[comp.sys.amiga.tech] 5.25" Floppy drive?

jcjust01@ULKYVX.BITNET (J. Crazyrat Justen) (12/07/90)

In article <1823@harlie.tegra.COM> nad@tegra.COM (Nancy Durgin) writes:
>
>In article <yorkw.660439556@stable.ecn.purdue.edu> yorkw@stable.ecn.purdue.edu
(
>>
>>What exactly do you DO with one of these?
>>I've only seen 1 1020 my entire life.
>>
>>use them for c: space? (Hay i could do that!)
>>$199 seems a little high.
>>
>
>I actually have *two* of these beauties!  Both were originally purchased
>for use with the Transformer (and came with the Transformer software).
>Back in my pre-hard disk days, I used one of them quite effectively as
>a 3rd Amiga drive (actually, a half a drive, giving me 2.5 drives).
>I put ARP on it and assigned C: to it.  It made a very usable system
>(1.5 Meg RAM, Facc II, VD0:) that I could use for C development.
>

On the same note, it is very easy to adapt any 5.25" drive to be used with
the amiga.  I have a similar setup to the person above, but instead of a
half-height, 1020 or whatever, I am using a 360K full-height XT drive.  The
design is relatively the same as the hh, except this drive mounts perfectly
into the XT case that I have sitting underneath my desk.  Also in this case
is a power supply and (hopefully soon a hard drive) a 3.5" drive which is
used as an external as well giving me 2 external 3.5"s and 1 5.25" external to
use for my ARP: dir.  This makes development on a 3 meg, faccii, vd0: even
that much easier.

One thing I have not been able to figure out tho, is how to use that 2nd
full-height 5.25" in the XT case.  Does anyone out there know if the Amiga
can drive more than 1 5.25" drive and how can it be done?  Apparently, the
5.25" drive can only be the LAST drive on the chain.  I guess this is a problem
with trackdisk, so is there any way to work around this?  I talked to a
fellow-hacker/developer who said there was a PD device that could be used
called T-disk.device that was essentially trackdisk but into an external
driver.  Could this be used to mount more than 1 5.25" floppy?

Any insight from anyone?

Joel

P.S.  To cut down on thread length, please direct e-mail toward me and I will
      try to post a summary of what we figure out.

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                  /\             JCJUST01@ulkyvx.bitnet
               \ //_\            crazyrat@disk.uucp
        Only   \X/   \miga!!

jayward@eecs.cs.pdx.edu (Jay Ward) (12/09/90)

In article <1jcjust01@ULKYVX.bitnet> jcjust01@ULKYVX.BITNET (J. Crazyrat Justen) writes:

[Amiga configuration deleted]

>
>One thing I have not been able to figure out tho, is how to use that 2nd
>full-height 5.25" in the XT case.  Does anyone out there know if the Amiga
>can drive more than 1 5.25" drive and how can it be done?  Apparently, the
>5.25" drive can only be the LAST drive on the chain.  I guess this is a problem
                             ^^^^
I thought this was only because the 1020 didn't have a pass-thru.
Could it really be that simple??? :-)

					Jay


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay Ward --> jayward@eecs.cs.pdx.edu | if TrailBlazers > Opponents then      
                                     | 		TrailBlazerWins++
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

dlt@locus.com (Dan Taylor) (12/11/90)

jayward@eecs.cs.pdx.edu (Jay Ward) writes:

>In article <1jcjust01@ULKYVX.bitnet> jcjust01@ULKYVX.BITNET (J. Crazyrat Justen) writes:

>[Amiga configuration deleted]

>>
>>One thing I have not been able to figure out tho, is how to use that 2nd
>>full-height 5.25" in the XT case.  Does anyone out there know if the Amiga
>>can drive more than 1 5.25" drive and how can it be done?  Apparently, the
>>5.25" drive can only be the LAST drive on the chain.  I guess this is a problem
>                             ^^^^
>I thought this was only because the 1020 didn't have a pass-thru.
>Could it really be that simple??? :-)

>					Jay


>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Jay Ward --> jayward@eecs.cs.pdx.edu | if TrailBlazers > Opponents then      
>                                     | 		TrailBlazerWins++
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Only power is not passed through the 5.25" drive.
-- 

* Dan Taylor    * The opinions expressed are my own, and in no way *
* dlt@locus.com * reflect those of Locus Computing Corporation.    *

crazyrat@disk.UUCP (@jap) (12/12/90)

In article <882@pdxgate.UUCP>, jayward@eecs.cs.pdx.edu (Jay Ward) writes:
> In article <1jcjust01@ULKYVX.bitnet> jcjust01@ULKYVX.BITNET (J. Crazyrat Justen) writes:
> >One thing I have not been able to figure out tho, is how to use that 2nd
> >full-height 5.25" in the XT case.  Does anyone out there know if the Amiga
> >can drive more than 1 5.25" drive and how can it be done?  Apparently, the
> >5.25" drive can only be the LAST drive on the chain.  I guess this is a problem
>                              ^^^^
> I thought this was only because the 1020 didn't have a pass-thru.
> Could it really be that simple??? :-)
> 

Unfortunately, not.  For the drive I am trying to use is not an A1020.
It's a clone IBM full-height made to be used like one with a home-brew 
controller card similar to the one in the hardware reference (the old one!)
manual.  This is the only one I've found to have the correct pinouts for the
gate and tty for adding MORE than one drive.

Also unfortunately, it still does not work.

@jap

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-- 
Joel C. Justen      Crazyrat Productions Ltd.
CRAZYRAT@DISK.UUCP  JCJUST01@ulkyvx.BITNET