Yonderboy@cup.portal.com (Christopher Lee Russell) (12/12/90)
I have a friend who was wanting to upgrade his SS external Atari ST disk drive to DS. He bought a new DS mech. at a local computer shop and hooked it up in place of the SS mech. in his drive, but it would only work very intermittantly. So, he went back and got a different make of DS mech. and tried it with the same results. Does Atari use special mechanisms? These mechs. that he tried, had the exact same connectors on them as his old unit. We figured that even if the SS drive's electronics couldn't support DS oper- ation, that at least these mechanisms would work in SS mode... He was able to get a directory a coupla times, but very slow.. Never able to format or write.... ..He was successfully able to look at text file... The were IBM type 720K mechs. that he was trying to use... ..Anybody know if this kinda upgrad is possible? ......Yonderboy@cup.portal.com
Roger.Sheppard@bbs.actrix.gen.nz (12/13/90)
In article <36830@cup.portal.com> Yonderboy@cup.portal.com (Christopher Lee Russell) writes: > I have a friend who was wanting to upgrade his SS external Atari ST disk drive > to DS. He bought a new DS mech. at a local computer shop and hooked it up > in place of the SS mech. in his drive, but it would only work very > intermittantly. So, he went back and got a different make of DS mech. and > tried it with the same results. Does Atari use special mechanisms? These > mechs. that he tried, had the exact same connectors on them as his old unit. > We figured that even if the SS drive's electronics couldn't support DS oper- > ation, that at least these mechanisms would work in SS mode... He was able > to get a directory a coupla times, but very slow.. Never able to format or > write.... ..He was successfully able to look at text file... The were IBM > type 720K mechs. that he was trying to use... ..Anybody know if this kinda > upgrad is possible? ......Yonderboy@cup.portal.com As long as they have a 3 ms stepping rate, also does your SS drive box have a small PC board with a large I.C fitted, this is better removed also you will find that the side select line is not conected, so it depends on the version of rear connector card, if it has the large ic. it is a bit of a pain, but posible, i did have one SS drive that had 2 small ic's on the rear board, but they were to buffer the Step/Write data lines, NOTE: don't use 1.44 meg drives, they won't work, i have 2 NEC FD1037A drives and they work perfectly, but have had some seek problems with Mitsubishi MF353B-12U drives, they are quoted as being 3 ms, but the agent here states that they test them as 4 ms, but if you can get a true 2/3 ms Mitsubishi they are very good drives, also note some drives the Pin connector is the othere way around... -- Roger W. Sheppard 85 Donovan Rd, Kapiti New Zealand...
Yonderboy@cup.portal.com (Christopher Lee Russell) (12/14/90)
I started this thread by meantioning how my friend was having trouble
upgrading his SS external drive to DS.. He tried two 720K Mechs and they
both failed! He went out and bought a 1.44M mech and tried it and it worked!
Go figure?!?! Anyways, I guess it can be done. He simply hooked the thing
up and it worked. I did receive mail telling me that there are 2 types of
external drives... One has normal IBM style drives in them and another type
uses some cheaper mechs. that need support circuitry (found in the case of
the Atari drive) to drive them. It was reported that these (the latter) type
of drive is harder to upgrade... Well, good-luck to anyone else who wants to
try this... It looks kinda hit-or-miss.. Note, this message seems to
contradict the message concerning 1.44M drives NOT working.. who knows, eh?
......Yonderboy@cup.portal.comrosenkra@convex.com (William Rosencranz) (12/15/90)
In article <36917@cup.portal.com> Yonderboy@cup.portal.com (Christopher Lee Russell) writes: > He went out and bought a 1.44M mech and tried it and it worked! >Go figure?!?! Anyways, I guess it can be done. He simply hooked the thing >up and it worked. i need to replace a bad internal drive on a 1040 (chinon, i suspect). can u tell me what drive your friend used? vendor/make/model/etc, please. did he just plug it in or were there other mods? i a aware of potential mediachange problems... -bill rosenkra@convex.com -- Bill Rosenkranz |UUCP: {uunet,texsun}!convex!c1yankee!rosenkra Convex Computer Corp. |ARPA: rosenkra%c1yankee@convex.com