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Is this a Percom Drive?


DavidMil

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From memory the TRS-80 used a Shugart Associates type disk drive and associated connector, I remember my mate scoring one out of an old Minicomputer from a scrap metal recycler and using it with his TRS-80 in the day (of which I was very envious as it cost 'far' less than the FDD for my own 8 bit machine).

 

So if the Percom drive uses the same assembly/connector I assume it would work?

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I actually have a TRS-80 Model III I'm restoring, mostly done, and I'm pretty certain that is a Tandy/RS drive.  The drives they used were actually Tandon TM-100 single side, single density, made by Tandon but re-branded as "Texas Peripherals."  They used a custom controller board on the drive, and not the standard Tandon one.

 

I'd bet that's what's inside that drive.  Percom did make (started out making?) TRS-80 drives, but I don't think that is one of theirs, it looks like a standard RS external drive to me.

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10 minutes ago, glurk said:

I actually have a TRS-80 Model III I'm restoring, mostly done, and I'm pretty certain that is a Tandy/RS drive.  The drives they used were actually Tandon TM-100 single side, single density, made by Tandon but re-branded as "Texas Peripherals."  They used a custom controller board on the drive, and not the standard Tandon one.

 

I'd bet that's what's inside that drive.  Percom did make (started out making?) TRS-80 drives, but I don't think that is one of theirs, it looks like a standard RS external drive to me.

I'm pretty sure the Tandon drives also conformed to the Shugart standard/interface. It was a standard used by many manufacturers in the day.

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Yeah, Tandon came a couple years after Shugart and copied their drives, more or less.  But RS never actually used Shugart drives in their own machines, as far as I am aware.  They would probably work, though.  Might have to substitute the custom RS drive board on one, though.

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It most likely is a Trs 80 drive.

I picked one of these up a year or so ago just for the case. One thing to note is, at least the one I got, they cases are short.

I had to move the transformer and could only get 1 half height drive in that case do to the space limitations.

I thought the 1/2 and full height were all basically had similiar dimensions but my Mitsubishi 360k drive was only able to fit on one side of the case. Luckily I only had intentions of putting in 1 5.25 and 1 3.5 inch drives so the other side wasn’t an issue.

I think I have seen some of the trs80 cases with the transformer on the outside of the case. (Probably to solve the space issue in the case).

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22 minutes ago, DavidMil said:

I didn't think that Radio Shack actually made floppy drives, but rather purchased them from a third party and stuck their stickers on them.

I'd love to have a look inside...

 

DavidMil

They didn't make the drives themselves, they were manufactured by a third party to the Shugart standard/interface. Hence the reason my mate could connect a FDD out of some old PDP mini computer into his TRS-80.

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I scored an Amdex 2x 3” drive setup for the TRS way back when.. Finally decided I was not going to go down the route of TRS hardware and I let it go.. Almost with I had of kept it. That drive system plus the analog color monitor running on an Atari8 was always such a sysop dream for me…

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2 hours ago, doctor_x said:

I scored an Amdex 2x 3” drive setup for the TRS way back when.. Finally decided I was not going to go down the route of TRS hardware and I let it go.. Almost with I had of kept it. That drive system plus the analog color monitor running on an Atari8 was always such a sysop dream for me…

The TRS-80 is a great machine of the era with a vast number of bloody good operating systems. I even like the CoCo3, hardware 80 columns is nice.

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If you are looking for a Percom there is a nice rfd-40 and extra slave on eBay right now.

All you need is to burn the rfd44 rom and you have full double sided capability.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Percom-Atari-400-800-5-1-4-Master-Slave-Drive-Pair-w-cables-and-manuals-Rare-/164961574941?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m2548.l6249&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0

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Interesting thing I just did a while ago.  I took one of the TRS-80 drives from my model III (bare drive, no case) along with it's cable from the TRS - drive select is by cable - and hooked it up to a bench power supply and to my Percom's controller, with the actual Percom drive detached, and it actually booted an Atari DOS disk!!

 

Woo hoo!  I'm still shocked.  It's out of alignment, and won't format or write, but it read a whole bunch of Atari disks, and booted many of them, but not all.  So I'd bet money if you bought that TRS-80 drive you posted above (and it was working) it should work as a slave drive to a Percom.  Might need a TRS-80 cable, the TRS drives have no jumpers for drive select at all, they use pulled pins in the cable.

 

And I thought the damn thing was a goner, LOL.

 

I also found that the Percom can (partially) read TRS-80 disks also, but only the first few sectors.  I've been experimenting a lot...

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On 7/19/2021 at 4:11 AM, glurk said:

Yeah, Tandon came a couple years after Shugart and copied their drives, more or less.  But RS never actually used Shugart drives in their own machines, as far as I am aware.  They would probably work, though.  Might have to substitute the custom RS drive board on one, though.

 

I'm pretty sure when the TRS-80 first came out it used the Shugart drive. I believe the Model II used them as well for the 8" disk. Model 3/4 etc.. were the Tandon.

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20 hours ago, moonlight_mile said:

If you are looking for a Percom there is a nice rfd-40 and extra slave on eBay right now.

All you need is to burn the rfd44 rom and you have full double sided capability.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Percom-Atari-400-800-5-1-4-Master-Slave-Drive-Pair-w-cables-and-manuals-Rare-/164961574941?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m2548.l6249&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0

Too rich for me, but thanks for the info.

DavidMil

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