CoCo Floppies: Was:These darned old computers

From: Lawrence Walker <lgwalker_at_mts.net>
Date: Tue Aug 27 15:35:38 2002

 Do you mean that I could use a 3 1/2" floppy in the 502, with suitable data
connector of course ? That would be even cooler than a 2nd 5 1/4 !!
 That would enable me to get into "serious" OS9 stuff. Woo-haa !!

 I just ran up and checked an old data cable for floppies. It does fit the 502.
 I'm surmising that the TEAC (FD-55BV-75-U) was a standard issue floppy
that R-S used so any 34pin 3 1/2 connector could be used to replace the
2nd edge connector on the 502. That would also imply that I could use 2
3 1/2" floppies in there if wanted. Or am I simply running away with myself.
 Would the cartridge interface accept 3 1/2" drives ?

 I have to get into some major research on the CoCo. I have some of the
important issues of "Rainbow" (eg Jan 84 Beginners Issue) and almost
complete sets of Micro 80 and US 80.

Lawrence

> Rumor has it that Lawrence Walker may have mentioned these words:
> [snip]
>
> > The 502 has a dummy faceplate for a second floppy and 2 data 34pin
> >connectors and 2 standard 3 1/2 floppy plug types as you say and a
> >whopping big PSU that must support 2 drives. There's one single square 2pin
> >plug which doesn't have any visible connector on either drive.
> > The only mod needed would be to replace the small power with a large type.
>
> The PSU does support 2 drives, but when it does so, it gets a little
> warm... that's what the 2-pin plug is for - Fan power. If you're using
> newer drives that take less power (especially if it's 3.5" and you have
> more room for convective cooling) it's not necessary (or at least *as*
> necessary, if you power the machine for a short amount of time) but if you plan
> on using that older TEAC, you'll want to fit in a compatible-sized fan. The fan
> was included in the CoCo "Drive 1" kits...
>
> Dunno if a standard PC case fan is the right size - my FD502 is still
> packed away for now... (sniff) but if that's too big, a larger pentium-like CPU
> fan should be just the ticket. If it's not *ezactly* the right size, I'm sure
> suitable boltholes could be fashioned... ;-)
>
> > That's great. When you don't have a HD, 2 floppies sure makes things
> >easier. I recall with no pleasure spending hours doing the disk-change
> >mambo copying programs off magazine disks on my Atari ST.
>
> Yea, when I upgraded my CoCo3 to 512K, it wasn't so bad 'cause I fashioned a
> 200K RAMdisk; which made copying stuff a wee bit easier; but the original IBM
> PCs were tough, they'd only copy 3-4 tracks each spin... :-(
>
> Laterz,
> Roger "Merch" Merchberger
>
> --
> Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- sysadmin, Iceberg Computers
> zmerch_at_30below.com
>
> What do you do when Life gives you lemons,
> and you don't *like* lemonade?????????????
>


lgwalker_at_mts.net
bigwalk_ca_at_yahoo.com
Received on Tue Aug 27 2002 - 15:35:38 BST