ST disk drives

[OldFart]

I'm new here. Sorry in advance if I sound like an idiot. I have a knack for that.

 

I spent several hours attempting to find some data on the subject, but didn't have much luck, so I'm going to ask the techies a few things.

 

My project is this. I have a 1040ST (FM?) nicely packed up for nostalgic purposes, with all original hardware and accessories. That's the one I'm not going to mess with.

 

But I also have a 520ST (not sure what suffixes) that I intend to use as a guinea pig. What I'd like to do is somehow adapt or create-from-parts a 1050 5¼" floppy drive to it. Or better (I think?) an XF551. I have both, so if adaptation can be done without serious modification, so much the better. I also intend to use it with an LCD VGA monitor, and a few other things.

 

Don't ask why. It's just always been a curiosity of mine to make computers do things they normally wouldn't do. Like interfacing things for which they weren't intended. For example, I have a Commodore 64 that I made monitor an alarm system. Or whatever that may monitor triggers or flip switches.

 

But my main goal at this point is getting one of those two floppy drives, whichever one is better, to interface nice and peacefully with the 520ST.

 

From what I've found so far, the 1050 out-performs the XF551. So I'll start with that one.

 

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.

[+bob1200xl]

The ST uses pretty much stock drives, so you can just adapt a 5 1/4 to the 3 1/2 that comes with them. (didn't Atari do this?)

 

The hard part, I would think, is a driver to run the thing.

 

Bob

[OldFart]

If it's anything like modifying a driver on a PC, it shouldn't be too difficult. I hope. Just have to get the right tools to do it with.