[Coco] So, does anyone know where to get disk drives?

[Mike Pepe]

Mark - if you don't care about being able to read and write 5.25" disks, any
old 1.44MB floppy will work just fine on a CoCo as long as you use 720k (low
density) disks.

-----Original Message-----
From: coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On
Behalf Of Mark J. Blair
Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2013 7:18 PM
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts
Subject: Re: [Coco] So, does anyone know where to get disk drives?


On Aug 28, 2013, at 11:11 , Christopher Smith <csmith at wolfram.com> wrote:
> I'm trying to find drives for my CoCo systems, and I'm having tons of
trouble doing so.  I'm at the point where I may just try to cannibalize
other systems to get working double-density floppies and build my own case,
but I'd prefer not to do this unless I absolutely have to.  My ebay
experience trying to buy drives for this seems to have ended with UPS losing
my shipment after my waiting a month to receive it, so not much luck there.
> 
> Anyway, I thought I'd ask here.  Any idea where I might find a couple of
floppy drives in an external case? :)


I've bought a couple of complete single-drive Radio Shack floppy systems for
the CoCo off eBay in the last few weeks since I started playing with vintage
computers. IIRC, one was an FD-500 and the other was an FD-501. Both worked
fine. I also picked up a pair of Tandon SSDD half height drives there; one
worked fine and is now installed in one of those systems, while the other
one appears to only step the head in one direction. I'll look at it later
and see if I can fix it. Hopefully it's just a blown transistor or something
in the stepper motor drive circuit.

I also got a pair of DSDD full height floppies in external cases. Both
drives work. One case+power supply worked, and the other one made fire as
the power switch consumed itself in an electric arc when I turned it on.
Cool stuff. I use one of the drives naked on the tabletop with my KryoFlux
and the little switching supply it came with.

Then, I just pounced on a pair of Teac FD-55B drives in the last day or two
shortly after they were listed. I'll set them aside (when they arrive) while
I continue to look for a J&M controller to go with them.

I've seen several other CoCo floppy drives and/or controllers on eBay during
that period, too, some of them in original boxes. Single-drive systems seem
to be pretty common at the moment, but I haven't seen any double-drive
systems. So, I'd say that you may need to pick up a single-drive system and
another bare drive to add to it.

Let's see, right now I see a naked controller (missing its case), an FD-502
interface, an FD-502 drive cable, and a complete full-height CoCo drive
system in its original box. The latter was found by visual search, not by my
saved search for CoCo items; check out item 281157216709. Some sellers don't
know what they're selling, so it's often necessary to cast a wide net and
wade through the pictures looking for something interesting.

P.S.: If anybody has a spare J&M controller, particularly a JFD-CP, I'm
interested!

-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/


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