Using 5,25" on 6128

[Cholo]

Anyways, i spotted quite a lot of old used 5,25" pc drives on ebay lately and was wondering how hard it could be to hook one up to a 6128/664 cpc? I know there are all kinds of Vortex drives with odd controllers. Hooking up a 3,5" drive isnt so hard with a little modification.

In theory im guessing you can just hook it straight up, onto the cpc as the drives are "old style" and should have the ready signal and all that.

But what worries me is i recall reading (in a AA mag) that there was troubles with speeds or something, so you need to slow down (or speed up?) using a software program that was in the mag.

Any other things you need to look out for?

[arnoldemu]

Anyways, i spotted quite a lot of old used 5,25" pc drives on ebay lately and was wondering how hard it could be to hook one up to a 6128/664 cpc? I know there are all kinds of Vortex drives with odd controllers. Hooking up a 3,5" drive isnt so hard with a little modification.

In theory im guessing you can just hook it straight up, onto the cpc as the drives are "old style" and should have the ready signal and all that.

But what worries me is i recall reading (in a AA mag) that there was troubles with speeds or something, so you need to slow down (or speed up?) using a software program that was in the mag.

Any other things you need to look out for?

I think you are referring to the PC 5.25" disc drives that support 1.2MB high density because these do have a different rotational speed (360RPM compared to 300RPM I think), *but* it may be possible that the drive automatically changes the speed depending on the type of disc inserted; and if it does you need double density 5.25" discs. I don't think you can slow them down with software however.

I used an old DD 5.25" disc drive on my CPC6128 without problems, except that I think the step rate was a little bit slower than a 3.5" drive and sometimes it took a little longer to be ready than Amsdos expected, so I sometimes needed to retry after I had inserted a disc. Maybe this is what the program from AA fixes? (I'm guessing head load timing is altered or maybe motor on time??)

For this drive it was just connected using a ribbon cable to the CPC6128's second drive connector. It had it's own external power supply. I don't have it anymore so I can't tell you much more.

The thing I am not sure about concerning more "modern" PC 5.25" disc drives is that they still may not have ready signal, but hopefully with them being older than 3.5" they will have jumpers or similar.

Maybe some of this info will help.

[Cholo]

Thanks for all the information. Indeed its probably a speed problem that the AA program patches. Ill try and locate the program in the mag as i will probably need it one way or the other 

Got a stack of unused (not even formatted) DD 5,25" floppies once with one if the C64 batches i bought a while back that will hopefully work. Think i got a few HD ones too somewhere.

The drives ive seen are usually repaired internal drives (pc i guess) "FDD" type ones, thats got the right connector and a normal white 4 leg "pc" powerplug. Looks like most of them has jumpers too, so there will be some fun figuring it all out.


Anyways, its just a couple of bucks so im gonna have go and see what happens 

[arnoldemu]

Anyways, its just a couple of bucks so im gonna have go and see what happens 

Yes please do.. and when you've done it.. please write some info on the wiki about it.

[Cholo]

Yes please do.. and when you've done it.. please write some info on the wiki about it.

Will do  Also looks like the old "how to use a 3,5 drive" is missing, so ill add a updated version as soon as possible.

[CPCLER]

Will do  Also looks like the old "how to use a 3,5 drive" is missing, so ill add a updated version as soon as possible.

Yes, please do!

[CPCLER]

Indeed... Where is the this article. I remember this, but where has the article about connecting 3.5" drives gone?

/CPCLER

Yes, please do!