3rd party disk drive compatibility level

[AMenard]

Hi,

 

Back in the days, there were 3rd party disk drives available for the A8 line. Drives like the Indus GT and of other manufacturer.

 

I'm wondering how compatible to the Atari drives were those when it came to copy protected software. I know that on the Commodore side, using a 3rd party drive was a hit&miss ordeal.

 

How compatible were they?

[tschak909]

9 minutes ago, AMenard said:

Hi,

 

Back in the days, there were 3rd party disk drives available for the A8 line. Drives like the Indus GT and of other manufacturer.

 

I'm wondering how compatible to the Atari drives were those when it came to copy protected software. I know that on the Commodore side, using a 3rd party drive was a hit&miss ordeal.

 

How compatible were they?

Not _as_ bad as with C= systems, due to the fact that the disk controller interface is more abstracted, and you can't upload code into most stock Atari disk drives, so it's not used for copy protection purposes.

 

Due to the Atari 810 disk drive being run at 288 RPM (something I really want to know WHY), instead of 300 RPM, compatible disk drives either have to decrease their rotational speed (e.g. Indus GT), or adjust their clock speed to compensate (the Atari XF551 and the ATR8000 both do this, as does the Black Box floppy controller).

 

I do remember, for example, the earliest ATR8000 drives (with the 1982 ROM), having problems with some copy protected disks with extreme track->sector skew (such as EA titles), which was resolved with the 1984 ROM. 

 

But for the most part, the third party drives have good compatibility.

[AMenard]

1 minute ago, tschak909 said:

Not _as_ bad as with C= systems, due to the fact that the disk controller interface is more abstracted, and you can't upload code into most stock Atari disk drives, so it's not used for copy protection purposes.

 

Due to the Atari 810 disk drive being run at 288 RPM (something I really want to know WHY), instead of 300 RPM, compatible disk drives either have to decrease their rotational speed (e.g. Indus GT), or adjust their clock speed to compensate (the Atari XF551 and the ATR8000 both do this, as does the Black Box floppy controller).

 

I do remember, for example, the earliest ATR8000 drives (with the 1982 ROM), having problems with some copy protected disks with extreme track->sector skew (such as EA titles), which was resolved with the 1984 ROM. 

 

But for the most part, the third party drives have good compatibility.

Thanks! I always wondered about that. I was pretty much the only Atari owner in my neighborhood back in the day and I saw them advertised in magazine a lot but I was afraid of getting one and stuck with the 1050. Of course today those 3rd party drive don't popup on ebay often.

[+davidcalgary29]

17 minutes ago, AMenard said:

Thanks! I always wondered about that. I was pretty much the only Atari owner in my neighborhood back in the day and I saw them advertised in magazine a lot but I was afraid of getting one and stuck with the 1050. Of course today those 3rd party drive don't popup on ebay often.

They do, sometimes, but you have to be quick...or else users from western Canada may snatch them up first.

[Gavin1968]

I had a pair of Rana 1000’s and they worked flawlessly.  In fact I still have one of them in operation today.  Love it. 

[+slx]

We never got any third party drives in Europe before the Poles started to use Ataris big-time, so I feel compelled to compensate for my childhood deprivations by buying more third party drives than I probably need, even considering the somewhat distorted meaning of "need" in the retro community. All this SIO2something and SIDEx and flash this is nice and convenient, but it doesn't have the same rejuvenating effect as the slow toc-toc-toc of a drive stepping from track to track loading the next game. 

[AMenard]

45 minutes ago, slx said:

We never got any third party drives in Europe before the Poles started to use Ataris big-time, so I feel compelled to compensate for my childhood deprivations by buying more third party drives than I probably need, even considering the somewhat distorted meaning of "need" in the retro community. All this SIO2something and SIDEx and flash this is nice and convenient, but it doesn't have the same rejuvenating effect as the slow toc-toc-toc of a drive stepping from track to track loading the next game. 

Get a C64 with a 1541 then.... BRRRRRRRRRRRR....toc-toc-toc-BRRRRRRRRRRR-toc-toc-toc-toc... 🙂