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Date   : Tue, 07 Jul 1992 21:43:58 GMT
From   : ulowell!woods.ulowell.edu!welchb@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: Any AMSTRAD users out there?

It is funny you should ask.  I just brought mine into work today, to work
on it.  I had asked a similar question a few weeks ago, and got the same
response.  Beside the Eliam, I have an address which came with the
machine, saying to write for a free catalog:
SOS Accessory Catalog
PO Box 4200
Northbrook, IL 60065
(312)564-8620

I did not contact the above address recently.  I did contact the other,
and got a catalog touting the very stuff you ask about.
In particular, I was looking for a 2nd disk drive.  Although I hope that
the Eliam (?,  I have neither the catalog or the other message in front
of me) company knows their business, I found a price of $165 or more
to be excessive, since I doubt that the machine itself is worth that
much.

I got several well-meaning responses to my request about drives; I was 
hoping to replace the 3.0-inch with a more conventional 3.5-inch.  Again,
I do not have the responses with me; they are in a notebook at home.  But
I received contradictory messages about what drives could replace what.
I stopped in at a parts store; from their response I am sure that 
convention 5.25 inch IBM drives would not work, because they all have
card-edge fingers (I am told).

FYI, the drive has 2 connectors. The power cable has 4 pins.  The "data"
cable has a double row of 13 pins each = 26 pins.  The Amstrad already
has the B drive connectors in place, so I presume you can just pop the
drive in (maybe needs a dip-switch setting to tell it whether it is
A or B).

To complicate things even further, the main "A" drive pooped out on me.
Even if I were to successfully install a 3.5-inch as "B", I would have
to get the "A" drive going, at least once, to copy the system stuff over
to "B", and then (hopefully) change B to A.

The reason I brought the computer in to work, was that a student here told
me he could figure it out.  After taking it apart, he says that no standard
3.5-inch drive has the correct connectors.  This is contrary to someone here
on News who said that a 3.5 from an XT will work; student says there is no 
difference between XT and others.   Student also spoke of the possibility of
picking up a Rainbow (with hard disk) because he thinks the Amstrad
keyboard will work with it.

This all seems a bit much.  The reason I wanted to improve the Amstrad in
the first place was that one of my daughters has learned it, used it, 
liked it, and could use the Spanish keyboard.  When it broke down, she
used her sister's Brother WP 3400 (gee, I wish their diskettes were
PC-compatible) and liked it well enough.  So I may just junk the Amstrad
[unless you want to sell yours, or your A drive].  Note: I do not
want to be self-serving to talk you out of your machine, but if you want
to seriously expand into spreadsheets and databases etc., you should perhaps 
ask the advice of the net here.  My opinion would probably be that it is
time to go to an IBM compatible.
-- 
Brendan Welch, UMass/Lowell, W1LPG,  welchb@woods.ulowell.edu

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