Two ESDI drives available

From: Kelly Leavitt <CCTalk_at_catcorner.org>
Date: Thu Apr 3 06:06:00 2003

> For a cable already made up, IIRC cables like these, 34 pin
> with male IDC on one end, and female IDC on the other end
> came with floppy controller controlled tape backup drives, to add
> a third device ( the tape drive ) to a floppy cable already being
> used by both an A: and B: floppy drive.

I've got a dozen of these cables. The problem is that they have a pin pulled
that I think is used in standard DS/DD floppy operation, but not in tape
operation. I tried several anyway and it would not work. Looking carfeully,
most floppy cables use one of the ground pins as a key. I know that if I use
a straight direct cable it works fine. With one of these cables it does not.


I am not using these for the ESDI drives, but for my TRS-80 Model 4. The
internal drives do not work, the metal cage is not deep enough for
"standard" 5.25" floppies, and for cosmetic reasons I want to leave the old
drives in place. So I need to put two dirves in an external case. However,
Having something like this hard wired in place makes handling difficult. I
tried to use a card edge connector from the bottom of the unit, but it then
doesn't sense the drives. I'll just keep looking and trying differnet
cables. I know Digikey has them, but at $20 each it would be more than I
paid for the model 4.

Thanks,
Kelly
Received on Thu Apr 03 2003 - 06:06:00 BST