[Color Computer] Re: [Coco] 3.5" floppies

[James Diffendaffer]

>Can Atari or Apple II 3.5" floppy drives be made to work (without too 
>much hastle) with Coco?
>Thanks.
>
>/Chester

Apple drives are non-standard.  They vary the speed so that 880K will
fit on them.  They can't be used.

I can't remember if the Atari ST drives used a serial or parallel
connection.  I don't think they had enough pins on the connector to be
a full parallel.  I remember when my company was making Amiga drives
we looked at building ST drives as well but decided against it because
of the cost/complexity so I'm guessing no.  The drive itself is
probably a standard 720K though.

Now, having mentioned the Amiga... those used a parallel interface and
a PC compatible 720K drive mechanism so they are a likely candidate. 
The data lines would be ok but the circuit board has two chips that
form a latch for motor control and a couple other things.  If the
logic didn't interact poorly with COCO DOS it *might* work as is.  The
cable uses a 23 pin connector which might be difficult to find.  It
would require an external power supply and possibly a simple external
circuit.
Worst case you could use an aftermarket drive (not an A1010) and use
the drive.

Oh yeah, and the Amiga high density drives (the internals) should work
with any CoCo interface since they run slower in HD mode allowing
slower controllers to work with it.  You'd only be able to use the HD
with a custom DOS or OS-9.  Sadly, they are rare and as a result are
expensive on ebay.






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