Atari and a 3.5 inch Disk Drive

[Sean39]

Hey does anyone

 

Know it they ever came out with a 3.5 inch disk drive that would work the Atari 800 computer?????

If so what is it called so I can get one for my computer.

 

 

seankw39

[Tempest]

There was a mod for the XF551 that allowed it to use 3.5" disks. I have one of these, although I've never really found a use for it (storage I suppose).

 

Tempest

[Sean39]

Would you ever consider departing with it? I am writing you on my cousin computer, and the only computer I own is the Atari 800. I could really

use it for my daughter when she starts writing reports for school she could save them to a 3.5 inch floppy disk. She lost her mother and grandmother

and some of are other family to a very bad car wreck while they were gong Christmas shopping. My daughter and I and one grandpa were the only ones to walk away from it. She watched her grandmother die right in her lap, and her mother die in the drivers seat. My daughter had reconstructive surgery on

her stomache since the seat belt almost cut her in half. Me I was on life support for three weeks witha machine breathing for me ,and still have all my ribs

broken,and colar bone too. I also injured my spline, and neck. This has been a rough last year. I am just trying to get up an Atari 800 computer so

my daughter will have some kind of computer for school activities. So I have been asking alot of question on this forum because I really want to get up

a complete computer for her.

 

 

Thanks

sean39

[Mathy]

Hello Sean

 

You do realise that the stuff you put on a 3.5" disk using an Atari can not be read on a PC?

 

Greetings

 

Mathy

[Sean39]

Yes I do but it a good way to store her stuff on, so we can print it out later.

 

 

seankw39

[carmel_andrews]

if you know someone that's got one try and find a combo CSS Black box and Floppyboard...the blackbox connects to the pbi (or eci port with adapter) port and the floppyboard connects to the black box and allows you to attach inexpensive 5.25/3.5 pc floppy drives to the floppyboard (all the way upto 1.44 meg drives apparently) I'm not sure how they applied power to the floppy drive via the floppyboard, unless ofcourse you had to supply/build your own psu

 

Percom, Computerhouse (UK) And Derek Firn/Microdiscount did freestanding Floppyboard's based on the percom floppyboard concept that attached via the sio port but you had to supply or built your own psu (to power the floppy drive)

 

Derek Firn/Microdiscount did 2 versions of the floppyboard, the larger version was designed mainly for 5.25 inch 360k disk mechs and the smaller version which was designed mainly for 3.5 inch disk mechs upto 1.44 meg and apparently hard drives as well

[yorgle]

If you are primarily interested in storage, why not just use a 1050? Moreover, as much as Atari's are fun, if your daughter needs to do stuff for school, it really doesn't make much sense to have her using a format that is completely incompatible with everything else at school. You can buy a pc for peanuts nowdays- certainly for less than you'll spend trying to mod an 8-bit to use a 3.5 drive. Still, I like the idea of using a 3.5 drive- it would be great to have a 1200xl with built in 3.5 drive.

[tjlazer]

If you are primarily interested in storage, why not just use a 1050? Moreover, as much as Atari's are fun, if your daughter needs to do stuff for school, it really doesn't make much sense to have her using a format that is completely incompatible with everything else at school. You can buy a pc for peanuts nowdays- certainly for less than you'll spend trying to mod an 8-bit to use a 3.5 drive. Still, I like the idea of using a 3.5 drive- it would be great to have a 1200xl with built in 3.5 drive.

 

Very true you could get a cheap PC or maybe an old Macintosh computer for less than taking your daughter out to lunch. Heck I picked up an old Mac SE at a thrift store for $10 last year, something like that would work perfect for your daughter...

Edited February 19, 2008 by tjlazer

[Sean39]

Thanks For the help on this. Sounds good to me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

sean39

[ataridano]

While the Black Box is a wonderful piece of hardware to have, as far as I know there is no way to connect it to an Atari 800. You can get a Percom drive (and I think Trek or a couple others as well) and add a secondary drive, 3.5" or 5.25", but those are somewhat rare as well. I think the 800 is a great computer and I would encourage you to hang onto it, but I have to agree with others..... get a second hand PC, they cost next to nothing and while they may suck for the latest games, they're perfect for school work.