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Date   : Wed, 12 Sep 2007 21:13:07 +1000
From   : cjl_craves@... (Peter Craven)
Subject: 3.5' Drives (Again..)

Hello again

Looking for Atari ST Drives, I found the following on a webpage:


The disk drives used by Atari ST computers are industry standard 360K or
 720K double-density floppy drives, exactly the same as those in PCs... at
least in those days.

PC drives can be used as replacement drives, only nowadays it is difficult
to find 720K drives.
You can however use just about any 1.44Mb HD drive as these will perform
perfectly well in DD 720K mode.
Nevertheless, you have to be aware of the following: 

*You need to be able to change the ID number of the drive to 0 instead of
the default 1 for PCs.
Usually there is a jumper to do this, but it tends to disappear on modern
drives, making this rather tricky. 

*You need to connect the cable upside down on the drive.
This can mean cutting a little plastic part that is designed to make this
impossible. 

*You need to set it to Media Change Detect. This is also sometimes on a
jumper. 

*Most modern HD drives can no longer read single sided 360K disks. 

The following file describes the above modifications in order to use a Sony
drive: 

ftp://ftp.sol.no/user/hallvart/atari/info/sony_144.zip



Is it the 360K or 720K DD Floppy Drive I should be searching for?

Have seen "SF314 and SF354 external 3.5" floppy drive for Atari ST without
power supply" advertised.
Would these work?

Thanks for the comments.

Pete







-----Original Message-----
From: bbc-micro-bounces+cjl_craves=yahoo.com.au@...
[mailto:bbc-micro-bounces+cjl_craves=yahoo.com.au@...] On
Behalf Of Peter Craven
Sent: Wednesday, 12 September 2007 19:02
To: bbc-micro@...
Subject: Re: [BBC-Micro] 3.5' Drives (Again..)

Hello

I am looking at purchasing some Amiga 3.5" floppy drives for the Master/
BBC.
I could not easily find a simple answer to either of the following in the
Archive:

1. Can any 3.5" Floppy Drive be used on the Master/ BBC? Could someone
indicate a
Website where information re: required adjustments can be found?

2. Do wires have to be twisted for connection? There seems to be varied
opinions?

Cheers

Peter



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