Good Emulators & floppies (was: C64 CP/M carts (was:...))

From: Doug Spence <ds_spenc_at_alcor.concordia.ca>
Date: Fri Jun 20 08:31:31 1997

On Thu, 19 Jun 1997, Roger Merchberger wrote:

> Due to massive amounts of caffeine & sleep deprivation, Doug Spence said:
>
> >Please stop assuming I've joined the Evil Empire. My only PC compatibles
> >are my A1060 Sidecar on my Amiga 1000, which no longer has a 5.25" floppy
> >drive as I put a hard drive in its bay, and a Tandy 1000EX, which has no
> >way of communicating with anything else that I own because ALL it has is
> >a 360K floppy drive.
>
> "Evil Empire?" == Use the Farce, Duke! == First, if you have an Atari ST,
> (and I think TOS 1.4 or above... getting my ST next weekend! Wheeeee! ;-)
> it can read/write/format PC floppies.

I don't have an ST (yet) but my Amigas (Amigae? :) ) handle PC double-
density floppies very well (I've even been able to read MS-DOS formatted
Zip disks).

Now if only I could find an A1020 5.25" floppy drive for them...

> Second, if the EX's drive controller can handle double-sided drives,
> replace the SSDD drive with a DSDD one and get 720K storage, and the
> capability to read other 720K floppies...

That would be cool, and might actually make the EX useful. :) (Though not
for reading CP/M disks with 22DISK.)

There's something oddly enticing about a PC-clone with 256K and CGA, in a
console-style case. (I'm actually quite fond of the EX, even if neglect it
most of the time.)

> BTW, you mentioned in the original post that you own a 1541 C= drive...
> would you like to hook that up to the EX? There's a way to run that drive
> thru the serial port, takes a 1 or 2 chip converter board, and I've seen
> the dox on this... but I'm not a Commie fan (sorry... had to say that ;^)
> but ISTR that the circuit is very similar to the one used to hook up the
> Atari 8-bit series drives (810 / 1050 / Indus, etc.) to an IBM as well.

Actually, the project I've been wanting to build (and I really should do
it now that I have some free time) is the one to connect the 1541 to the
Amiga's parallel port.

But there's a device that plugs into the (non-classic) A1200's IDE
connector that allows use of the 1541, as well as standard PC high density
3.5" drive mechs. I'm considering killing two birds with one stone with
that device... but it's so rare that I actually buy NEW hardware
<shivver>. ;)

Oh, and the EX doesn't _have_ a serial port. It uses PCB edge connectors
anyway, on the ports it does have. I'd need the pinouts for the EX's
ports before I'd play with it in that way.

<snip>

> Roger "Merch" Merchberger
> --
> Roger Merchberger | If at first you don't succeed,
> Programmer, NorthernWay | nuclear warhead disarmament should
> zmerch_at_northernway.net | *not* be your first career choice.

Doug Spence
ds_spenc_at_alcor.concordia.ca
Received on Fri Jun 20 1997 - 08:31:31 BST