[Coco] Re: Floppy Drive and OS-9

[Andrew]

All,

Just wanted to thank you for all the help on this issue - I went out 
today and purchased some 34 cond ribbon cable and the IDC connectors 
(this stuff is getting more difficult to find), and put together my 
custom cable.

It turned out a slight bit (3-4") shorter than the OEM cable, because 
Fry's only sold the ribbon cable in 3 foot lengths instead of bulk. 
Plus, I needed extra space for the "twist" in the cable between the two 
drive connectors. I needed to make the space larger, because drive 1 has 
its connector in the middle instead of on the side. It is also upside 
down, so I had to put one connector on one side of the cable, and the 
other on the other side. Then I split the cable every 11 conductors so I 
could twist it properly to get it to fit right.

I also had to add a power extension dongle so I could get the power 
routed right. The nice thing about this dongle, though, is that it has 
an extra 12V output for a fan, so I might add a crossflow fan to the 
power supply to help it cope with the extra load from the second drive.

Both of my 5.25 DSDD floppy drives work great, both under DECB and OS-9. 
I now need to find some posterboard to make a couple of drive head 
"keepers".

Thanks again!

-- Andrew L. Ayers
    Glendale (Phoenix), Arizona