Date   : Mon, 17 Jul 2006 19:18:17 +0000
From   : Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk@...>
Subject: Re: What types of 3.5" Floppy work best with the BBC

Robin Commander wrote:
> Can't believe the prices that I'm seeing on Ebay for original drives !

For 5.25" or 3.5"? I hear that 8" units are getting pretty pricey these days, 
but I'm surprised there's any shortage of other types resulting in high prices.

> Failing that, would an old DSDD 3.5" drive from say an Atari or Amiga
> external unit work ?

OK, I think you *need* a DSDD unit, don't you? I would have thought that the 
beeb can't cope with the data rate needed for a DSHD drive.

In which case yes, I can't see you having a problem there - I certainly added 
a pair of stock DSDD drives to my Amiga back in the day (I seem to recall 
having to build an interface to do this, but I'm pretty sure that was to get 
around some quirk in the Amiga side of things, rather than some fundamental 
"problem" with the use of PC drives)

> Happy to take a soldering iron to a floppy to make it work if necessary :-)

You shouldn't need to do that :) You might have to mess around with some of 
the drive jumpers though, so give preference to a drive for which the manual's 
available on the 'net (or jumper info exists in Google's news archive), or 
failing that a drive which actually labels its jumpers.

cheers

Jules