38 replies to this topic

[Zybex]

I search over internet and i can't find info about this.

[lbaeza]

CSS's Floppy Board?

http://nleaudio.com/...ucts/floppy.htm

Regards

Zybex said:

:D  I search over internet and i can't find info about this.

:?

[Mr.Bacardi]

There was the HDI (High Density Interface) available in Germany for a short time. You can connect 5.25" or 3.5" floppy drives to it.

For more infos have a look at the authors homepage http://www.atari-cen.../floppyservice/

But I'm not sure if the plans are still available - maybe just ask the "floppy-doc" Erhard

[ndary]

it can be done using an XF551 disk drive.

http://cgi.ebay.com/...ssPageName=WDVW

[Tempest]

$76? Wow! I got one a year ago for about $40. I only got it because it looked neat, I really have no idea what on earth I'm going to do with it. I suppose I could put a few 5.25's on one 3.5.

Tempest

[Sikor]

You can try use "karin maxi disk" drive interfeace.

[St(r)yker]

[flashjazzcat]

What's with all the crap on the screen when accessing the drive?

[venom4728a]

I wish those were still available today.

I would like to see a PCB made someday, to replace the one in the XF551/1050 with HD 5.25/3.5 floppy drive mechanisms and be able to use HD media at 1.2mb and 1.44mb. That would be great, I would buy 4-5 minimum.

Robert

[Allan]

That's cool but by using the PBI port you can't use a hard drive at the same time. It would be nice to be able to use a standard PC 3.5 inch floppy through the SIO port. Either that or someone build some kind of modern day 1090 expansion device. I hate having to unplug and plug things in all the time. Plus if you wanted to transfer stuff from your 3.5 floppy to your hard drive or the other way around it would be a pain.

Allan

[sloopy]

Allan, on Sun Jan 15, 2012 12:30 PM, said:

That's cool but by using the PBI port you can't use a hard drive at the same time. It would be nice to be able to use a standard PC 3.5 inch floppy through the SIO port. Either that or someone build some kind of modern day 1090 expansion device. I hate having to unplug and plug things in all the time. Plus if you wanted to transfer stuff from your 3.5 floppy to your hard drive or the other way around it would be a pain.

Allan

Trade you, your 3.5" floppies full of A8 stuff, for my 720k 5.25" floppies full of A8 stuff needing to be transferred...
;')

sloopy.

[Allan]

sloopy, on Sun Jan 15, 2012 12:52 PM, said:

Allan, on Sun Jan 15, 2012 12:30 PM, said:

That's cool but by using the PBI port you can't use a hard drive at the same time. It would be nice to be able to use a standard PC 3.5 inch floppy through the SIO port. Either that or someone build some kind of modern day 1090 expansion device. I hate having to unplug and plug things in all the time. Plus if you wanted to transfer stuff from your 3.5 floppy to your hard drive or the other way around it would be a pain.

Allan

Trade you, your 3.5" floppies full of A8 stuff, for my 720k 5.25" floppies full of A8 stuff needing to be transferred...
;')

sloopy.

Good point. But it would be nice to have access to a cheap and readily available means of moving a few files to and from. 1050 drives are still available but are getting older and starting to break down more and more. It's a pain trying to get a working one off eBay. I do like using the 3.5 inch drives over the 5 1/4 inch drives even though most of the software is on 5 1/4 inch floppies. Plus it's easier finding 3 1/2 inch high density floppies.

What would be nice is some sort of modern (relieable) way of reading 5 1/4 inch floppies. That would be cool but probably to expensive.

Allan

[venom4728a]

Similar to what i am looking for, I would like a board that will fit in a 1050 or xf-551 case, that will allow SIO to modern High Density drives both 5.25 and 3.5. Maybe the possibility of having two drives cable selected. Then we could use our broken 1050/or xf-551cases with modern drives and have it still look somewhat like it was meant to be:) I have two of these< i would love to put in an xf-551 case.

Robert

[spookt]

Hehe - I have an XF551 case I'd love to put that in

[sloopy]

venom4728a, on Sun Jan 15, 2012 1:21 PM, said:

Similar to what i am looking for, I would like a board that will fit in a 1050 or xf-551 case, that will allow SIO to modern High Density drives both 5.25 and 3.5. Maybe the possibility of having two drives cable selected. Then we could use our broken 1050/or xf-551cases with modern drives and have it still look somewhat like it was meant to be:) I have two of these< i would love to put in an xf-551 case.

Robert

I have the Epson one like that... always wanted to use it also...

sloopy.

[Gunstar]

sloopy, on Mon Jan 16, 2012 4:17 PM, said:

venom4728a, on Sun Jan 15, 2012 1:21 PM, said:

Similar to what i am looking for, I would like a board that will fit in a 1050 or xf-551 case, that will allow SIO to modern High Density drives both 5.25 and 3.5. Maybe the possibility of having two drives cable selected. Then we could use our broken 1050/or xf-551cases with modern drives and have it still look somewhat like it was meant to be:) I have two of these< i would love to put in an xf-551 case.

Robert

I have the Epson one like that... always wanted to use it also...

sloopy.

I've got one like that laying around too, and with the 1050's the XL beige is close enough to the beige face plate to make it look nice still.

[charliecron]

Pretty sure you can connect standard 3.5 Floppy drive to an ATR-8000.

http://www.atarimaga...uctreviews.html

[venom4728a]

How difficult would a sio to HD Floppy drive board be to make? Would it require some obsolete atari chips? With our damaged drives 1050/xf-551 we might be able to salvage chips from them.

Robert

[AtariGeezer]

Yep, I connected one of those dual 3.5/5.25 Epson drives to my ATR-8000 and worked just fine. Even a SF314 works

Jay

[St(r)yker]

[Fox-1 / mnx]

venom4728a, on Mon Jan 16, 2012 10:15 PM, said:

How difficult would a sio to HD Floppy drive board be to make?

Not. Everything you need is in the public domain for a long time now, both the hardware design and the o.s. source code
http://atariwiki.str...page=HDISource.

venom4728a, on Mon Jan 16, 2012 10:15 PM, said:

Would it require some obsolete atari chips?

Not an Atari chip but...

I hope I have this right but I think it's the FDC controller that may be a problem. Point is that 2MHz versions are available but you need a 4MHz for the HDI. Someone correct me if this is info is wrong.

[Bryan]

You could do it with an external USB floppy drive if you made a microcontroller interface between the drive and SIO. The whole interface could probably fit in an SIO plug if it was surface mount.

[venom4728a]

Fox-1 / mnx, on Tue Jan 17, 2012 4:45 PM, said:

venom4728a, on Mon Jan 16, 2012 10:15 PM, said:

How difficult would a sio to HD Floppy drive board be to make?

Not. Everything you need is in the public domain for a long time now, both the hardware design and the o.s. source code
http://atariwiki.str...page=HDISource.

venom4728a, on Mon Jan 16, 2012 10:15 PM, said:

Would it require some obsolete atari chips?

Not an Atari chip but...

I hope I have this right but I think it's the FDC controller that may be a problem. Point is that 2MHz versions are available but you need a 4MHz for the HDI. Someone correct me if this is info is wrong.

Is the 4mhz FDC chip only needed for this specific design, or is it the only way for an Atari 8bit to talk to High Density drives? Anyone have one of theseboards they would like to sell?

Best regards
Robert

[Fox-1 / mnx]

venom4728a, on Tue Jan 17, 2012 5:40 PM, said:

Is the 4mhz FDC chip only needed for this specific design, or is it the only way for an Atari 8bit to talk to High Density drives?

It's surely not the only possible design. The FloppyBoard expansion for the BlackBox supports about all "Shugart" floppy mechanics, up to 1,44MB, you throw at it. Since it hangs on the PBI it's much faster then SIO drives too. Problem is that the BlackBox (and FloppyBoard) are no longer produced and you don't see them for sale in the wild that often.

When using modern programmable logic it's possible to recreate the hardware as the thing isn't really that complicated. No exotic parts, just a whole bunch of logic gates cleverly driven by a rock solid o.s. but someone with enough knowhow has to put some time in it to make it a reality and I'm not one of them. I think the ones who can are not really interested in it as the BlackBox is a SCSI/Parallel/Serial multi I/O board and people rather dedicate their time to develope yet another IDE CF/SD solution.

venom4728a, on Tue Jan 17, 2012 5:40 PM, said:

Anyone have one of theseboards they would like to sell?

The HDI is a German design so the majority of them is in Germany. Sometimes one is offered in the ABBUC forum.

[tjlazer]

any info on this SID player?