First of all, I believe it could be untwisted by pulling off the
back cover of the connector and pulling the cable off. Also, I
believe the IBM controllers walk fine with jumper-selected drives,
just that everyone uses the half twist thing.
>I've been tinkering with my Kaypro to try to eliminate the errors that
drive B
>has been giving me. Putting in a new floppy drive didn't seem to fix
them;
>I wonder if it's the cable? (As is, the Kaypro supports two drives
(SA400 or
>equivalent). The original owner bought a little hardware thingie that
does
>something to the drive-select signals to add support for four drives;
he also
>added a connector to the cable for drive C between A's and B's
connectors.
>I currently have no drive C, and only drive B is giving me problems --
that's
>why I suspect the cable.)
>
>So I bought a new cable. It has that stupid half-twist, so I'm
wondering how
>to coax my system into working with the new cable. I think I
understand the
>situation from the point of view of the drives (both drives are
jumpered as
>#1, and some pins are exchanged: 10 <-> 16, 11 <-> 15, 12 <-> 14).
>But doesn't the computer have to cooperate in this farce? That is,
would I
>have to reprogram my BIOS to mess things up in the same way as the IBM
PC's
>hardware, so that the drive cable can do its part and thus it all ends
up
>(sort of) working?
>
>It's worth trying the new cable (though it seems rather cheap, and
there's a
>break in the insulation, though that could be because I dropped it on a
>concrete floor at the store). But if it's too much trouble, I'll skip
it.
>
>Incidentally: God damn IBM for cutting corners this way, and making
people
>think shenanigans like this are totally normal and to be expected, and
messing
>with a perfectly reasonable interface.
>
>-- Derek
>
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Received on Sun Jul 26 1998 - 20:39:38 BST