ST disk drive Q.

[Major Havoc 2049]

I just won this disk drive on ebay. Does anyone know anything about them? Are they any good and what are the specs?

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...egory=1250&rd=1

[+Sauron]

I've never seen a third party external disk drive for the ST. That looks interesting. Perhaps you should have emailed a few questions to the seller?

[Inky]

I've never seen a third party external disk drive for the ST. That looks interesting. Perhaps you should have emailed a few questions to the seller?

 

I have a 3rd party one. Uses a colecovision power supply.

[belboz]

There were a lot of knock off drives back in the ST's heyday.

 

I think I had a "Master 3D" drive as an external for my Mega STE. It was only a DS/DD drive though and my Mega STE has a 1.4MB drive internally.

 

From the looks of the picture from that auction it looks like a DS/DD drive. Doesn't look like a Master 3D though.

[A2600]

There were a lot of knock off drives back in the ST's heyday.

 

I think I had a "Master 3D" drive as an external for my Mega STE.  It was only a DS/DD drive though and my Mega STE has a 1.4MB drive internally.

 

From the looks of the picture from that auction it looks like a DS/DD drive.  Doesn't look like a Master 3D though.

 

Yes, BUT it looks very good, and for the price its even better

[Curt Vendel]

Mike,

 

One of the more elegant aspects of the ST disk drive port is its an industry standard pinout and can use both 3.5" and 5.25" IBM compatible disk drives with an interface board which simply brings the lines to an ST connector on the back.

 

That could very well be a generic 1.44mb disk drive, however, depending on the ST you are using it will/will not work past 720K. Systems like the TT030 with Ajax chip or a Falcon which has a 1.44 native.

 

If your not looking to push past the 720k barrier, then there is nothing special or unique about the drive.

 

 

Curt

[A2600]

Mike,

 

  One of the more elegant aspects of the ST disk drive port is its an industry standard pinout and can use both 3.5" and 5.25" IBM compatible disk drives with an interface board which simply brings the lines to an ST connector on the back.

 

  That could very well be a generic 1.44mb disk drive, however, depending on the ST you are using it will/will not work past 720K.   Systems like the TT030 with Ajax chip or a Falcon which has a 1.44 native.

 

  If your not looking to push past the 720k barrier, then there is nothing special or unique about the drive.

 

Curt

 

Can you <> on the ST's that can take advantige??

 

I think the ones who dont are the regular ST's and maybe the STe's

 

The ones who may could be the Megas and Mega STe's??

 

Thanks Curt!

[+Sauron]

There's nothing wrong with just having a DS/DD (720kb) drive for the ST, as the majority of software came on those types of disks. I would only have a problem with it if it was a single sided (360kb) drive. My first 520ST only had an external single sided drive, which was quite aggravating for me until I got my 1040ST.

[belboz]

By no means was I knocking DS/DD drives. Major Havoc got a great deal on the auction. I still have my Master 3D ds/dd external drive also. As was stated most software came out on single or double sided double density disks.

 

I use to have a little hardware device called "Syncro Mesh" that plugged into the printer port on the ST and the second drive connected to it. It would write a copy of a disk as it was reading the source disk. So you could make a copy very fast. I believe it even copied some protected disks.

[Major Havoc 2049]

Thanks for the info guys. I have a STE. I only have the internal drive, so it will be nice to have a second drive. I sniped the BEAST right before I went to work a few days ago and didn't even bother to ask the seller questions about the drive. All the sellers other stuff on ebay is lego and fisher price stuff, so the seller might not know that much about it. It was cheap so I figured what the hell, roll the dice and take a chance. Hopefully it works and is at least DS/DD 720k. Should get it in the mail in a few days.

[Albert]

I seem to remember lots of third-party 3.5" drives back in the days of the ST, and I may even have had one at one point. I had one of those early 520STs and a 360K drive. And yes, it was a royal pain in the neck until I was able to upgrade. That's what you get for being an early adopter!

 

..Al