Date   : Sun, 24 Aug 1997 15:52:34 +0100 (BST)
From   : Andrew De Quincey <adq@...>
Subject: Re: BBC Micro Disk Drives and PC disk drives

> Andrew de Quincey wrote:
> > 
> > Hi, I'm trying to connect a disk drive to a BBC B micro I have just
> > recieved. I've blown an EPROM with Acorn's DNFS (DFS v 1.20), and I'm
> > trying to use an old PC 5 1/4" disk drive (360k I think) with it.
> > 
> > I've connected the drive, but when I do *CAT on a disk, the drive
> > spins up, and just sits there... not moving it's heads or anything....
> 
> Sounds like you attached the connector the wrong way!
> or perhaps a drive selector link to select the drive number is
> incorrect?

Nope, checked that.. putting the cable the other way round causes the drive to
spin continually.. and it's definitely set to drive 0 (DS0 jumper on the drive)


> > Does DFS 1.20 assume you have a 1770 disk controller? The machine has
> 
> No.


Oh dear, this problem appears to be intermittent...
I just turned the machine on (without changing anything)... and suddenly it
was working... The drive heads moved, and it was able to catalogue an old BBC
disk I had lying around.... however, it couldn't actually read any files off
it.. maybe the format was slightly incorrect..

then.. I turned it off, and on again and now it doesn't work again...
I've tried changing the cable I'm using, and opening the machine up, and
pressing on various chips (in case of a broken link)


Note: I use the following commands to access the disk (in this order):
*DISC
*DRIVE 0
*.