#HDDRIVE yes or no!
27 messages in this thread
Dear hardaware,
Is it possible to connect a PC 3.5"HD drive to a
normal a2000c(PAL) (presuming that the end-product should work!) ? I
don't think it's possible but if it's possible without soldering a
pound of resistors to half a pound of transistors then it'd be a good
thing.
Sean,
It's only possible if you have an IDE disk controller on the Amiga.
You can also hook up a SCSI drive, if you have a SCSI controller. In either
case you need the appropriate disk controller and drivers. I believe that at
least one Amiga manufacturer sells an IDE controller – AD IDE – which would do
the trick, but I think that product may be for a 500.
You can also get the trifecta board from ICD, it is a zorro ii card.
It's a scsi ii and IDE card in one. You have to get the lx version in
order to use both scsi and ide. I have one and it runs just fine, it
also allow 8 meg of 16 bit ram.
If you have an accel. machine make sure to get the board with the 4.3
rom! The older roms wont work with many 030 and 040 boards.
James,
You might pass that on to the other fellow. I have a 3000T, so don't
need a controller, but he was concerned about how to get an IDE drive working
in a 2000. I remembered the Trifecta after I signed off!!
OOOPS… sorry Steven, I thought I had posted to his id! Oh well, maybe he'll
read the thread anyway…
Noooo problemo, James. I'm sure he will.
Steven,
ooops…. I think I wanted to say DISK DRIVE! Sorry. I have an
AT/SCSI controller in my amiga as it is (Masoboshi). I was wondering about
the disk drives that are used in the PC world as I've never had anything
to do with them I don't know anything about them. I also remember the
times when no-one knew that to put a "NORMAL" floppy onto an amiga one
only had to build a little flipflop for it. So now I wonder if 'tis the
same with the good old "standard" HD floppies used in PC's.
Sean.
p.s. Thanks for the answer anyway… 🙂
Sean,
To the best of my knowledge PC floppy drives will still not work in an
Amiga without some circuitry add-on similar to that which once circulated on
the BBSs several years back.
In the early days of the Amiga, there were several articles in the
technical magazines that told how to alter an MSDOS drive to make it
work with the Amiga – and it did involve a bit of soldering, etc. I
haven't seen any of those articles in several years. I think it was
just more work than it was worth.
Betty,
I made a slight mistake when I left my message so that it's not
clear as to which drives I mean… I mean FLOPPY drives. I was wondering
if you meant the same thing??????? If you do mean floppies: I'm not scared
of a soldering iron… I'm scared of soldering a drive emulator with a
68030 cpu and 12MB of ram just top get a drive to work :-).
Sean.
p.s. Thanks for the answer.
Sean,
I don't think PC style hi density drives will work with an Amiga because the
Amiga uses a special type of drive mechanism that alters the speed of rotation
of the disks. Something that pc hi density disk drives do not do. I was told
that the reason for this was that the Amiga had no onboard floppy controller
like the pcs do.
Anyone else shed some light on this ???
James,
the Amiga uses floppy drives with a fixed 'speed' of 300 rpm (880K).
To my knowledge only the Apple Macintosh uses 'varispeed' disk drives
which means the rotation speed is adjusted as the head moves towards
the hub or the rim of the disk. This is the reason the Amiga is
unable (except maybe for same hardware/software hacks) to read or
write Apple Macintosh format floppy disks. On the Amiga, each track
(cylinder) has the same number of sectors, i.e. no matter which
track is read/written to it has a certain number of tracks which are
read/written in a certain time. As the diameter near the hub is much
smaller than at the rim an outer sector has more room (length) for
its data than an inner sector. Macintosh format sectors have all the
same length so there are more sectors on the outer tracks than on the
inner tracks. At the same rotation speed, an outer track would have
to transmit its data at another frequency than an inner track, thus
the rotation speed is adjusted. The philosophy is clear: data safety!
If a disk stores data safely in an outer sector it may not do so on
an inner sector as the sector contains much less magnetic particles
for the same amount of data. The Macintosh format has about the same
amount of magnetic particles per sector on the inner tracks as on the
outer tracks so risk of data loss (which normally occurs first on
inner tracks) is reduced.
Hi Christian,
thanks for the reply! Now I am really confused, I read your message and then a
co-worker gave me the latest issue of Amazing Computing. This month the detail
the installation of a high density floppy in an Amiga and this is an excerpt of
what they had to say:
"The amiga does not have dedicated hard disk controller chip. On the A500 and
A2000, disk control functions are distributed between the 8520CIA chips and
Gary… The Amiga high density floppy, a chinon FB-357A (commodore part #
313248-01), is a two speed unit… When a high density diskette is inserted the
drive reduces it's rotational speed by one-half. This allow twice as much data
to be written to each track…"
Is this incorrect ?
James,
I simply got your message wrong – didn't realize you were talking about
A4000 style drives. Yes, C= only could do HD by using special drives with
300/150rpm (DD/HD). Maybe the floppy port wasn't fast enough to handle
data twice as fast? If you use an Amiga HD drive you will be able to use
PC HD disks, too, but they (naturally) don't load/save as fast as on a
PC…
Anyway when I read in your message about variable speed drives I
immediately thought of Apple as they use them as explained (true
varispeed, not just mode switching). Sorry if I confused you or anyone!
// Chris coming in from Germany
\X/ on AutoPilot 1.051……….
Christian,
I don't think that anyone minds looking over the fence to see
what's growing on the tree in the other garden (a rain cape!). I already
knew about the apple drive from the //c so it didn't confuse me and I
think that it educated more poeple than it confused. I'd like to hear more
about the C= drive mind you as that's something that I could do with. I've
heard from dealers here (Cologne, Gemany) that it's as good as impossible
to get a HD disk drive from C= unless you've got a broken one to exchange
for it. I had thought that it might be possible to adapt a pc HD floppy as
a friend of mine had asked me to get some data so that he could set to
work. So far I've only seen such a floppy from the outside which doesn't
allow for an indepth analysis unless you've got X-ray eyes :-).
I wonder do you know more about the drives which could be of use for
such a project. (I presume that it would be difficult at best).
Sean.
From Cologne at night!
Sean,
sorry I can't be of help (yet), I'll have a try and post something into
the Combo (Commodore BBS in Frankfurt), maybe someone in there knows
something… I'll get back to you ASAP, ok?
BTW, I fetched my MERLIN (24bit graphics board) from XPert on Saturday and
– guess what? – the beast won't run on my machine, or rather the machine
won't run with it inside so I'll have to return it tomorrow (by mail, mind
you I drove 230km so I won't have to wait for them shipping the May 1993
orders and, of course, that's what I always get – thanks to Murphy!)
// Chris coming in from Germany
\X/ on AutoPilot 1.051……….
No problem…. I've kinda given up on high density floppies for the Amiga
anyway…
James,
I've had a quick look at Commodore's mailbox in Frankfurt. Apparantly what
you need is:
– a Commodore A2015, A3015, or A4015 drive (depending on what machine to
shove it into…). This is a CHINON model FB 357A so you might not need to
try and get one directly from C=… This was said to cost about DM 250
(which is roughly US$ 160).
– Kickstart/Workbench >= v2.04 (2.04, 2.05, 2.1, 3.0).
– a program called 'HD-FIXER' (available on some Fish disk) which
addresses an error in Kickstart so you can use this drive.
I didn't inquire about availability of these drives yet, or whether C='s
are modified in any way (except for the front), or whether they run on the
normal A2000/3000 floppy bus.
BTW, a Frankfurt dealer has an ad out with 'Kickstart/Workbench 3.0 for
all! Board with ROM for DM 99 (abouth US$ 60).
// Chris coming in from Germany
\X/ on AutoPilot 1.051……….
Chris,
I rekon that that is meant for me??? Is it the stuff regarding the
HD Floppy? It looks like it anyway…
Thanks.
Sean.
Pardon me ??? A board that will allow installation of 3.0 in the 2000/500
class machine ? What would be the advantages of such a setup ? And since you
are in Germany, any word on software updates to Retina ? I was told that they
would have some updates and new software out soon.
> Kick 3.0 for all <
I don't know anything about this board, just read the ad…
Again, sorry, but I don't know anything about Retina updates/upgrades
except that thay have had their Workbench Emulation out finally… I have
gone for MERLIN (by XPert) which comes with 1, 2 or 4 Megs of onboard mem
(expandable to 16 Megs onboard and 1 Gig(!) externally), is expandable by
way of hardware add-ons. A realtime 24bit RGB – NOT YUV! – digitizer
module will be out next month, 24bit genlock and combined board digitizer
& genlock will be some time (months) longer. Following 'enhanced modules'
are (said to be) under development: memory expansion, video effects
generator, compression/decompression module, dsp module and render module
(whatever these are… oh, compression/decompression is MPEG(/JPEG) for
full motion video digitizing in realtime, video effects generator shall
surpass the Toaster (hear, hear! – oh, well Toaster's not available in
Germany anyway…) – what's DSP???) It ships with an Intuition (not just
Workbench!) emulator which emulates AGA under WB 2.x (i.e. all regular
Amiga graphic modes including 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64(EHB), 256, 4096(HAM) and
256000(HAM8) colours!). Emulation is in 4/8bit steps (4, 8, 16, 24 bits)
which means that for excample your workbench in 16 colours will be exactly
as fast as in 4 colours – MERLIN uses a 16 colour palette anyway. 32,
64(EHB) and 256 colours are all the same speed in 8bit mode, as are
4096(HAM) and 256000 (HAM8). Of course it can do 16.7 Mio colours,
resolution depending on installed memory (with my 4 Megs I could do 24 bit
in 1280×1024 resolution at 87Hz interlaced, or 1024×768 at 70 Hz
non-interlaced. Support for virtual screens is included, so you can have a
big screen size on a small monitor and scroll around smoothly thanks to
onboard blitter with a performance of 50 Megapixels/sec. MERLIN also
supports 'screen-in-screen' and 'screen-in-window', and will be RTG
compatible by way of EPROM (empty socket at the mom) when/if C= will have
it out. The only things that DON'T work with MERLIN are most games
(diskette boot, no use of Intuition), software that doesn't conform to WB
2.x (and over) programming rules and programs that directly address the
blitter. MERLIN supports screen promotion (always, this time, not this
time, never, ask) and doesn't use ChipMEM (Retina apparantly just copies
the ChipMEM display area to Retina for display but this I don't know for
sure…). The only problem with my MERLIN is – it doesn't work on my
system at all (boot-loop) and I'll have to send it back to them for a
replacement (SOB!!!) |^(
// Chris coming in from Germany
\X/ on AutoPilot 1.051……….
> Kick 3.0 for all <
I don't know anything about this board, just read the ad…
Again, sorry, but I don't know anything about Retina updates/upgrades
except that thay have had their Workbench Emulation out finally… I have
gone for MERLIN (by XPert) which comes with 1, 2 or 4 Megs of onboard mem
(expandable to 16 Megs onboard and 1 Gig(!) externally), is expandable by
way of hardware add-ons. A realtime 24bit RGB – NOT YUV! – digitizer
module will be out next month, 24bit genlock and combined board digitizer
& genlock will be some time (months) longer. Following 'enhanced modules'
are (said to be) under development: memory expansion, video effects
generator, compression/decompression module, dsp module and render module
(whatever these are… oh, compression/decompression is MPEG(/JPEG) for
full motion video digitizing in realtime, video effects generator shall
surpass the Toaster (hear, hear! – oh, well Toaster's not available in
Germany anyway…) – what's DSP???) It ships with an Intuition (not just
Workbench!) emulator which emulates AGA under WB 2.x (i.e. all regular
Amiga graphic modes including 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64(EHB), 256, 4096(HAM) and
256000(HAM8) colours!). Emulation is in 4/8bit steps (4, 8, 16, 24 bits)
which means that for excample your workbench in 16 colours will be exactly
as fast as in 4 colours – MERLIN uses a 16 colour palette anyway. 32,
64(EHB) and 256 colours are all the same speed in 8bit mode, as are
4096(HAM) and 256000 (HAM8). Of course it can do 16.7 Mio colours,
resolution depending on installed memory (with my 4 Megs I could do 24 bit
in 1280×1024 resolution at 87Hz interlaced, or 1024×768 at 70 Hz
non-interlaced. Support for virtual screens is included, so you can have a
big screen size on a small monitor and scroll around smoothly thanks to
onboard blitter with a performance of 50 Megapixels/sec. MERLIN also
supports 'screen-in-screen' and 'screen-in-window', and will be RTG
compatible by way of EPROM (empty socket at the mom) when/if C= will have
it out. The only things that DON'T work with MERLIN are most games
(diskette boot, no use of Intuition), software that doesn't conform to WB
2.x (and over) programming rules and programs that directly address the
blitter. MERLIN supports screen promotion (always, this time, not this
time, never, ask) and doesn't use ChipMEM (Retina apparantly just copies
the ChipMEM display area to Retina for display but this I don't know for
sure…). The only problem with my MERLIN is – it doesn't work on my
system at all (boot-loop) and I'll have to send it back to them for a
replacement (SOB!!!) |^(
// Chris coming in from Germany
\X/ on AutoPilot 1.051……….
About those HiD floppy drives…. The floppy "controller" in the
Amiga can handle a max of 300Kps of data at a time. This was ok
since most DSDD 3.5 drives were 250Kps at a speed of 300rpm. The
standard (IBM) HiD floppy (1.44K) does a transfer of 500K at 300rpm,
which the Amiga can not handle.
Commodore contacted Chinon and commissioned a special dual-speed
floppy for the Amiga (the FB-357A & FZ-357A models). These drives
run at 300rpm at DD for 250Kps transfers, and 150rpm at HiD for
250Kps transfers.
A new trackdisk.device was developped for 2.0 that could handle the
HiD mode of the HiD/DD floppy drives. When a diskette was inserted
into the drive the system could auto-detect if it was a HiD or DD
density, and format it accordingly.
However, there was a bug that prevented mixing of HiD & DD drives
with the 2.04 trackdisk.device. Utilities like HD-Fixer, could patch
around the bug.
Sean,
It is possible that there are still some of those instructions in one
of our libraries – I've not looked in a VERY long time. I would
think they would be in AmigaUser, the hardware section, and that the
keywords IBM or MSDOS or some such would locate them. The files I
remember had a schematic showing how to make the Amiga board to go
into the IBM drive, a parts list, and a text file giving
instructions. I know that there was also a printed article in an
early issue of Amazing Computing that gave much the same thing.
Beyond that, I don't know anything about it. I certainly never tried
to make one!
—Betty