The Brewing Academy 1035 disk drive?

[+Larry]

While looking at some other stuff at TBA, I ran across this 1035.  A new Dropcheck replacement XF551 board installed in a 1050?  Anyone have one of these?  Capable of Ultra Speed or?  I searched AA, but didn't find much info.  Any interior pics?

 

https://thebrewingacademy.com/collections/atari-800-xl-xe-xel-xld/products/tba-1035-disk-drive

[TXG/MNX]

While looking at some other stuff at TBA, I ran across this 1035.  A new Dropcheck replacement XF551 board installed in a 1050?  Anyone have one of these?  Capable of Ultra Speed or?  I searched AA, but didn't find much info.  Any interior pics?
 
https://thebrewingacademy.com/collections/atari-800-xl-xe-xel-xld/products/tba-1035-disk-drive

I had hoped they could support 1.44mb aswell and have a gotek inside

Verstuurd vanaf mijn POCO F1 met Tapatalk

[+Larry]

1.44 disks are not very reliable.  720K is rock-solid for years and years. Even the Black Box Floppy Board had issues with 1.44 disks.

[TXG/MNX]

2 minutes ago, Larry said:

1.44 disks are not very reliable.  720K is rock-solid for years and years. Even the Black Box Floppy Board had issues with 1.44 disks.

I got many Atari ST with 1.44 and disks never fail on me so thats not an issue I think but the hardware should support 16mhz. A gotek should be great to load images from usb.

[BillC]

Even the ST had to use special versions of the 1772 FDC to achieve 1.44MB.

[TXG/MNX]

The ajax you mean but the 1772-02-02 works aswell lots of people just used the original 1772 in the ST without issues.

[Gunstar]

I purchased a bare board for the 3.5" drive from Dropcheck a few years ago. I haven't had time yet to do anything with it (101 other projects ahead of it in the list). I intend to install mine inside my 1200XL, out the right side like an ST. 720K are good for me, since I have about 200 720K disks left over from when I owned an ST (as well as components I need I salvaged from an ST drive). But Dropcheck made more than one version/revision of the boards and I think I have one of the first. The board on the right is from the ST drive, which you need components from for my version of the Dropcheck board. It's missing a couple of things on the ST drive board, but I have them still.

 

 

Edited November 20, 2021 by Gunstar

[+Larry]

That 1035 appears to be a really nice setup.  I'm impressed!  I see a rotary switch presumably for drive select, of course the power switch is on the front of the 1050-type drive, and a track display.  I have zero experience with those slim line mechs, so I wonder about their reliability.  I have some regular Sony 720K mechs that still work great.  A reset switch below the rotary switch on the left?  The price isn't too bad, either.  My original 810 cost some $400 in 1982 -- that would be about $1200 in 2021 dollars, based on the CPI.  

[Mclaneinc]

 

I'm sure it's a nice drive, but I'm trying to get my head around it. It just seems late in the day to introduce an alien drive type that I presume will only work from SpartaDOS with a marginally bigger storage than a DSDD drive. I also then presume it's not bootable as a normal drive. Personally I'd rather get a Fujinet which will boot numerous types and give you almost unlimited storage.

 

For me it feels like a "because we could" device...

 

As always it's just me getting my head around it, I'm sure it's a lovely item and top quality, it's just the 'what's it for' thing in me..

 

Paul..

[Gunstar]

SpartaDOS and MyDOS are capable of using it, and also I think a couple others like TopDos maybe? Anyway there is no reason it can't be the number one drive to boot from if you set it as the number one drive. Of course as the number one drive you couldn't boot regular 5.25" commercial floppies, you'd have to get ATR versions and write them to the 3.5" drive. I myself will probably not have it set as drive number 1 in my 1200XL because I have a lot of old and new games purchased on 5.25." But, yeah, it's just a matter of "because I can" for me and definitely something that isn't needed, I've got Fujinet and Atarimax MyIDE II with cards too. I just like to upgrade stuff for the heck of it, needed or not, because half the hobby for me is electronic tinkering that I have fun doing.

 

Also because with media, whether for loading software, or with audio and video equipment I like to collect and have every format of media ever made to play with and then with audio/video any media format I may find in the wild I have a machine to play it on.

 

 

Edited November 20, 2021 by Gunstar

[Mclaneinc]

I see where you are coming from, and it's pretty much as I thought.

 

The one thing you adore is the thing I shy away from, the media it comes on. People say the old floppies, be they 3.5 or 5 and a quarter, that they can last a long time but in truth that basically needs a media "goldilocks" zone with right environment to stay working and many of us don't have that so get an increasing amount of fails, in my case, so much so that I threw out my disks. That also makes me wonder how easy it will be to get these media, are they even still made and if yes, I bet the price is mad.

 

I'd rather emulate an ATR, be it on SD-MAX or AVG with SIO lead than own a few thousand floppies, it's not just about space but the ease of finding what I want to load (which in affected by any lack of space).

 

Like I say, it's 'just a me' thing, the Academy has a string of excellent products, the drive being one of them, but I / me cannot see a use for it..

Edited November 20, 2021 by Mclaneinc

[BillC]

4 hours ago, TXG/MNX said:

The ajax you mean but the 1772-02-02 works aswell lots of people just used the original 1772 in the ST without issues.

IIRC Atari overclocked selected 1772 for 1.44MB, and developed the Ajax after it was discontinued.

[Mathy]

Hello guys

 

Never had a problem with the BlackBox/FloppyBoard and 1.44 MB disks.  At least not caused by the disks or the drives.  The problems I had were caused by the flat cable developing loose contacts, resulting in the drive spontaneously formatting the disk.  I fixed that by replacing the 5.25" drive connector on the cable with a 3.5" drive connector and soldering a connector onto the FloppyBoard.  The 3.5" drive connectors have strain reliefs, which the 5.25" drive connectors do not.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

 

[+mytek]

3 hours ago, Gunstar said:

SpartaDOS and MyDOS are capable of using it, and also I think a couple others like TopDos maybe? Anyway there is no reason it can't be the number one drive to boot from if you set it as the number one drive. Of course as the number one drive you couldn't boot regular 5.25" commercial floppies, you'd have to get ATR versions and write them to the 3.5" drive.

It's just a higher capacity floppy drive, and really no different then when people swap out the original XF551 ROM for the modified one for 3.5" drive use. this was something originally developed by Bob Woolley, and then later improved upon by Bob Puff, and later still I believe another person created the HyperDrive (or something) ROM for high speed. So if this new 3.5" offering is set as any drive other than drive 1, it can co-exist with a 5.25" drive as your primary no problem, which BITD was often how the setup was configured.

 

[_The Doctor__]

The medium does matter, the coercivity of the 1.414 drives are different and are affected by temperature and outside influences / magnetic fields more easily not to mention those and well other known issues that 5.25 1.2 drives have with the duality of the heads... and with the same medium issues. 720k and lower on 5.25 and 3.5 inch drives is indeed more resilient but only when using the correct medium and the older drive mech... using the higher media and using the higher density drives and mix ups there of makes for issues.

 

Doing the 3.5 mods on a 5.25 drive usually was done as a 720K 3.5 mech and not 1.4... though some would try to use the extra available on some of those mechs making an 800k give or take disk....

 

[+kheller2]

I think the 2.88 floppies were the most reliable ever.

 

?

[+CharlieChaplin]

The drive uses the Hyper-XF OS by S.Dorndorf, thus it is capable of ultraspeed (using sector interleave NOT a track/cache buffer) and supports 90k, 130k, 180k, 360k and 720k. It also supports up to 4 partitions in mixed single-sided (90k or 130k or 180k) densities on one 720k diskette and thats what the rotary switch is for - choosing one of the four available partitions.

 

Since TBA is american, I am not sure what psu is required for the 1035, can I still use my original 1050/XF551 psu (or does it require a PC psu) and errm, will it work with 110V as well as with 230V ?

 

[Tillek]

Well.... as someone who owns one, I was going to comment... but we have so many expert opinions here, there isn't much of a need.

 

[Mathy]

Hello Tillek

 

7 minutes ago, Tillek said:

Well.... as someone who owns one, I was going to comment... but we have so many expert opinions here, there isn't much of a need.

 

Please do respond.  One persons opinion might not convince someone, but if more people tell the same story... and if most get it wrong, it might be important to say so.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

[+CharlieChaplin]

24 minutes ago, Tillek said:

Well.... as someone who owns one, I was going to comment... but we have so many expert opinions here, there isn't much of a need.

 

 

Please do, I would like to know more about the required psu and if any of my assumptions are wrong...

 

[+Larry]

I'm still looking for someone who has one to post an accurate description of the features and pictures of the board and internals. 

[Mclaneinc]

I too would like to see more details on it's features so I can understand more about it.

[hueyjones70]

I don't have a 1035 but I have populated and installed 3 of Dropcheck's boards in SF 314 case. The drives would work with MyDOS and DOS 2.5. I also installed a 3.5 drive in a XF551 case and it also worked with MyDOS and DOS 2.5. I suspect that they all would work with any Atari DOS.

[hueyjones70]

The XF 551 version used the XF power supply and the SF 314 version uses the SF power supply.

[Mark2008]

I had an XF551 w/hyper xf rom and 3.5" drive, which I eventually destroyed.

 

That's how all my posts end....which I eventually destroyed.  I should just put it in my signature

 

I definitely enjoy the 3.5" media, but the lack of interopability with the PC is a downer.  That may seem obvious, how many PC's have a floppy drive.  But mine does...but even though I have the possibility of going from PC to Atari and back in various ways, using various software...I want the utterly simple process of the disk showing up in the mac finder or windows explorer as any other media would, and for the atari to see the disk in sdx as it would see another disk.

 

On the PC side, I have a usb 3.5" drive that can read 720k fat disks.  And on the atari drive, I just received notice my Toms 720 is on the way....well, the idea is it can support 512-byte density.  Anyway, I digress.   

 

I wouldn't be surprised if I got a 1035 someday, I like the style.