18 replies to this topic

[drac030]

Does anyone here know anything about such a disk drive:

http://atariki.krap....x.php/D.8002_HS

It appeared some time ago on Allegro. One of Atarians here has bought it and made the photos - but nothing else is actually known, except that the drive apparently does not work in UltraSpeed or XF551 turbo modes. And the owner is currently hm, difficult to reach, so no information about what CPU is there, what is the drive capacity etc. is possible to get from him.

Any info appreciated.

[MEtalGuy66]

Whoahh.. Look atr those WHITE SIO connectors.. I wonder what manufacturer made those...

[www.atarimania.com]

That's pretty fascinating! Too bad you don't have more information...

IMO, it either comes from Israel, Russia, Turkey or an Arabian country. We don't know much about these markets but Atari's presence had to be big enough for a company to manufacture such disk drives...

--
Atari Frog
http://www.atarimania.com

[pps]

Looks like a Floppy 2000 with other manufacturer label for me.

[ijor]

www.atarimania.com, on Tue Jan 2, 2007 11:16 AM, said:

We don't know much about these markets but Atari's presence had to be big enough for a company to manufacture such disk drives...

The local market doesn't have to be very big.

A friend of mine and me started working in a similar project back on the day. The Atari market in our country was quite reduced. What made it still commertailly viable were two things.

One was the huge local retail price of Atari drives, they were already quite expensive FOB, and the high custom taxes made them unaffordable for most people here. OTOH PC drives were widely available at very low prices. So we could make DSDD drives much cheaper than importing a 1050.

The other one was that we were just two young people, not an established company that usually has no chances in small scale products.

Edited by ijor, Tue Jan 2, 2007 11:24 AM.

[www.atarimania.com]

pps, on Tue Jan 2, 2007 6:05 PM, said:

Looks like a Floppy 2000 with other manufacturer label for me.

That's interesting. So maybe it was manufactured under license in another European country... Who made the Floppy 2000 disk drive?

--
Atari Frog
http://www.atarimania.com

[www.atarimania.com]

ijor, on Tue Jan 2, 2007 6:22 PM, said:

The local market doesn't have to be very big.

A friend of mine and me started working in a similar project back on the day. The Atari market in our country was quite reduced. What made it still commertailly viable were two things.

One was the huge local retail price of Atari drives, they were already quite expensive FOB, and the high custom taxes made them unaffordable for most people here. OTOH PC drives were widely available at very low prices. So we could make DSDD drives much cheaper than importing a 1050.

The other one was that we were just two young people, not an established company that usually has no chances in small scale products.

I didn't know you worked on such a project...

Fact is all the known Atari floppy disk drives (at least the ones in the FAQ) are from either the US, Germany or Poland, all big markets. IMO, the two company logos on the disk drive (IAI and SBG Ltd.) are signs that this was a pretty serious venture.

--
Atari Frog
http://www.atarimania.com

[ijor]

www.atarimania.com, on Tue Jan 2, 2007 12:43 PM, said:

I didn't know you worked on such a project...

We never finished it, don't remember exactly why. Possibly because the XF-551 arrived, and then our product wouldn't have such a big competitive advantage. Or may be was something else, don't really remember. I don't even remember how far we reached. I should have the firmware sources somewhere.

Quote

Fact is all the known Atari floppy disk drives (at least the ones in the FAQ) are from either the US, Germany or Poland, all big markets

As I said, we never finished the drive. But there were several other local products that reached the market, some I was involved other I was not. Some I remember are Printer Interface, standard Tape player interface, etc.

I wouldn't be suprised if similar products were developed and manufactured in other third world countries. Not because of the big market, but because of the demand of replacing imported (and hence, very expensive) products.

Quote

IMO, the two company logos on the disk drive (IAI and SBG Ltd.) are signs that this was a pretty serious venture.

May be. I didn't mean specifically about this drive. I was just commenting that local production was done also in small markets for the reasons mentioned above.

[krupkaj]

www.atarimania.com, on Tue Jan 2, 2007 6:43 PM, said:

Fact is all the known Atari floppy disk drives (at least the ones in the FAQ) are from either the US, Germany or Poland, all big markets. IMO, the two company logos on the disk drive (IAI and SBG Ltd.) are signs that this was a pretty serious venture.

Even here in Czech Republic were at least two floppy drive projects. Here are photos of one of them the VD40.

Edited by krupkaj, Tue Jan 2, 2007 2:31 PM.

[www.atarimania.com]

Jan, great stuff! So these were just prototypes?

--
Atari Frog
http://www.atarimania.com

Edited by www.atarimania.com, Tue Jan 2, 2007 2:04 PM.

[krupkaj]

No, there was series of VD40 manufactured in Flop in Roznov and in Brno, This drive is XF551 compatible and has centronix port.

There was other project called Spider. Unfortunately this one was only prototype. Main problem was lack of WD chips. I have one of prototype pcb somewhere, I can make photo of of this if you want.

Edited by krupkaj, Tue Jan 2, 2007 2:26 PM.

[drac030]

Could you post some more information about technical characteristics of the VD40 drive? I.e.:

* the actual official name (you call it VD40, on the photo i see "VD40 F"?)
* the microprocessor used, the amount of RAM and ROM inside the drive
* is the drive programmable; if so, detailed information welcome
* supported densities
* supported baud rates, if anything above 19200
* supported turbo protocols, if any
* rotation speed
* who, where and when designed and built
* how many units were produced / sold
* any other interesting stuff about it, if any
* a nice, sharp, high resolution photo is welcome

Thanks

Edited by drac030, Wed Jan 3, 2007 5:01 AM.

[krupkaj]

This drive is not mine. But I'll try to find out all information you want and make picture during the weekend.

[krupkaj]

So here is some info about VD 40
The drive was developped in Viatronic Brno under name VD 40. It was later manufactured under licence in Flop Roznov pod Radhostem as VD 40 F.
There is Toshiba 8085 CPU and WD2797A-PL floppy controller. It use 6264 8K static RAM and 2764 8K EPROM and 8155 for printer port. It use standard 360k PC floppy drive.
The drive is XF551 compatible and supports all its densities and speed.
I do not know how many drives were produced. There is serial number 57 so I think there were about hundred from both producer, but do not take this number so seriously. I will try to find out more.
Here are some photos. In the last two picttures there is other case which was used for this drive. It is the same case as for floppy drive for ZX spectrum which was also produced in Czech. But it is only a case I have put the floppy drive it. As you see there are no connectors on the rear side.

Edited by krupkaj, Sun Jan 7, 2007 5:29 AM.

[www.atarimania.com]

Thanks Jan!

--
Atari Frog
http://www.atarimania.com

[drac030]

krupkaj, on Sat Jan 6, 2007 11:29 PM, said:

So here is some info about VD 40

Thanks for the info. I'll convert this into Atariki article once the service is back.

Edited by drac030, Sun Jan 7, 2007 11:37 PM.

[krupkaj]

I have got Spider finally. I have not tried it yet, but here are some photos for anyone who is interested. Basicaly it is clone of XF551 plus centronics port.
Unfortunately due to shortage of WD chips only 70 pieces was made.

[carmel_andrews]

I seem to remember that derek firn/fern (c/o microdiscount) did a couple of free standing floppy boards one was for 360k drive mechs (i'm assuming it was a percom clone/rip off) and also a smaller floppy board for 720k and 1.44 meg drive mechs (as per the 360k drive mech floppy board)

Apparently he was planning to do a version of the larger cap. floppy board that was hard drive compatible

Also a few years before derek fern/firn did his floppyboard, a london atari specialist called 'computerhouse UK' (of o/s controllercard fame) also did a couple of floppyboard where you could attach st/amiga external oir internal floppy drive to an A8...never saw one though

[drac030]

The owner has given the D.8002 HS drive to me for inspection. Almost everything inside is Soviet.