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Modifying modern floppy drive for QL

Posted: Sun Dec 26, 2010 11:22 pm
by Factor6
I have a GoldCard with floppy controller. When I tried to connect a standard PC 3,5" floppy drive, it didn't work. Is it possible to modify such a FDD somehow to get it working on the QL? For example the way like on Amiga (some little soldering..) And will the HXC floppy emulator work with GoldCard?

thanks,
F6

Re: Modifying modern floppy drive for QL

Posted: Mon Dec 27, 2010 10:17 am
by RWAP
You can get a modern PC disk drive to work with the QL by taking a standard PC floppy disk drive cable and removing the existing twist in the cable. You then need to swap pins 10 and 12 on the cable to get the floppy disk recognised as the master (DS0)

If you are really lucky, there are some jumpers on the disk drive to select DS0 or DS1 (normally not on a modern disk drive though) in which case you can move the jumper to DS0 and just use a straight untwisted cable.

As for the HxC Floppy disk emulator - this works well with the Gold Card to allow DD and HD disk image access. Unfortunately, I still need an ED disk image to try!

Re: Modifying modern floppy drive for QL

Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2010 10:50 am
by Factor6
It works! Thank you!

F6

Re: Modifying modern floppy drive for QL

Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 7:09 pm
by Mr_Navigator
RWAP wrote:You can get a modern PC disk drive to work with the QL by taking a standard PC floppy disk drive cable and removing the existing twist in the cable. You then need to swap pins 10 and 12 on the cable to get the floppy disk recognised as the master (DS0)
So will this work for two FDs ?

Re: Modifying modern floppy drive for QL

Posted: Wed Apr 27, 2011 8:47 am
by RWAP
Of course, the second floppy disk drive just needs to be placed on the cable before the twist on pins 10+12 (as PC floppy disk drives are set up as DS1 (FLP2_) by default).

Re: Modifying modern floppy drive for QL

Posted: Wed May 18, 2011 10:19 am
by belg4rion67
Hi, I've followed your suggests and my floppy drive works very fine with QL and Sandy drive interface!!
Someone knows if is possible to connect and use a DD/HD (1.44 Mb.) floppy disk drive?

Many thanks for your help

Re: Modifying modern floppy drive for QL

Posted: Wed May 18, 2011 2:52 pm
by RWAP
A HD (1.44Mb) drive will work in the same way subject to the above modifications.

However, only the Gold Card and Super Gold Card by Miracle Systems can read/write HD disks.
All of the other disk interfaces will try to format HD disks to DD (720K) which can be very unreliable.

Re: Modifying modern floppy drive for QL

Posted: Wed May 18, 2011 9:55 pm
by belg4rion67
Ah ok Rich, I suppose that but I thought there was a firmware version that could do it...
I'm satisfied yet in this manner: more better than microdrive :D

Re: Modifying modern floppy drive for QL

Posted: Sun Jun 30, 2019 9:52 pm
by ergonql
Hi All,

as I have an original QL DD floppy disk drive (i.e. case, power supply etc.), what I should do if I just would like to swap the existing DD floppy drive with a new HD one to upgrade my unit?

thanks and regards

Davide

Re: Modifying modern floppy drive for QL

Posted: Sun Jun 30, 2019 10:58 pm
by Derek_Stewart
Hi Davide,

The HD drive maybe designed for a PC, so the drive select will be set to DS1 which the QL will see as FLP2_

You need to change disk drive select to DS0 for FLP1_