Why can't I have a 3.5" drive like everyone else !!!???

[MaV]

As Speccy +3's are cheap, I would ideally want to install one internally and as hidden as possible...

In the uk perhaps. If I check Ebay here, the only +3 I can see is 149€ plus shipment from DE to AT. 

With the HxC, and everything on 1 SD, and no need to copy a game to disk, I would get nowhere in any game!

I hear you. That and a lowered frustration level keep me from gaming a lot on the CPC recently.

I also get more and more frustrated by most of the current console games ... I think I'm getting old.

[Badstarr]

MacDeath, I will post some photos and a description at some point in the next week or so.


I think that my 464 Plus is a 464 case with a 6128 Board installed with the tape port added on so it drives the internal tape machine. So I guess I could call this machine a 46128 Plus??? There is a floppy connecter just above the tape wire headers and this is where I have installed my new disc drive with the ribbon cable routed over the expansion port so I use the drive externally.


Rather typically for my luck, I threw together a PC to transfer some disc images to some discs and the pc refuses to recognise that there is a disc in the drive. So I haven't gotten orion prime yet :-( I wish I had a way to transfer them on my Macs it seems all software that is useful is PC only, and its been a long time since Macs had floppy drives anyway. So a quick visit to ebay and I should have a cheap compaq pentium machine heading to me soon for when I'm back on my work rest days


Maybe when I'm up and running properly I will think of a Mac compatible transfer system to get around this for my first project with a 21st century CPC.

[Gryzor]

Jase, you got a point there. As a matter of fact I was thinking the exact same thing the other day when I bought an mp3 player for my girlfriend: for the umpteenth time I thought about how the huge availability of music  can't be all that good for music itself, and then it hit me that it was similar when I moved to the 6128 with its shiny, huge disks...

That's why I still enjoy firing up my trusted 464 and waiting for a game to load. On the other hand, when I want to check several games or programs, the HxC is simply great, especially with the dwindling supply of 3" disks...
Do you want me to copy OP for you on disks and send them over?

[Cholo]

.. trouble with my normal 6128 ... I have tried an old 1980s atari st drive, an acorn drive an amiga drive..

I once looked into trying to figure if i could connect a amiga drive to the normal amstrad 6128, but learned quickly that it is way to complicated (especially compared to a normal 3,5" pc floppy drive that only need that 1 easy fix for the ready signal). Amiga drives has at least 4-5 wrong wires so either you will need to make a massive mod either on interface/wires and/or re-solder the settings on drives board .. and thats assuming that the RDY, DC, D0, D1 etc is actually indicated on the board too (highly unlikely). Better skip trying to do that one.

I want to install a HXC Floppy Emulator soon but before I spring for it I want to know I can install it as I would imagine I would get the same problems!

Unlike a genuine 3,5" floppy drive, the HxC dont care at all about the Ready signal. This means that you can hook it right up to your amstrad with no modifications needed. Cant get much easier than that.

Real floppy drives are quickly starting to vanish so its great to have a emulator like HxC. Getting a real old DD 720k 3,5" pc floppy drive is nearly impossible, but if you do have one around it would be just as easy to link up to your normal amstrad 6128, as a drive this old will have genuine manual jumpers you can set by hand so you can set the missing Ready signal and hook it straight up (again without modifications) to your amstrad. These old DD drives also works without the troubles that you sometimes get modern HD 1,44 drives (like having a hard time to read/write correctly .. unless you use a DD floppy in the HD drive as that usually fix it).

Another cheap and easy setup is to use pc 5,25" drives. As these old drives usually all have the manual jumper settings too (so again can set the Ready signal) so again you can just hook it straight up to your amstrad using a normal pc floppy cable. Unlike the 3,5" DD drives that are usually filthy expensive on ebay, you can probably pick up a 5,25" for like £5-10 tops. Getting 2x 5,25" and you can install one in your pc for easy transfers (assuming that your pc actually supports floppy drives).

Of cause its also fairly easy to hook up a modern 1,44 HD 3,5" floppy drive to the normal 6128, but you need to at least make that one small mod with the Ready signal.  Modern 3,5" drives also has a very mixed succes with correct reading/writing while hooked up to a 6128. Like i tried a new Sony drive and kept getting read errors with a HD floppy, but worked ok when DD floppy was used. Other people have reported that  their drives worked fully even with HD floppies in the drive (i wish i could remember the drive brand now).

Some usefull links:

Probably worth a visit so you can get Cpcdiskxp and there is a nice 3,5" hookup guide as well:
http://www.cpcmania.com/

I noticed that Urbanretro is selling a bunch of usefull cables (even a internal 3" to 3,5" cable):
http://shop.ebay.co.uk/urban-retro/m.html?_trksid=p4340.l2562

About drive compatability:
http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Drive_Compatibility

Connecting 3,5" drive to a normal 6128:
http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Guide_on_how_to_connect_a_3.5

[fgbrain]

Just being curious here..

Has anyone tried using a USB Floppy Disk Drive Emulator ?

You can get this fairly cheap on ebay...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3-5-720KB-USB-Floppy-Disk-Drive-Emulator-w-LCD-New-/250870531957?pt=PCC_Drives_Storage_Internal&hash=item3a690c8775

[Jeff_HxC2001]

Just being curious here..

Has anyone tried using a USB Floppy Disk Drive Emulator ?

You can get this fairly cheap on ebay...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3-5-720KB-USB-Floppy-Disk-Drive-Emulator-w-LCD-New-/250870531957?pt=PCC_Drives_Storage_Internal&hash=item3a690c8775

As all these cheap floppy emulator this one support only the 9*2*80*512 disk format. This was designed for ms dos/pc based computers only.