How to Get Replacement Drives for a CPC

[dcdrac]

Just got an old CPC 6128 of course the drive belt has perished hopefully getting that sorted out, it crossed my mind is there anyone still making these even as a custom order anywhere?

[dcdrac]

If I got an HXC drive I would need to get the original disc images for the games, utilities then use the ribbon cable to plug into the CPC once loaded on the rom or SD and it should work like the external FDD1/DD1?

[dcdrac]

The more I think about this the more convinced I am there must be a market for making custom built new drives, the issue would be components I guess.
I am nowhere near competent enough with a soldering iron to do it myself but would love to know if someone is.

[dcdrac]

Had another idea shoot it down if completely impractical make custom built direct drive 3 inch disc drives so no need for a drive belt?

[MacDeath]

you know, you can simply edit your first post so no need to put many posts in a row.  
We're not on Twitter...

The problem with traditionnal disk drives :

=mecanical parts... hard and expensive to make cheaply... really... lots of micro mechanical bitz and also it is not the most reliable thing ever.
=still need a printed circuit with lots of components...

so yeah, you get rid of all the mecanical parts, and just keep the printed circuit but filled with different stuffs and tadah... you get somethings that can really act as a traditionnal floppy disk drive, minus the floppy.

And it consumes less power too.

Today, most amstrad stuff are available online.
some 3"1/2 are still found on the market and can work well on a CPC, are far more reliable (no belt, and often are more recent than the last 3" disks produced), and Double side.

But yeah, good old 3" disks are fun and so special to us.

belts are easy to find on the web... if you are good at precision machine tools and well equipped, you could try something, but...

Anyway, in some countries (France), CPCs (6128...) are quite easy to find and somewhat cheap... so working 3" diskdrives are not a problem (just get a few drive belts).
Working disks may be on the other hand.

If I got an HXC drive I would need to get the original disc images for the games, utilities then use the ribbon cable to plug into the CPC once loaded on the rom or SD and it should work like the external FDD1/DD1?

well, you can actually replace the disk drive by the HxC... the right connector is on it (perhaps need to get the right model).


To find the files, there are many sites for the Amstrad CPC community.
You can find tousands or games, demos and applications.

One of the best, other exist but i am too lazy to post all of this.
http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=jeux


Also welcome to this site and forum... I guess you should introduce yourself?




The far future of the amstrad :

[dcdrac]

Well to introduce myself, had a CPC 464, 664 and 6128 in the 80s and recently took the plunge to get a 6128 on ebay, got it home found the drive belt perished so getting that sorted out and have found it is very common so just got thinking about how to long term fix this.
Unbfortuantley I have not used a soldering iron for donkeys years and do not feel confident enough to do it .

How about this:
a solid state drive that fits in the drive bay loaded with original CPC dsk readable images. I know that HTX thing is meant to be like that but imagine a 64 Gig or higher SD drive, could AMSDOS handle that or is that a non starter?

[MacDeath]

no need of soldering iron to replace the drive belt.  

A good sonicscrewdriver is more than enough.

just be gentle, delicate and ... very carefull.

==DON'T F#####ING LOOSE THIS DAMN LITTLE (write protect) PIN !!!!!!!


Amstrad PCW 8256 / 8512 (CPC 6128 & Spectrum +3) 3" Disk Drive Repair Tutorial

ZX Spectrum Plus 3: Disk drive belt repair guide

CPC 6128 Fix - An Amstrad Adventure (Not a game)

Amstrad TODAY

DIY - CPCWiki

Changing the drive belt - CPCWiki




ok, to be fair, some proper HardDiskDrive emulator + ROM emulator based on USB keys (per exemple, or any easily available MMS/SD/MS format...) also able to "mount" an emulated "floppy disk drive" is totally what the CPC cruelly miss, IMO...
Would need a few OS stuff (but FutureOS and SymbOS could really do it easily) or mounted screen+interface if luxurious...


Seriously one pair of GigaBytes (or infinite supply from various USB/MS/SD/MMC card/sticks) is more than enough to store so many CPC stuffs... not sure the whole CPC library fit more than 5-6 gigas... at best...
I guess this card could have to be pluged both on the Floppy port and extension port, perhaps even on the Tape port (could feature MP3/Wave reader...)


But  mighty reverand Saint Bryce, the Blessed Omnissia of the Machine Spirit, is probably doing something else at the moment and we can't just pull an interrupt routine on this old man like that.


The Symbiface2 is said to support IDE HDD with up to 128GB...
http://www.symbos.de/sf2.htm

[dcdrac]

It was great it fired up I got my old copy of Elite out put the disk in typed cat as  a test motor whired, cant see disc message, and thought damn well it is nearly a 30 year old floppy, so tried  a few others...then went googling

[db6128]

Replacing the belt is easy.

Almost certainly, no one is going to develop new actual drives. Floppy disks are a dead / an undead medium. I'm very happy that people have made emulators that can give new life and future-proofing to old devices – particularly the HxC in the case of the CPC, since it supports raw/non–MS-DOS formats – and I encourage those all the way. In contrast, wanting new drives in which to use the same old, finite supply of disks is regressive IMO.

[dcdrac]

maybe a retro fittable solid state HD or even a laptop HD could be another option to pursue if its actually doable

[Bryce]

Hi dcdrac,
          The real advantage of the HxC is that it doesn't need any additional drivers to work on the CPC (or any other computer with a floppy controller), it uses the original floppy commands. A solid state 64GB drive will always need some sort of new OS / commands that also need to be stored somewhere and would be different for every computer.

Bryce.

[dcdrac]

Thank you for the replies everyone this HXC thing seems the way to go long term

[MacDeath]

Look at the title of this topic :

RePALcement...

yeah, use a PAL.

[dcdrac]

Ok the HXC floppy emulator.
1. How does it work? there are they SD and rom varieties right, so do you just copy the dsk images onto the sds and rom via a usb cable from your PC?
2. How is it connected to your CPC do you use the expansion port at the back for the DD1 if you have a 6128 or a 664? and how does the HXC get power?

[Bryce]

I could go into a mad big long explanation here... Or you could simply read this: http://hxc2001.com/download/floppy_drive_emulator/SDCard_HxC_Floppy_Emulator_User_Manual_ENG.pdf

Bryce.

[Gryzor]

Each HxC-compatible image is, IIRC, around 700KB. So in a 1GB SD you would fit about 1400 images. I'd say more than enough