, some won't. It's a matter of research: find out what others have tried and succeeded with, and use these mechs. The cable is easy. Since the ST uses the standard signals from the drive in its own arrangement (that wonderful 14 pin connector), all you have to do is get an ST drive cable, cut off one connector, and hook up a 34 pin header connector. Best Electronics sells a "PC-Ditto cable kit" for $10. The power supply is also easy. Grab a PC power supply and plug it in straight away. Since the connector on the power supply is not the same as the one on the drive, you might have to do a little soldering. If you buy a new mech, it will come with an installation kit with the power cable adapter. If you don't get a kit, then you can solder the wires from the power supply to the pins on the drive's connectors. That's basically it. Be sure to set the DRIVE ID (usually a jumper on the drive itself) to D0. The ST identifies the drive number by switching around the wires in the cable (The computer's D1 [disk 2] wire hooks up to the d0 [drive 1] wire on the second floppy). Understand? If you do NOT have TOS 1.4, you need to run a jumper from pin 2 to 28 on the drive's 34 pin connector. This connects the media change and write protect signals. You might run into a problem here if the signal isn't strong enough to reach the computer. That's where knowing what mech to use is important. By the way, I use a TEAC drive sold as the Tandy 1000EX external drive. I also use a wall transformer power supply (a "brick") that I bought at a local electronics place for $7.50. The cable is a home-brewed hack, but it works. =cf=
33576320@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU (04/01/89)
Since all my mail to everyone keeps getting bounced back, i'll post this
directly.
I have been using a Teac 720K drive with my 1040ST for almost 2 1/2 years
now, and have had no problems at all (except when I accidentally stuck a disk
with a bent shutter into it and had to take the whole drive apart to get the
disk out. . . FUN CITY!!). The drive is very durable and it has no problems
(that I have found) reading disks formatted by other drives and vice-versa.
I would also like to pick up another one of these to replace my Atari
SSided drive. If someone could give me more ordering information as to where I
can get one for the previously mentioned $79, I would appreciate it. Thanks.
-Steve Coco
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Steve Coco
yz2y@vax5.cit.cornell.edu "Don't Dream It, Be It!"
YZ2Y@CRNLVAX5 - Richard O'Brien
YZ2Y@CORNELLA
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