--- Lance S <semlj001_at_hotmail.com> wrote:
> Ethan, I'll find out the part that the technician thought was suspect.
> If I haven't explained myself clearly enough, the 8250 LP is a double
> disk drive that connects to a commodore 64.
>
> Thanks,
> Lance.
Looks like this:
http://www.zimmers.net/cbmpics/deieee3.html
Right?
We are all talking about the same thing, but the drive by itself
hooks to a PET. Your father must have a cartridge for his C-64
that provides an IEEE-488 port.
One possibility is if you can't find an 8250LP is to get a regular
8250 (using the same connection). Dunno if an SFD-1001 would work
or not... the DOS is not the same, so if your father's application
depends on certain features of the drive itself, it might or might
not be a reasonable substitute.
There was a discussion about 8250LP repair on the CBM-Hackers list
last year. This article is interesting:
http://www.softwolves.pp.se/misc/arkiv/cbm-hackers/6/6731.html
It suggests that the "fragile" part is a 6530 - a part made by
Commodore that was always customized for its particular application.
I've seen them on the KIM-1, in many Commodore disk drives and a
few other places. Apparently some drives (perhaps the DOS 3.0 ones)
used a daughter card in the 6530 socket with a 6532 (which is generic)
and an external ROM.
Dunno what's wrong with your father's drive, but if you can get in
front of it, turn it on and watch for flashing lights. In many cases,
that can narrow down the problem to a few chips. If it doesn't flash
at all (i.e., it acts totally dead), that helps, too. Likewise if you
can power it on, "talk to it" (read the error channel), but not read
or write drives.
Depending on the fault, it might actually be easier to fix than replace.
Most "technicians" these days only know how to swap out entire boards
or entire boxes. If it _is_ a 6530, that's kind of a problem... It's
theoretically possible to fabricate a replacement, but I'm not sure
the CBM community knows enough about that particular model to describe
a functional replacement. A 4040? Sure. Maybe even an old-fashioned
8250. Not positive about the 8250LP.
Cheers,
-ethan
Received on Wed Jul 02 2003 - 22:08:00 BST