crichmon@digi.lonestar.org (Charles Richmond) (10/10/90)
I got the following responses concerning where to get a
5 1/4" disk drive to use with an Atari ST and read the IBM
360 k format disks:
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I was told that not all 5 1/4" drives will work. (No mention
of why or what type of drives will not work.)
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Regardless of which 5 1/4" drive you use, the track to track
stepper rate must be reduced to 6 milliseconds. There is a PD
program to do this; also, most 5 1/4" drives designed for the
Atari ST come with this type of program. It works by poking
the stepper rate into memory. On TOS 1.4, there is an xbios
call that does this instead. (This is a more stable solution
and less likely to change in the future TOS releases.)
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E. Arthur Brown [ at (612) 762-8847 ] sells a special cable
and software to lower the steppper rate to 6 milliseconds.
The cost is $39.95, and presumably it can be used with an
external drive designed for use with an IBM PC.
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One person told me that Indus made a GT-1000 model 5 1/4" drive.
It has a track indicator and a write protect button. He said
it worked great with his ST, but it would have trouble working
with an STE. A local dealership told me that Indus was out of
business.
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Another person suggested that I take an IBM 5 1/4" drive and
swap the circuit cards with an Atari ST 3 1/2" external drive.
He claimed that would require unhooking and reconnecting a
ribbon cable only. Of course, the stepper rate must again be
set to 6 milliseconds.
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A local dealer sells a drive made by a company called IB.
It is the model 909 and retails for $225 with power supply.
Another local dealer said that he built up his own 5 1/4"
drives for the Atari ST with power supply for about $200.
Check your local dealer; your mileage will vary.
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Someone from Atari in California suggested that I look for a
drive made by Atari called the model PCF-554. Another local
dealer told me that these were made for Federated to sell with
the Atari ST's and PC's. If you can find one, it should work
okay with the 6 millisecond track to track setting. Since
Federated is defunked, probably you won't find one.
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Charles Richmond crichmon@digi.lonestar.org