Date   : Fri, 22 Jun 2001 23:40:56 +0100
From   : "Richard Gellman" <r.gellman@...>
Subject: Re: Using two disk drives together?

D.U.C.K. stands for Dualing Up Connector Kit, and was if i remember, sold by
viglen. It consisted of two idc sockets on a lead which you plugged into
your BBC, and then you pluged two _unmodified_ disc drives into it. It did
some clever electronics so that the second drive would respond to drive 1
signals, but still _think_ it was drive 0. Thus making it an easy solution
for those who were scared of opening up a disc drive.

The normal method was to open up "drive 1", change the drive select link
from 0 to 1, then open up "drive 0" and remove the terminating resistor. I
have found from experience though that the terminating resistor can
sometimes be hard to spot.

This also involved a single ribbon cable with two idc "edge connectors"
(plugs onto the side edge of the circuit board). drive 1 would go on the
end, and drive 0 on the middle to ensure the rite unit sequencing.

Incidentally, viglen also made a "Power DUCK", which was nothing much more
than a power splitter.

-- Richard Gellman

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-bbc-micro@...
[mailto:owner-bbc-micro@...]On Behalf Of Kris Adcock
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2001 11:06 AM
To: bbc-micro@...
Subject: [BBC-Micro] Using two disk drives together?


Morning all,

Anyone know what is involved getting two separate single drives to act as a
dual-drive? I was looking through an old Acorn User last night and noticed a
"Data Duck" for sale which did this. I imagine it's something along the
lines of duplicating most of the IDC pins to go to both drives, but then
doing to the drive select pins for one of the drives. Anyone done this?

Cheers,

Kris.