Omega-TI Posted August 15, 2016 Share Posted August 15, 2016 And now I am going to be joining the ranks of the PEB club. Glad this thread is here. It already answered a ton of questions for me. Except 1. And I don't want to google in case I get it wrong. What, exactly, kind of floppies? 5.24" yeah but are all 5 1/4" disks equal? https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#tbm=shop&q=5+1%2F4%22+floppies Have you ever considered 3.5's? They are easier to to come bye, easier to get disks for, usually require less power than 5.25 and are always compatible with the 80 track upgrade. They will require a power adapter and a different connector than the 5.25's as well. They also require a frame. Back when I had 3.5's in my P-Box (as seen in this old photograph below) I thought they looked okay. A couple of guys here have done some real nice work painting P-Boxes, Mantadoc has a real nice one << HERE >>. You might want to hit him up for some tips, even if you want to use a different color. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LynxHandyCaster Posted August 15, 2016 Share Posted August 15, 2016 (edited) And now I am going to be joining the ranks of the PEB club. Glad this thread is here. It already answered a ton of questions for me. Except 1. And I don't want to google in case I get it wrong. What, exactly, kind of floppies? 5.24" yeah but are all 5 1/4" disks equal? https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#tbm=shop&q=5+1%2F4%22+floppies Yeah when I first got my PEB several months back and outfitted it with 2 half-height Epson 5 1/4" floppy drives, I thought I needed a certain kind of disks because I couldn't get either drive to work properly. The good folks here on AtariAge and at my local vintage computer club got me straightened out, though. And yes, and soft-sector floppies should work fine. Welcome to the PEB Club! Edited August 15, 2016 by MillipedeMan 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinphaltimus Posted August 15, 2016 Share Posted August 15, 2016 I never imagined being here just over a month ago. And now this. I small part of me feels 11 years old again and the luckiest kid on the block. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LynxHandyCaster Posted August 15, 2016 Share Posted August 15, 2016 I never imagined being here just over a month ago. And now this. I small part of me feels 11 years old again and the luckiest kid on the block. I know exactly how you feel. I use my TI/PEB setup almost every day, and once you get your floppies set up, I know you will, too! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shift838 Posted August 15, 2016 Share Posted August 15, 2016 The 3.5 drives will also require a couple of cable modifications unless the 3.5 drives you find have drive select switches on them. You can find the cable modifications to recognize which drives (DSK1, DSK2, DSK3) HERE mainbyte is a great resource for the TI community. Also the 3.5 floppy disks are much easier to come by and seem to be more reliable. Just remember the TI disk controller can only do Double Sided / Single Density at 40 track (180k), unless modified. The 80 track mod will give you DS/SD @ 80 track = 360k. You can use the newer 1.44 mb drives and floppies, just remember to tape over the HD hole on the floppies before you use them. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arnuphis Posted August 16, 2016 Share Posted August 16, 2016 (edited) I would also second the idea of 3.5" floppies since the media disks are easier to come by and if you upgrade the controller card you have more storage access. I have an HxC and a Teac 3.5 floppy in my PEB. However, I am still waiting on getting my disk controller card back before I can fire it all up and check that I made up the cable correctly. Edited August 16, 2016 by Arnuphis 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RXB Posted August 16, 2016 Share Posted August 16, 2016 Personally I dumped the 5 1/4 drives as soon as I could get 3.5 drives installed. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinphaltimus Posted August 16, 2016 Share Posted August 16, 2016 (edited) I will actively pursue the same. Question... The disk controller. Is that strictly for the floppy? Or does it support hdd as well? If hdd also, is it MFM? If yes, I wonder if there is an mfm to ide adaptor around? Edited August 16, 2016 by Sinphaltimus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Lee Stewart Posted August 16, 2016 Share Posted August 16, 2016 ... Question... The disk controller. Is that strictly for the floppy? ... Strictly floppy for the TI and CorComp controllers. ...lee 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shift838 Posted August 16, 2016 Share Posted August 16, 2016 (edited) I will actively pursue the same. Question... The disk controller. Is that strictly for the floppy? Or does it support hdd as well? If hdd also, is it MFM? If yes, I wonder if there is an mfm to ide adaptor around? The Myarc has a Floppy only and Myarc also has a Hard/Floppy Disk controller (MFM). There is also a WHT SCSI card for hard disk drives as well as an IDE card. I did find an MFM to IDE adapter a few years ago, but I did not purchase it as I thought they wanted too much $$$ for it. The hard drive controllers are extremely hard to come by. Even the CorComp 9900 and Myarc FDC controllers are fairly scarce as they support DS/DD. A new Myarc Clone Floppy controller is being worked on right now. We are all anxiously awaiting that one. For mass storage the easiest solution out there is a modified TI RS232 card with the HDX interface. Which allows you to store/retrieve your TI programs from your PC with a connected serial cable to port #2 of the RS232 HDX card. Port 1 is still used for connecting standard serial devices. Edited August 16, 2016 by Shift838 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted August 16, 2016 Share Posted August 16, 2016 Question... The disk controller. Is that strictly for the floppy? Or does it support hdd as well? If hdd also, is it MFM? If yes, I wonder if there is an mfm to ide adaptor around? For mass storage the easiest solution out there is a modified TI RS232 card with the HDX interface. Which allows you to store/retrieve your TI programs from your PC with a connected serial cable to port #2 of the RS232 HDX card. Port 1 is still used for connecting standard serial devices. Sinphaltimus, I agree totally with Chris on this. The << HDX >> is the way to go. It's easy and relatively inexpensive compared to obtaining a rare legacy HDD card that may or may not work properly, but will require even more expensive components to get up and operating. Besides simple storage, the HDX also has extra capabilities that no legacy HD does. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marc.hull Posted August 16, 2016 Share Posted August 16, 2016 Sinphaltimus, I agree totally with Chris on this. The << HDX >> is the way to go. It's easy and relatively inexpensive compared to obtaining a rare legacy HDD card that may or may not work properly, but will require even more expensive components to get up and operating. Besides simple storage, the HDX also has extra capabilities that no legacy HD does. Not to be argumentative but what capacities are those ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted August 17, 2016 Share Posted August 17, 2016 Not to be argumentative but what capacities are those ? Actually that's a fair question. A hard drive is simply a storage device, and while the HDX uses ones PC in the same way, the HDX also gives one... A) The capacity to easily transfer files from the Internet to real Iron or the other way around. something a basic HD hooked up to a TI cannot do. B) The capacity to print a file or program listing to ones modern printer hooked up to a modern PC. C) And while this last one is probably not used by many folks, the ability for the TI to get the exact time from the PC in the absence of a RTC. Quite a while ago I made a blog entry about the device and from time to time have added a few small videos with examples. It occurs to me that I should probably remake the entry as I see room for improvement. An update will have to wait, but I did add it to my list! I also like using it in combination with Classic 99 as it makes transferring text listings from Atari Age to the TI a snap. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marc.hull Posted August 17, 2016 Share Posted August 17, 2016 Actually that's a fair question. A hard drive is simply a storage device, and while the HDX uses ones PC in the same way, the HDX also gives one... A) The capacity to easily transfer files from the Internet to real Iron or the other way around. something a basic HD hooked up to a TI cannot do. B) The capacity to print a file or program listing to ones modern printer hooked up to a modern PC. C) And while this last one is probably not used by many folks, the ability for the TI to get the exact time from the PC in the absence of a RTC. Quite a while ago I made a blog entry about the device and from time to time have added a few small videos with examples. It occurs to me that I should probably remake the entry as I see room for improvement. An update will have to wait, but I did add it to my list! I also like using it in combination with Classic 99 as it makes transferring text listings from Atari Age to the TI a snap. A) both the Scuzzy and IDE drives allow you to do this with Fred's TIDIR program. In fact you can maintain a hard disk image (or just a file.) On your pc that can be easily written to a TI hard drive So not only do you get HD storage on your ti but transfers are as easy as pulling a CF card from your PC and plugging it in to your TI HDCC. In fact Fred's IDE DSR package contains a utility that will read FAT formatted files and convert the to TI files on your TI. B) There are programs out there that will take the RS232 ouput, feed it to a PC monitor and print it. I don't have proof as I can't remember whose website offered that (I want to say it was Fred's but cannot remember. At any rate that's an RS232-software (pc side) function. Not a HDX function although it could be useful I admit. C) The IDE card and HFDC card contain a RTC. The Scuzzy card does not so you get 33 percent credit on that one. I am now actually curious as to what the HDX modification to the RS232 card DSR does other than change device names is ? Seems the brilliance is most evident on the PC side of things but I'd like to know what has changed in the DSR code and what the implications mean. Anyone want to weigh in ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted August 17, 2016 Share Posted August 17, 2016 A) That's kind of neat. I was unaware of that one. Thanks for the heads up. B) Yeah, I don't know about this one either, but it's all built into the HDX package so it's easy with no additional hoops to jump through. C) Fair enough! On the subject of availability & price while not always immediately available, you sure get a lot of bang for the buck going the HDX route in my humble opinion. Now that last question is a good one, it's got me interested as well. Hopefully someone has the answer and will weigh in. Hey Fred are you reading this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneMultitasker Posted August 17, 2016 Share Posted August 17, 2016 The most common/normal file operations (open/close/read/write/delete/load/save) act just like any other device. This is the level 3 IO used by most programs including BASIC, XB, word processors, etc. Level 2 IO used by programs such as disk managers, terminal emulators, etc. operate like a hard drive device. For example, renaming files, direct file IO, set the path. Like the IDE DSR, Fred uses a unique identifier for these routines, meaning the HFDC/SCSI programs relying upon them will not work with HDX without some modification. Same reason Archiver 4.0 works with SCSI/HFDC but not with IDE. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marc.hull Posted August 17, 2016 Share Posted August 17, 2016 The most common/normal file operations (open/close/read/write/delete/load/save) act just like any other device. This is the level 3 IO used by most programs including BASIC, XB, word processors, etc. Level 2 IO used by programs such as disk managers, terminal emulators, etc. operate like a hard drive device. For example, renaming files, direct file IO, set the path. Like the IDE DSR, Fred uses a unique identifier for these routines, meaning the HFDC/SCSI programs relying upon them will not work with HDX without some modification. Same reason Archiver 4.0 works with SCSI/HFDC but not with IDE. So do you have any insight as to what has been changed in the DSR Tim and why not ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+InsaneMultitasker Posted August 17, 2016 Share Posted August 17, 2016 So do you have any insight as to what has been changed in the DSR Tim and why not Ah. I see what you are getting at. From a hardware perspective, the 4K DSR EPROM is swapped out with a RAM chip and supporting logic/battery backup 'glue'. Software-wise, the new DSR is loaded into RAM by you, the user, the first time the card is activated (or when the battery dies or the DSR is corrupted). The RS232 portion of the DSR is nearly identical to the TI DSR and resides in the a 4K bank. A second 4K bank contains the new HDX DSR code and some buffer/workspace area. Fred released his source code (in the forum IIRC) if you are interested in digging further. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
towmater Posted August 27, 2016 Author Share Posted August 27, 2016 Dinkin' around inside the PEB. Can I safely move the disk controller to the other side of the cage closer to the power supply? I'd like to make it easier to swap in a Gotek later on, without having to remove 20 screws to get to the floppy cable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
towmater Posted August 28, 2016 Author Share Posted August 28, 2016 Ne'er mind, I already gave it a go, seems to work fine. The included drive formatted a double-sided double-density (i.e. Double Double) without complaint. I added the missing (omitted) switch to en/disable the Tursi 32K mod, and everything checks out with that as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
towmater Posted August 28, 2016 Author Share Posted August 28, 2016 Now I also recommend the TI-FDC upgrade modification when you get a chance as it will double your storage on a standard TI drive, or if you get an HxC give you the capability of 360K per drive, but emulates two for 720K. CONGRATULATIONS on the new acquisition! Is there a source to download these EPROMs? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shift838 Posted August 28, 2016 Share Posted August 28, 2016 Is there a source to download these EPROMs? you can order them from arcadeshopper.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LynxHandyCaster Posted August 28, 2016 Share Posted August 28, 2016 Dinkin' around inside the PEB. Can I safely move the disk controller to the other side of the cage closer to the power supply? I'd like to make it easier to swap in a Gotek later on, without having to remove 20 screws to get to the floppy cable. The instructions for both the PEB and the Disk Controller Card state clearly that the Disk Controller Card must be placed in the last slot on the right, next to the floppy drive(s). That's how I set mine up and I gotta tell you it's a pain to get the drives hooked up to the card through that little slot in the back. Of course, you've now discovered (as have most PEB owners) that you can put the Disk Controller Card anywhere, as long as the ribbon cable reaches. Stupid instructions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Schmitzi Posted August 28, 2016 Share Posted August 28, 2016 yes, same for me, I also have PEBs with the fdd-controller in slot 7. worx I also asked here in the forum, and checked pics on eBay a.s.o., this really seems to be no problem. It´s a omni-bus In the PEBs, where I have the controller still in slot 8, I just extended the floppycable and the powercables, to be able to pull the whole drive cage fully out ouf the PEB xXx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
towmater Posted August 28, 2016 Author Share Posted August 28, 2016 you can order them from arcadeshopper.com The item must be well hidden on the store site, it's not under the TI section and doesn't result in search.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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