dkelly@boffin.Aus.Sun.COM (Dave Kelly) (06/07/91)
Can anyone tell me what the status is regarding the Amiga (500/1000/2000/3000) supporting high density (i.e. 1.44Mb and/or above) 3.5-inch floppies ?
Will (or can) they ever be supported as the "internal" DF0-type floppy unit ?
Are there any external units available ?
Thanks for any and all advice......
Dave Kelly Sun Microsystems Australia
(dkelly@Aus.Sun.COM) Level 1
Prudential Centre
495 Victoria Avenue
Chatswood NSW 2067
Australia
Phone: 61-2-413-2666
Fax: 61-2-413-4818taab5@isuvax.iastate.edu (Marc Barrett) (06/07/91)
In article <1991Jun7.005237.9755@sunaus.oz>, dkelly@boffin.Aus.Sun.COM (Dave Kelly) writes: >Can anyone tell me what the status is regarding the Amiga (500/1000/2000/3000) supporting high density (i.e. 1.44Mb and/or above) 3.5-inch floppies ? > >Will (or can) they ever be supported as the "internal" DF0-type floppy unit ? >Are there any external units available ? > >Thanks for any and all advice...... This has been 'discussed' before. The problem is that the Amiga's custom chips (in particular the Paula chip, which contains the microdisc controller) cannot handle high-density drives. So hooking up a high-denisity drive directly and using it is impossible. To use a high-density drive on an Amiga you have to modify either the drive or the Amiga. So far, both Commodore and a third-party have taken the former approach, modifying high-density drives so that the motor spins at a slower speed, allowing more data to be written to the drive at the same old data rate. It is my oppinion that this is a stupid, kludgy way to do things, but Commodore seems to be really into kludges lately. > > > >Dave Kelly Sun Microsystems Australia >(dkelly@Aus.Sun.COM) Level 1 > Prudential Centre > 495 Victoria Avenue > Chatswood NSW 2067 > Australia > Phone: 61-2-413-2666 > Fax: 61-2-413-4818 ------------------------------------------------------------- / Marc Barrett -MB- | BITNET: XGR39@ISUVAX.BITNET / / ISU COM S Student | Internet: XGR39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU / ------------------------------------------------------------ \ The great thing about standards is that / \ there are so many of them to choose from. / -------------------------------------------------------
ryan@amix.commodore.com (Ryan Sheftel) (06/08/91)
dkelly@boffin.Aus.Sun.COM (Dave Kelly) writes: > Can anyone tell me what the status is regarding the Amiga (500/1000/2000/3000 > > Will (or can) they ever be supported as the "internal" DF0-type floppy unit ? > Are there any external units available ? > > Thanks for any and all advice...... > > > > Dave Kelly Sun Microsystems Australia > (dkelly@Aus.Sun.COM) Level 1 > Prudential Centre > 495 Victoria Avenue > Chatswood NSW 2067 > Australia > Phone: 61-2-413-2666 > Fax: 61-2-413-4818 A company called Applied Engineering makes a HD floppy (external). Theire phone number is (214) 241-6060 ---------- Ryan Sheftel UUCP: uunet!cbmvax!amix!undrground!ryan Internet: undrground!ryan@amix.commodore.com
wampner@acme.ucf.edu (Eric Wampner) (06/08/91)
In article <1991Jun7.005237.9755@sunaus.oz> dkelly@boffin.Aus.Sun.COM writes: >Can anyone tell me what the status is regarding the Amiga (500/1000/2000/3000) supporting high density (i.e. 1.44Mb and/or above) 3.5-inch floppies ? > >Will (or can) they ever be supported as the "internal" DF0-type floppy unit ? >Are there any external units available ? > >Thanks for any and all advice...... > <Sig deleted> Well, I don't know about any amiga specific products, but the NeXT computer has a couple for it (PLI Super Floppy, CubeFloppy) They do 720,1.4 and 2.88. Of course they black and expensive..... Why does this matter? cause they are SCSI. They would probably work like a cartridge drive. You would have to write the software for the formatting type, I have a program on the next which will read any type 3.5 inch disk, unix tar, ms-dos, mac. Boot? I don't think so, but I have been wrong before. I may have access to both some time, maybe I'll give it a try. Eric Wampner eww@engr.ucf.edu wampner@next1.acme.ucf.edu <- EEEK, a next user...
Harvey_Taylor@mindlink.bc.ca (Harvey Taylor) (06/10/91)
In <1991Jun7.221235.27924@osceola.cs.ucf.edu>, wampner@acme.ucf.edu (Eric Wampner) writes: | |In article <1991Jun7.005237.9755@sunaus.oz> dkelly@boffin.Aus.Sun.COM writes: |> |> Can anyone tell me what the status is regarding the Amiga |> (500/1000/2000/3000) supporting high density (i.e. 1.44Mb and/or above) |> 3.5-inch floppies ? |> | |Well, I don't know about any amiga specific products, but the |NeXT computer has a couple for it (PLI Super Floppy, CubeFloppy) |They do 720,1.4 and 2.88. |Of course they black and expensive..... See below |Why does this matter? cause they are SCSI. They would probably |work like a cartridge drive. You would have to write the |software for the formatting type... I have written a SCSI Direct formatting & mode select utility to allow one to initialize the TEAC FD235-JS SCSI floppy. This is a 4M, 2M, 1M drive (Formatted capacities 2.88M, 1.44M, 720K). Then the FFS can deal with the device [haven't tried MSDOSFileSystem from CrossDOS yet]. BTW. The major difficulty I had was getting documentation from TEAC; manual was out of print, pages missing etc. This is the mountlist I use. /* * SCSI Floppy under the Xetec driver 720K, 1.44M, 2.88M * BlocksPerTrack = 36 (for 2.88M) * BlocksPerTrack = 18 (for 1.44M) * BlocksPerTrack = 9 (for .72M) */ sd0: Device = harddisk.device FileSystem = l:FastFileSystem Unit = 1 Surfaces = 2 LowCyl = 0 HighCyl = 79 Reserved = 2 BlocksPerTrack = 9 Buffers = 10 BufMemType = 3 Stacksize = 6000 Priority = 10 GlobVec = -1 MaxTransfer = 0x0001FE00 Mask = 0x00FFFFFE DosType = 0x444F5301 # SCSI floppy drives are available from several sources, but the only manufacturer I know is TEAC. --- TEAC America Inc. (213)727-7682 (213)726-0303 FD-235HS-302 3.5" 1.44Mb SCSI floppy (using FC-1) FD-235JS-401 3.5" 2.88Mb SCSI floppy (using FC-1) FD-55GS-704 5.25" SCSI floppy (using FC-1) FD-235J-401 3.5" 2.88Mb floppy (without FC-1) FC-1 SCSI floppy controller only (not avail. seperately?) --- Tulin Corp. 2156h O'Toole Ave. San Jose CA. 95131 (408)432-9025 03/03/91 PriceList TLFD2N (FD-235HS) US$179 TLFD4N (FD-235JS) US$219 --- Digital Instrumentation Tech. According to NextWorld, Jan/Feb/1991, Page 93 CubeFloppy 2.9 @ US$520 --- PLI Peripheral Land Inc. According to NextWorld, Jan/Feb/1991, Page 93 SuperFloppy2.8 @ US$499 TurboFloppy1.4 [Direct price unknown] --- MacWarehouse According to MacUser, April 1991, Page 187 PLI TurboFloppy1.4 @ US$359 --- This makes me really curious what is in the expensive packages. If anybody wants to get the format & mode_select utilities, I'll send them to c.s.a.sources. Misc Info: A2000B Xetec MiniFastTrak Driver Version 1.48 TEAC FD-235-JS SCSI Floppy How much goo could a guru do, if a guru could do goo? - Not the Hoodoo Gurus Harvey Taylor Meta Media Productions uunet!van-bc!rsoft!mindlink!Harvey_Taylor a186@mindlink.bc.ca