V6 floppy upgrade - preview

[exxosuk]

 

V6 series 1.44 floppy kit upgrade. This one I have done away with the TTL logic chips in favour for a GAL. This allows much smaller PCB, less parts, better features. Other than the size, this board now includes the "Media Change fix". Also some TOS versions hard coded the step rate to 6ms which made 720K drives sound loud. So the V6 series re-codes the 720K step rate back to the proper 3ms.

 

Read all about it here http://www.exxoshost.co.uk/atari/last/floppy/index.htm#v6

 

So the bad news... Going by how slow sales have been with these kits over the past several years (I still have some V5's left) It will be unlikely to get produced. I would need several orders before I will consider a small run on these. I also don't know if people are generally bothered about floppy's these days ? I still use my floppies a lot, in particular 1.44's, so the kit is beneficial for me, its why I developed the V6 design. So will see how things go, if nobody care then I will check back again some point next year

 

[Justin Payne]

You've got some cool mods on your site. I have an ol' 520 the I have stored away that I might like to add some of these mods to. Of couse, I need to first get a new house so that I have room to take this stuff out of those boxes so at some point you might have another buyer.

Thanks for supporting the communuty!

[Android8675]

I think I want one. I was considering a v5, but put me down for a v6, though I need another ST, the one I have now I mounted a cosmosEx inside which serves as a floppy/hdd emulator. Dunno if the mod would work with that setup.

[exxosuk]

The only emulator I have is the HxC. I've not really had chance to play with that much yet. I guess it depends how it handles 1.44 floppies. First problem I see is there is no HD wire to connect the 16mhz switch to. I suppose its possible the HxC can work with 1.44 floppies with the 1772 at 8mhz, albeit slower transfer speeds. Saying that if the HxC not care of tracks and sectors vs 1772 speeds (I would assume so) then the 1772 might just work at 16mhz all the time anyway. Think it would be one of those things to ask jookie about. Though I think it would be interesting for someone to try running the 1772 faster with the cosmosEx....

[jookie]

The only emulator I have is the HxC. I've not really had chance to play with that much yet. I guess it depends how it handles 1.44 floppies. First problem I see is there is no HD wire to connect the 16mhz switch to. I suppose its possible the HxC can work with 1.44 floppies with the 1772 at 8mhz, albeit slower transfer speeds. Saying that if the HxC not care of tracks and sectors vs 1772 speeds (I would assume so) then the 1772 might just work at 16mhz all the time anyway. Think it would be one of those things to ask jookie about. Though I think it would be interesting for someone to try running the 1772 faster with the cosmosEx....

 

Hello all,

 

I don't follow / watch this forum, but exxos sent me a notification that maybe I should reply, so here it goes

 

CosmosEx currently works only in DD mode, that means running the WD1772 at 16 MHz would make it not usable at that speed. The HD count of data at 8 MHz could be added and would work, just like exxos mentioned with HxC, and it even might be able to do it at 16 MHz, but it's not done at this moment - too many things are in progress...

 

Jookie

 

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