Suitable floppy drive(s) for a Trump-compatible card

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robsoft
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Suitable floppy drive(s) for a Trump-compatible card

Post by robsoft »

Ok, having spent the weekend playing, the handful of MDVs I've got are mostly too unreliable for use. I've tried fixing a couple with cut-up cassette tape 'pads', with mixed results. So I've just bought a floppy/mem expansion card, brand new and 'Trump compatible'. Probably take a week or so to arrive.

I'm not entirely sure what kind of floppy I can attach to it, in as much as does it have to be a DSDD-only type device or can I use a DSHD device (even though I'd only put DSDD disks in it). I'm hoping that any old standard PC IDE-connector type floppy would work - or does it have to be a particular mechanism or type?

Any advice most welcome. I have various bits of old PC kit kicking around here but obviously will go to ebay if required (somewhat mortified that only recently we took a bunch of IDE floppy and hard drives to the skip!). Ideally I'd connect 2 drives to it - I guess it's a case of getting the IDE cable 'right' and possibly a jumper or two on the drives themselves..?


robsoft
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Re: Suitable floppy drive(s) for a Trump-compatible card

Post by robsoft »

Ah, I see from Dilwyn's brilliant website that almost any standard floppy drive should do the trick (presumably as long as it's IDE/IDC-type connectors, and not SATA or USB). Cool. I should have scoured a wee bit harder before asking.


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belg4rion67
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Re: Suitable floppy drive(s) for a Trump-compatible card

Post by belg4rion67 »

Hi dear, you will find that all shugart's type of floppy drives are fine with QL interfaces; the only thing that you need to know is that you must use a straight flat cable with no twist if you use a single floppy drive.
In this forum you will find also a lot of infos about floppy connections so try to use the "search" button :)

Cheers
Paolo


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robsoft
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Re: Suitable floppy drive(s) for a Trump-compatible card

Post by robsoft »

Thanks Paolo!
belg4rion67 wrote:you will find that all shugart's type of floppy drives are fine with QL interfaces; the only thing that you need to know is that you must use a straight flat cable with no twist if you use a single floppy drive.
The drives I've got are Sony MPF920s (I've got 2), and I've got a standard long floppy cable with a pair of Shugart and a pair of IDE-type connectors, and the twist (it's a 2 drive cable) - so 5 connectors altogether. I'm hoping I can just plug it all in and go.... :-)


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Re: Suitable floppy drive(s) for a Trump-compatible card

Post by RWAP »

The twist will be for a PC - and will not work with a QL.

Disk drives for the QL were generally ones which had a jumper on them to allow you to select DS0 (flp1_) or DS1 (flp2_). The cable was then a simple straight cable (no twist).

Unfortunately, once PCs dominated the market, all drives were shipped with the default setting as DS1 (ie a slave device). Some drives have a small solder pad which allows you to switch one to DS0 but these are now rare.

The other option is to take a straight cable, and twist two pins on the second connector (which will swap over the drive select signals to DS0) - for most drives, it appears that you can swap (from memory) pins 18 and 20 ?? Search on the forums for the exact details - I have repeated them on here many times already!


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1024MAK
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Re: Suitable floppy drive(s) for a Trump-compatible card

Post by 1024MAK »

Clarification: the floppy drive connections use one type of IDC type connector. Where IDC means insulation displacement connector. These are available in many types and sizes. From 10 way to 50 way.
IDE means integrated drive electronics and is only applicable to hard drives.

Shugart Associates developed floppy drives and came up with an interface, so soon it became an industry standard. At least until IBM produced their own version. For the PC market, it quickly overtook the Shugart "standard".

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robsoft
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Re: Suitable floppy drive(s) for a Trump-compatible card

Post by robsoft »

Thanks for all the help and advice - I think I'm trying to run before I can walk here, then.

To keep it simple, if I took my (arriving any day now, hopefully) trump card clone, and plugged into it a straight 34-pin IDC cable (connector each end, no twists etc), and then put a standard PC floppy on the other end of the cable - would it be reasonable to expect the QL to see this as a drive and be able to use it (with as FLP1_ or FLP2_, that's a lesser problem)...?

I'd be happy to get there, to start with. Then I can think about adding a second drive and altering/jumpering a cable. Just getting this little beast to read/write to a single 720Kb feels like it would be a big leap forwards :-)


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Re: Suitable floppy drive(s) for a Trump-compatible card

Post by RWAP »

robsoft wrote: To keep it simple, if I took my (arriving any day now, hopefully) trump card clone, and plugged into it a straight 34-pin IDC cable (connector each end, no twists etc), and then put a standard PC floppy on the other end of the cable - would it be reasonable to expect the QL to see this as a drive and be able to use it (with as FLP1_ or FLP2_, that's a lesser problem)...?
Yes - the QL will see it as FLP2_


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Re: Suitable floppy drive(s) for a Trump-compatible card

Post by robsoft »

RWAP wrote:Yes - the QL will see it as FLP2_
I'll take that as a starter - thanks Rich :-)


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Re: Suitable floppy drive(s) for a Trump-compatible card

Post by dilwyn »

robsoft wrote:I'd be happy to get there, to start with. Then I can think about adding a second drive and altering/jumpering a cable. Just getting this little beast to read/write to a single 720Kb feels like it would be a big leap forwards :-)
Trump Cards have ramdisks (a kind of temporary floppy disks in RAM), assuming the Russian clone has the same software. So things you'd expect to need two floppy drives like copying disks can usually be done by making a temporary copy in ramdisk (WCOPY FLPn_ TO RAM1_ where FLPn_ is whatever number your drive ends up as) then changing disks, and a second WCOPY RAM1_ TO FLPn_ to copy it back from ramdisk to another floppy disk.

I think Haemogoblin on this Forum found it hard going with a single drive, but I'm not sure if he had a ramdisk on his interface.

Some software does need two disk drives, but some of them can be reconfigured to work from a single drive. You might find you have to amend boot programs by hand if the drive is FLP2_ as Rich suggests. Don't forget, any questions, we'll try to help you. Good luck.


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