newbie advice on co0mputers

[Bryce]

Yes, the transistor/resistor are only needed to drive the relay coil, so if you don't intend using the motor control, then you can leave these off.

The capacitors were left off the DIY guide, because Amstrad also decided not to use them on the 464+. Not sure why, maybe they were causing other problems, and I've no idea what value they would have chosen, because they aren't mentioned in the schematics as far as I know. So I would recommend leaving them off too.

Bryce.

[OCT]

The capacitors were left off the DIY guide, because Amstrad also decided not to use them on the 464+. Not sure why, maybe they were causing other problems, and I've no idea what value they would have chosen, because they aren't mentioned in the schematics as far as I know. So I would recommend leaving them off too.

So the non-existent capacitors are already shorted by the PCB, and in the "poor man's solution", counting from the top (designated as 1 on the photo) two wires could simply be soldered to the second (ground) and fifth (audio in) pins of the header (without even unscrewing the main board) ?

[Bryce]

They're not shorted, they're just left open. They should be in series with the signal, but for some strange reason they actually link the signal to ground which is not good. It's probably a mistake in the layout, which would also explain why they are left off. So yes, you could actually make the mod without removing the PCB.

Bryce.

[Gryzor]

That's a no-brainer:

Tapes = Unreliable and slow
Discs = Unreliable and fast



Bryce.

Yeah, but also:

Tapes=lovely loading sounds (unless you're married or something), pretty border colors and the agony as the loading screen appears. Nothing beats that!

[Bryce]

What has being married got to do with it? Or do you mean, that sense of accepted futility when after waiting several minutes for the game to load, it reports an error, 5 bytes before it was about to finish?

Bryce.

[Gryzor]

So you mean you have trained your wife to withstand the loading sounds? You have my respect.

[Bryce]

No, I just told her it was the new Aphex Twin Album and she didn't seem to notice the difference or question it

Bryce.

[Gryzor]

Yeah, but there's no beat. That should give her a hint.

[Bryce]

She says that about Aphex Twin and several other bands I like to hear too

Bryce.

[AMSDOS]

Yes you can, for exchanging the Drive Select lines a so-called ABBA switch is "the name of the game", but that's about where any allusions to Agnetha et al. end.

Er? Isn't an ABBA Switch only for switching the sides of a 3.5" Disk? It won't let you turn a B: into an A: and visa-versa or am I mistaken?

On the other hand, 3.5" drives have also been used as internal replacements for the 664 http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?topic=1195 and on 6128plus(s)es too (some native speaker please enlighten us on how many "s"s in the proper plural - though there may be disagreement on either side of the pond ).

I think so, but you're taking about taking a 3.5" Disk Drive and replacing the 3" with that. On a 464 I think one needs a Disk Drive like the DD-1 before you could add anything else, though as I mentioned earlier a 3rd party had made a 3.5" Disk Drive as a suitable primary A: for those machines.

CPCs have come to a museum age where the art of hardware hacking by their curators may no longer be called tampering, but "restoration".

Old Dinosaurs like me still call it tampering in a sense it's an addition to what the computer once was. My 6128 was previously tampered with by it's former owner, though I'm okay with it because it supports 2 additional 5.25" Disk Drives as well as the 3" and has an additional cable running from the back of the keyboard (sadly it's all packed away in safe storage so I cannot send photos!  ).

[Bryce]

No, ABBA switches switch drive A: with drive B: I have one on my 6128+ so that I can make my HxC drive A: It's done by swapping the DS0 and DS1 signals.

Bryce.

[MacDeath]

and of course led me to convert its entire library into a file preloaded to the 6128's second RAM bank, accessed through replacement routines. Copyright law being inflexibly overreaching as it even then was, this great improvement in usability could never be shared.

You mean  you hacked this thing and shat yourself to realease this at the time ?
Perhaps you won't go to jail after all...

No, ABBA switches switch drive A: with drive B: I have one on my 6128+ so that I can make my HxC drive A: It's done by swapping the DS0 and DS1 signals.

Did you add some extra homebrew soldering or was it simply plugged into already existing ports ?

From what I remember, DeepfriedBbbrain had a hard time to fing actually compatible original 3"1/2 disk drives on the 6128PLUS unit I had...
He even had to cannibilize his old 3"1/2diskdrive... So I could go back home with something working... OMG... we tried a lot of different floppydrives.
He even have a full storage/wall of those...

But he also told me the good old HxC drive emulator manages it... well as a good solution.

The question is, do you invest into such a hobby?

Getting all those connectors/pins at the right extension port can be tricky with those IDE flat-cables... (howebrew... of course...)


But anyway we all know the 6128PLUS needs its proper own well designed OS... on a 512K cartridge... just wouldn't hurt...

[AMSDOS]

No, ABBA switches switch drive A: with drive B: I have one on my 6128+ so that I can make my HxC drive A: It's done by swapping the DS0 and DS1 signals.

Bryce.

Thanks for filling me in! 

[Blurredman]

Use 5.25" not 3.5"

[Bryce]

You can see how to do it here (for the Plus at least): http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/ABBA_switch

Doing it this way, you don't need to make any changes to the HxC.

Bryce.

[OCT]

You can see how to do it here (for the Plus at least): ABBA switch - CPCWiki

Doing it this way, you don't need to make any changes to the HxC.

ABBA switch - CPCWiki specifically (a browser issue kept showing me the AA scan for the Classic 6128 for the first link).

[Gryzor]

Thanks for the correction