[Coco] FD-50X Drive manuals

[wdg3rd at comcast.net]

I'll take your word for it.  It must have been after my time at the Shack.  I just can't think of any rational reason to roll up a flat cable that way.
-- 
Ward Griffiths        wdg3rd at comcast.net

----- "Tim Fadden" <t.fadden at cox.net> wrote:

> From: "Tim Fadden" <t.fadden at cox.net>
> To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> Sent: Sunday, March 8, 2009 11:39:26 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
> Subject: Re: [Coco] FD-50X Drive manuals
>
> Don't know about ALL of the models, but the latest 502's come with
> ROUND 
> cables.  Unless you are pulling my leg.   They are actually  flat
> cables 
> put into a grey ROUND sleave. If you want a picture I can send it.
> 
> Tim
> 
> wdg3rd at comcast.net wrote:
> > ----- "Tim Fadden" <t.fadden at cox.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >   
> >> This looks more like sticky head rails.
> >>
> >> Just for general  purposes, on all of the card edge connectors,
> dirves
> >>
> >> and controllers. Us a pencil erasor on the contacts and buff them
> up 
> >> pretty!
> >> Then do the clean/lube proceedure on the drives.  I be you will
> get
> >> them 
> >> working.
> >>
> >> The round cable is most likely the stock tandy cable.  The flat
> ribbon
> >> cable is most likely home made.  If you only have 1 drive on the
> >> system 
> >> It should make no difference which cable you use as long as you
> put
> >> the 
> >> drive on the end of the cable.  Tandy drives all come set as drive
> 1. 
> >>
> >> The fiddle with the cable to make the drive select different.
> >>     
> >
> > To the best of my knowledge (which used to be pretty exhaustive, but
> in a couple of decades a lot of brain cells die, and I have habits
> that help that process), Tandy never made a round floppy cable -- it
> was just ribbon.  Mod 1/3/4 FD and HD, Mod 2/12/16/6k FD and HD, Coco
> FD and HD, Tandy 2000 and early PC compatibles external HD.  All
> ribbons.  (My knowledge may be incomplete, as I left the company in
> 1986 and they didn't completely stop manufacturing computer products
> until five or six more years later, so some round cables may have
> snuck in while I wasn't watching, but I doubt it, they cost more and
> the Shack was always went for the cheap).  (Connecting the ends of
> round cables to _anything_ is labor intensive, which makes them
> expensive and is one of the reasons land lines cost so much).