[comp.sys.amiga.emulations] A3000 high density floppy drive with AMAX support!

wwarner@en.ecn.purdue.edu (William A Warner) (03/23/91)

From a phone conversation with ReadySoft, I found out that not only is C=
supposedly going to be releasing a 3.5" High Density 1.76 Meg floppy
drive in the near future, but it will be replacing the stock floppy in all
future 3000's sold!  The AmaxII+ should be released in latter April and will
support that C= HD drive!!!  There was no talk of AE HD floppy drive support. 
  Won't that be great!  We'll have HD Amiga,IBM,& Mac 3.5" floppies to get
mixed in with our LowDens Amiga,Ibm,Mac 3.5" floppies!  No more making sure
that the right switches are set when formatting floppies on those MS-Dos
machines that have HD drives in them.

This is not a joke and I am not making this up.
This was just told to me over the phone, therefore time will probably be 
the best confirmation!  Unless someone at C= would like to speak up now
and yell "LIAR!"

-- 
Art Warner
wwarner@en.ecn.purdue.edu
Amiga makes it happen.......IBM, Mac, Sun, and Next make it expensive!


-- 
Art Warner
wwarner@en.ecn.purdue.edu
Amiga makes it happen.......IBM, Mac, Sun, and Next make it expensive!

ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) (03/23/91)

In article <1991Mar22.214507.10761@en.ecn.purdue.edu> wwarner@en.ecn.purdue.edu (William A Warner) writes:
>From a phone conversation with ReadySoft, I found out that not only is C=
>supposedly going to be releasing a 3.5" High Density 1.76 Meg floppy
>drive in the near future, but it will be replacing the stock floppy in all
>future 3000's sold!
>This was just told to me over the phone, therefore time will probably be 
>the best confirmation!  Unless someone at C= would like to speak up now
>and yell "LIAR!"

I read that the Amiga 3000T (announced at CeBIT) has this drive, so I
believe it's official.

What I wanna know is: Does this mean a new Paula chip, or a SCSI
interfaced floppy drive, like the Insite?
-- 
First comes the logo: C H E C K P O I N T  T E C H N O L O G I E S      / /  
                                                ckp@grebyn.com      \\ / /    
Then, the disclaimer:  All expressed opinions are, indeed, opinions. \  / o
Now for the witty part:    I'm pink, therefore, I'm spam!             \/

jms@vanth.UUCP (Jim Shaffer) (03/25/91)

In article <1991Mar22.214507.10761@en.ecn.purdue.edu> wwarner@en.ecn.purdue.edu (William A Warner) writes:
>From a phone conversation with ReadySoft, I found out that not only is C=
>supposedly going to be releasing a 3.5" High Density 1.76 Meg floppy

I wonder how they got 1.76M?  Wasn't AE trying for 1.76M, but found they
couldn't make it work so they dropped back to something lower?

--
*  From the disk of:  | jms@vanth.uucp		     | "You know I never knew
Jim Shaffer, Jr.      | amix.commodore.com!vanth!jms | that it could be so
37 Brook Street       | uunet!cbmvax!amix!vanth!jms  | strange..."
Montgomery, PA 17752  | 72750.2335@compuserve.com    |		     (R.E.M.)

peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) (03/25/91)

In article <1991Mar23.150300.6691@grebyn.com> ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies) writes:
>In article <1991Mar22.214507.10761@en.ecn.purdue.edu> wwarner@en.ecn.purdue.edu (William A Warner) writes:
>>From a phone conversation with ReadySoft, I found out that not only is C=
>>supposedly going to be releasing a 3.5" High Density 1.76 Meg floppy
>>drive in the near future, but it will be replacing the stock floppy in all
>>future 3000's sold!
>>This was just told to me over the phone, therefore time will probably be 
>>the best confirmation!  Unless someone at C= would like to speak up now
>>and yell "LIAR!"
>
>I read that the Amiga 3000T (announced at CeBIT) has this drive, so I
>believe it's official.
>
>What I wanna know is: Does this mean a new Paula chip, or a SCSI
>interfaced floppy drive, like the Insite?

No, it's a special drive: in HD mode it goes half speed. So you get the
capacity but not the speed adavantage of a HD drive.

-- 
Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel  // E-Mail to  \\  Only my personal opinions... 
Commodore Frankfurt, Germany  \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk

daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) (03/27/91)

In article <jms.3713@vanth.UUCP> jms@vanth.UUCP (Jim Shaffer) writes:
>In article <1991Mar22.214507.10761@en.ecn.purdue.edu> wwarner@en.ecn.purdue.edu (William A Warner) writes:
>>From a phone conversation with ReadySoft, I found out that not only is C=
>>supposedly going to be releasing a 3.5" High Density 1.76 Meg floppy

>I wonder how they got 1.76M?  Wasn't AE trying for 1.76M, but found they
>couldn't make it work so they dropped back to something lower?

Well, it's actually 1.72M, if your M=megabytes.  Twice 880K is logically what
you would expect in a double density drive.  I gather AE had trouble, possibly
due to trouble maintaining a constant 1/2 speed.  You might need a heavier
flywheel kind of thing to run at the slower speed accurately, at least with
the same motor.  If you're involved in the design of the drive, though, you
may have a number of solutions that work good.


-- 
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests"
   {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh      PLINK: hazy     BIX: hazy
      "That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight" -R.E.M.

groenewo@fwi.uva.nl (Ferry van het Groenewoud) (03/27/91)

Is the 1.76 Mb HD amiga floppy able to read real Mac-formatted Mac-disks?
Can I hook up a HD drive to my A500?
What will be the price of the drive?
Will it be able to format DD disks with HD capacity (ie. will it look for
the hole in HD disks or not? I hope it won't).

--
Mac.   The noise of a wrong calibration.    PS/2.  You can't see the new thing.
IBM.   The toys of a dead generation.       Sun.   You can't feel the beating.
NeXT.  The choice cause of bad information. Atari. You'll need some healing.
                                           
Amiga. For boys with real imagination.  __  Amiga. You can reach the ceiling.
                                     __/ /
Ferry van het Groenewoud             \__/  groenewo@fwi.uva.nl  

xgr39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU (Marc Barrett) (03/28/91)

In article <1991Mar27.141826.11339@fwi.uva.nl>, groenewo@fwi.uva.nl (Ferry van het Groenewoud) writes:
>Is the 1.76 Mb HD amiga floppy able to read real Mac-formatted Mac-disks?
>Can I hook up a HD drive to my A500?
>What will be the price of the drive?
>Will it be able to format DD disks with HD capacity (ie. will it look for
>the hole in HD disks or not? I hope it won't).

   More handy would be the ability to use MAC-formatted 1.44M disks under
A-Max.  All of the MACs here have SuperDrives, which allows you to store
1.44M of data on HD disks, and it is very annoying to not be able to read
these disks on my Amiga under A-Max.  

   BTW, when will these Commodore-produced HD drives be coming out?  It is
about time, since HD drives have been available for IBM and MAC systems for
about three years.  But, I guess a mere three years late is pretty good for
Commodore.

>
>--
>Mac.   The noise of a wrong calibration.    PS/2.  You can't see the new thing.
>IBM.   The toys of a dead generation.       Sun.   You can't feel the beating.
>NeXT.  The choice cause of bad information. Atari. You'll need some healing.
>                                           
>Amiga. For boys with real imagination.  __  Amiga. You can reach the ceiling.
>                                     __/ /
>Ferry van het Groenewoud             \__/  groenewo@fwi.uva.nl     

                                       
                                     -MB-

macdona@obelix.gaul.csd.uwo.ca (magundi ( John A A MacDonald )) (03/28/91)

In article <1991Mar28.034314.11053@news.iastate.edu> xgr39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU writes:
>
>                                       
>                                     -MB-


Oh no!
tell me it isn't so.
the dreaded scourge of c.s.a is back.
life has no meaning anymore

JBK4@psuvm.psu.edu (03/28/91)

I haven't been following this discussion of the High Density drive, but my ques
tion is, is this an internal or external drive?  Or are there both types?  I wa
s interested in an internal for my 3000.

Jason Koszarsky, JBK4@PSUVM

peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) (03/28/91)

In article <1991Mar27.141826.11339@fwi.uva.nl> groenewo@fwi.uva.nl (Ferry van het Groenewoud) writes:
>Is the 1.76 Mb HD amiga floppy able to read real Mac-formatted Mac-disks?

No idea, I rather doubt it. As far as I know, this drive only knows two
speeds, full and half, but a Mac drive needs more fine tuning of the speed?

>Can I hook up a HD drive to my A500?

Don't know precisely, but that's perhaps possible.

>What will be the price of the drive?

No idea. (You know you rarely get an answer for such questions :-)

>Will it be able to format DD disks with HD capacity (ie. will it look for
>the hole in HD disks or not? I hope it won't).

No, you definitely need HD disks. DD's really can't hold that much of
data, else this would have been common for some years already.

-- 
Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel  // E-Mail to  \\  Only my personal opinions... 
Commodore Frankfurt, Germany  \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk

barrett@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Dan Barrett) (03/29/91)

In article <1991Mar28.034314.11053@news.iastate.edu> xgr39@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU writes:
>HD drives have been available for IBM and MAC systems for
>about three years.  But, I guess a mere three years late is pretty good for
>Commodore.

	And Apple and IBM are/were 5 years late bringing out a real
multitasking PC.  So what?  You can't be state-of-the-art in every area
all at once.

	Marc, can't you EVER write a letter that doesn't slam Commodore
at the end?

	Followups to you-know-where.

                                                        Dan

 //////////////////////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
| Dan Barrett, Department of Computer Science      Johns Hopkins University |
| INTERNET:   barrett@cs.jhu.edu           |                                |
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wwarner@en.ecn.purdue.edu (William A Warner) (03/29/91)

In article <1991Mar27.141826.11339@fwi.uva.nl> groenewo@fwi.uva.nl (Ferry van het Groenewoud) writes:
>Is the 1.76 Mb HD amiga floppy able to read real Mac-formatted Mac-disks?
Yes and No!  By itself it can't, but with the support of the AmaxII+ it will.

>Can I hook up a HD drive to my A500?
I am not sure about CBM's support for this new drive.  I do know that it is
presently available in the 3000T and soon will be standard in all future 
3000's.  I was also told that the support is already included with current
3000's sold.

>What will be the price of the drive?
I don't know what CMB's price is going to be, but I have priced the OEM drive
to less than $60 !!

>Will it be able to format DD disks with HD capacity (ie. will it look for
>the hole in HD disks or not? I hope it won't).
It will of course look for the hole in the disk. 

Lets think about this for a minute.....with this HD floppy drive and AmaxII+
you'll be able to:

  Read & Write  Amiga, MS-dos, & Mac  Double & High density disks!!!

-- 
Art Warner
wwarner@en.ecn.purdue.edu
Amiga makes it happen.......IBM, Mac, Sun, and Next make it expensive!

groenewo@fwi.uva.nl (Ferry van het Groenewoud) (03/30/91)

peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) writes:

>In article <1991Mar27.141826.11339@fwi.uva.nl> groenewo@fwi.uva.nl (Ferry van het Groenewoud) writes:

>>Will it be able to format DD disks with HD capacity (ie. will it look for
>>the hole in HD disks or not? I hope it won't).

>No, you definitely need HD disks. DD's really can't hold that much of
>data, else this would have been common for some years already.

I disagree. It IS common practice here to make a hole in a DD disk
so that a HD drive thinks the DD disk is a HD disk. I know some guys 
that do this. It turned out that it was even possible to use DD white
label disks (very cheap disks) and format them HD.
It reminds me of the good old C64 time. Noone ever bought double sided
disks, just single sided. Make a hole in it and use it double-sided.
I NEVER have had problems.
So let there be a little switch on the drive to turn out the checking.

Michael van Elst wrote to me:

|The Mac doesn't write its 400k and 800k disks in a constant density.
|one would need more than two different motor speeds to adapt the Amiga
|disk controller to that format.
|Nevertheless, then Mac can use 1.44M disk (using a constant density)
|and these disks can be written by the Amiga hardware. It's a matter
|of software then to format the disks.
|The HD-drive can read/write normal 880k amiga floppies and it uses
|two drive speeds to achieve that. But the exactly two different speeds
|are different from what you need for the Mac 800k format.
|
|Regards,
|					Michael van Elst

Maybe this clears up things a little (thanks Michael).

>-- 
>Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel  // E-Mail to  \\  Only my personal opinions... 
>Commodore Frankfurt, Germany  \X/ {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!cbmger!peterk

--
Mac.   The noise of a wrong calibration.    PS/2.  You can't see the new thing.
IBM.   The toys of a dead generation.       Sun.   You can't feel the beating.
NeXT.  The choice cause of bad information. Atari. You'll need some healing.
                                           
Amiga. For boys with real imagination.  __  Amiga. You can reach the ceiling.
                                     __/ /
Ferry van het Groenewoud             \__/  groenewo@fwi.uva.nl  

FelineGrace@cup.portal.com (Dana B Bourgeois) (03/30/91)

> -MB- slams CBM at the end of his letter

I liked everything about your letter, -MB-, except that uncalled-for
slap at the end.  Please learn some net-manners, quit being a jerk,
and continue posting to your heart's desire.  Even calling for more
improvements, faster product development, and better marketing.  S'OK
with me.  Just, y'know, mellow out.

Dana Bourgeois @ cup.portal.com

mrush@ecst.csuchico.edu (Matt "C P." Rush) (03/30/91)

In article <1026@cbmger.UUCP> peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY) writes:
>In article <1991Mar27.141826.11339@fwi.uva.nl> groenewo@fwi.uva.nl (Ferry van het Groenewoud) writes:
	[ lots o' deletions ]
>
>>Will it be able to format DD disks with HD capacity (ie. will it look for
>>the hole in HD disks or not? I hope it won't).
>
>No, you definitely need HD disks. DD's really can't hold that much of
>data, else this would have been common for some years already.

	Yes they can!  It's not a good idea, and not safe for the long term,
but if you're just transporting few megabytes of files down to your local
NeXT (or other system running HD/ED drives) SOME DD disks can take it.

	However, the drive SHOULD be checking for that hole anyway.  Let's
just have it documented so some of us can BYPASS the switch :-)

	That's another thing, any chance these new drives could do ED (2.88
MB)?  I know that would mean running at QUARTER speed, but some sacrifices
are worth it for that extra capacity...

	-- C P.
	mrush@cscihp.ecst.csuchico.edu

	And of course you take this information at YOUR OWN RISK!

stevek@amiglynx.UUCP (Steve Krulewitz) (03/30/91)

Thats a good question - but here's another one: Will it be able to read IBM
1.44mb floppies also?  Thats one of the reasons I didn't buy the AE drive. 
What will also be nice is if the next version of A-Max (A-Max II - rumors
anyone?) will have the HD drive emulate the Mac SuperDrive...

  -=+ Steve Krulewitz +=- -=+ Fair Lawn, NJ +=- -=+
                                     UUNET!tronbox!amiglynx!stevek.UUCP +=-

stevek@amiglynx.UUCP (Steve Krulewitz) (03/30/91)

OOOps, I meant the next version of A-Max to be A-Max III, not A-Max II...
oops.  So while I'm taking up this extra space, does anyone know the release
date of A-Max II+??

  -=+ Steve Krulewitz +=- -=+ Fair Lawn, NJ +=- -=+
                                     UUNET!tronbox!amiglynx!stevek.UUCP +=-

jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) (04/02/91)

In article <1991Mar28.220301.5555@en.ecn.purdue.edu> wwarner@en.ecn.purdue.edu (William A Warner) writes:
>In article <1991Mar27.141826.11339@fwi.uva.nl> groenewo@fwi.uva.nl (Ferry van het Groenewoud) writes:
>>Is the 1.76 Mb HD amiga floppy able to read real Mac-formatted Mac-disks?
>Yes and No!  By itself it can't, but with the support of the AmaxII+ it will.

>>What will be the price of the drive?
>I don't know what CMB's price is going to be, but I have priced the OEM drive
>to less than $60 !!

	Careful, it's not a "standard" PC HD drive, it's a special hacked
drive that spins almost amusingly slow (Paula can only handle a 250Kbps
data rate, so the only way to up capacity without a total reimplementation
of Paula is to run the drive slowly.)

>>Will it be able to format DD disks with HD capacity (ie. will it look for
>>the hole in HD disks or not? I hope it won't).
>It will of course look for the hole in the disk. 

	Yup.  The FS even auto-changes size on disk-insertion.

-- 
Randell Jesup, Keeper of AmigaDos, Commodore Engineering.
{uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com  BIX: rjesup  
Disclaimer: Nothing I say is anything other than my personal opinion.
Thus spake the Master Ninjei: "To program a million-line operating system
is easy, to change a man's temperament is more difficult."
(From "The Zen of Programming")  ;-)

uzun@pnet01.cts.com (Roger Uzun) (04/03/91)

[]
Can the new HD disk for the A3000 read/write 1.44M MS-DOS floppies?
With Dos-2-Dos or CrossDOS I imagine, or some utility that C= packages
with it?
-Roger

UUCP: {hplabs!hp-sdd ucsd nosc}!crash!pnet01!uzun
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