Rumor has it that Lawrence Walker may have mentioned these words:
> 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 !!
Yes, provided you don't try to interface in a HD drive (1.44Meg formatted)
and expect it to work... in a pinch, it'll work IFF you use 720Meg floppies
that don't have the HD hole punched in them and the floppy honors that
switch (some don't and always assume 1.44 Meg) - the datarate is 2x on the
HD floppies compared to the DD floppies.
FHL had the "eliminator" which gave the CoCo a HD compatible interface;
[obviously] it wasn't RS-DOS compatible and was only useful under OS-9;
otherwise there was a hack for the original WD1771-based 12-Volt eating
controllers that would double the datarate, but this was fairly involved
IIRC; never had one of the oldies, so I can't really say for sure...
> 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 ?
Sure - they're electrically equivalent, and work fine (I had a DSDD 40track
5.25" drive and 2 DSDD 80track 3.5" floppies hooked up to my CoCo at one
point in time). - just remember to use the correct drivers under OS-9 when
you sysgen a new bootable floppy...
[[Sellam doesn't know what kinda fun he's missing, thinking the CoCos are
"crap"...]] BTW, Sellam, if you want a CoCo to mess with that has just
about any kinda video you want, just get a CoCo3. It does TV/RF; Composite
& analog RGB which can be hooked up to the CM-8 from RS, or any Atari
ST/Amiga monitor (with the right cable, mind you) that can sync down to
NTSC levels (which are most all the earlier ones...)
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?????????????
Received on Tue Aug 27 2002 - 16:46:00 BST