HxC - Disabling the internal drive

[Gryzor]

Hello,
I was looking at the manual of HxC and it says that in order to run the board as drive A you can "connect wire 23 of the external floppy cable to the ground (wire 24)". If I understand it correctly, does this disable the internal drive completely, and if so, how?

I'll maybe try installing a switch there so I can turn it to A or B at will...
Cheers
T

[Bryce]

Hi Gryzor,
      it looks like doing this permanently enables the HxC as the A drive, this also means that both drives are then enabled in parallel, so you would have to ensure that no floppy is inserted in the internal floppy when you do this, otherwise it could cause problems (both floppies answering in parallel). Other than that, this solution should work fine.

Also important to remember is that he states in the manual that the cable is inserted the wrong way around with the red wire at the opposite end for the 6128. so actually he is referring to pins 11 (GND) and 12 (DRVSB) of the Floppy which is pins 23/24 of the centronics connector (just in case you were trying to figure this one out using a standard floppy pinout table).

Bryce.   

[Gryzor]

So, two A drives? Interesting... still, a much better option than disabling the internal drive altogether.

Thanks for the heads-up, much appreciated

[Bryce]

Call it an ABAA Switch if you like, that's more or less what it is

In fact now that I think about it, the HxC will always answer, so it is A and B at the same time. ABAAB Switch?

Bryce.

[Gryzor]

Hahaha yeah, I was taking a shower earlier and was thinking about it, "hmmmm wait, what is an ABBA if not something similar?". Then I got out of the shower and forgot about it

[Jeff_HxC2001]

Hi Gryzor,
      it looks like doing this permanently enables the HxC as the A drive, this also means that both drives are then enabled in parallel...

No ! This disable the internal disk drive and put the external disk drive as the "A" disk drive.

This is a special feature of the CPC ;-).

[Gryzor]

Ahhhh so it's gonna be a proper ABBA switch after all!! Great Just remember to switch the jumper...

[Bryce]

@Jeff: Really? I didn't know that. Interesting.

@Gryzor: It's still not an ABBA switch, because the internal drive doesn't become B:

(And I got really worried there, that you were going to say you were thinking about me while you were under the shower)

Bryce.

[Gryzor]

Ah yes, it's not, but still it's one step removed from ABBA and still very useful. So you can basically make your HxC be drive A, which I'm finding increasingly needed since most software wants to run from A, AND have your internal drive at hand for those real-world disks and the heart-warming motor sound

As for the shower... consider this the beginning of a beautiful friendship

PS Speaking about the sound, I did a transplant from my boxed DDI to the 6128 because my internal drive had lost its writing pin. The new drive is like the one in the wiki drive, and is the only one I've seen in person of this model. Does a much different, and rather louder, sound.