Date   : Wed, 27 Jan 1993 03:10:24 GMT
From   : daleg@mks.com (Dale Groves)
Subject: Re: 8 inch drive questions

In article <C1H0FH.9H6@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> wilker@hopf.math.purdue.edu
(Clarence Wilkerson) writes:
>As I look at the pile of unused (unusable) 8" drives in one corner of 
>my basement, I came up with a couple of questions
>
>1) What do I need for the DIP style terminator resistors on Qume DataTrak8
>   DSDS drive?
>
>2) I have a couple of fancy 1/2 height NEC 8" drives that use DC power
>   only. What is the pin out on the power plug? I't a little 4 or 5 
>square pins in row connector, not the usual massive block style.
>
>3) Does anyone have mods to a cheap PC floppy controller to let it read/write
>   8" drives? I'm not interested in buying a new card, but have several
>   extra XT and AT floppy controllers to experiment with.
>
>
>-- 
>Clarence Wilkerson      \ Bitnet:       wilker%math.purdue.edu@purccvm
>Prof. of Math. (topology)\ Internet:    wilker@math.purdue.edu
>Dept. of Mathematics      \ messages:   (317) 494-1903, FAX 494-0548
>Purdue University,         \ office:    (317) 494-1955 (voice/modem)
>W. Lafayette, Indiana 47907 \ 

hang 'em off your at if you have lots of8 inch disks to play with - an at
5.25 1.2MB floppy is simply a squished 8 inch drive, with one minor exception.

8 inch drives only support 77 tracks, instead of 80 (at least the ones i have
used in the past only use 77 - shugart 801, for example).  These drives may
handle 80 tracks if you try to format them that way.  if not, then try the
/t and /n switches to override format's default settings.

the at 1.2MB drives actually changes spindle speed and transfer rate to the
same values as the old 8 inch drive double density charactistics when in
high density mode.  you might have to build a funny cable to go from 34 pin to
50 pin, but in general you should be able to use the 8 inch drive in place of
a regular 1.2 HD drive

good luck!

daleg


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