[Coco] 5 1/4" drive

[Christian Lesage]

Bill wrote:
> Refresh my memory, please. Can an 80 track 1.2M 5 1/4" drive be installed
> into an FD-502 case and work correctly? Will it act like a "standard" floppy
> drive using the stock chip in the controller?
>   

Only if you can set it to rotate at 300 RPM. Normally, those 1.2Mb 5.25" 
drives spin at 360 RPM and have a 300 kbps data rate, while 180k, 360k 
and 720k drives spin at 300 RPM and have a 250 kbps data rate. The CoCo 
needs the 250 kbps data rate. Some 1.2Mb drives have a jumper on their 
PCB that allows selecting the RPM.

You could, however, connect a 3.5" 1.44Mb drive. These drives always 
spin at 300 RPM. They are plentiful and cheap. The diskettes are cheap, 
too. You would have to use DD media, though, or fake DD by covering the 
hole on an HD disk that allows the drive to detect media density.

Regards,

Christian