MPI-52 as replacement for SA400?

From: Bill Richman <bill_r_at_inetnebr.com>
Date: Wed Dec 31 20:16:11 1997

Is the SA-400 the standard Northstar floppy drive? I've been running
a Northstar floppy controller in my IMSAI, using just a couple of
plain old IBM-XT floppy drives. I was clued in by someone else on
this list that they would work, and they seem to be fine; even
handling the original hard-sectored diskettes! I was under the
impression that the sectoring was at least in part determined by the
drive, but have been told (and have seen for myself) that this is not
so; it's determined by the controller. Hope this helps!

On Tue, 30 Dec 1997 19:37:37 -0600 (CST), you wrote:

>
>I've got a Northstar Horizon that I'm starting to restore. The Northstar
>manual indicates that the Northstar disk controller wants to talk to one
>or two SA400s, which sounds about right considering the time period.
>
>Problem is the only SA400s, or similar, that I have are in my SWTPC 6800
>and I don't want to pull them. I know that the SWTPC will accept an
>MPI-51 as a replacement for an SA400 (but not an SA400 on a controller
>that expects to see MPI-51s since they have a slightly higher step rate).
>
>Could I use an MPI-52, and under what conditions, as a replacement for
>the SA400s that the Northstar wants to see? If so, why? If not, why not?
>
>Thanks...
>
>Anthony Clifton - Wirehead


                            -Bill Richman
                             bill_r_at_inetnebr.com
                             http://incolor.inetnebr.com/bill_r
                            
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Received on Wed Dec 31 1997 - 20:16:11 GMT

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