LynxHandyCaster Posted February 17, 2016 Share Posted February 17, 2016 If you can't get it working with your Epson drive, I have two half-height drives that were pulled in working condition from a PEB. You can have them for shipping cost ... difficulty there is that I'm in Asia so it'd cost about USD$40 to get them to you. On the original topic: I was fairly certain until today that there was still a single US-based manufacturer of 5.25" floppies. Their primary (and perhaps only) customer was the US General Services Administration, because there's still a fair amount of critical gear painted green (and baby blue) that uses that media. Company name starts with an "A". Does that resonate with anyone, or am I time-displaced by a decade? Thanks for the offer...I may take you up on that. But first I want to see what the folks at the local vintage computer club can do to help me. I'll be meeting with them this Saturday. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted February 17, 2016 Share Posted February 17, 2016 ...see what the folks at the local vintage computer club can do to help me. I'll be meeting with them this Saturday. A local vintage computer club? Some guys have all the luck... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Schmitzi Posted February 17, 2016 Share Posted February 17, 2016 uih, so as you don't have a spare controller to test with, now just some desperate things here: maybe plug the termintors to the other drive and test this maybe test both drives without terminator (shoudl "run" or at least bring a different error) the cable is OK ? heads cöean ? move the controller to another slot in the PEB compare the drives'. jumpers, check them on the manual (I cannot post it now, already in bed, iPad only the floppies u use are not HD. do not use DD at any time in the diskmanager2 reseat the flexcable-interface in the PEB (slot1 only, please) (pls wait 2minutes after power off before ANY action on the cards (!) no twisted floppy-cables on TI (never) try only with 1 floppy at any test try to jumper it 1 DS higher and check DSKx and x+1 with DiskMan good knight 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted February 17, 2016 Share Posted February 17, 2016 On the floppy disks: there is no such thing as a Single Density Floppy Disk (from the disk manufacturer's standpoint). All physical Double Density Disks and Double density drives (and the ones in your PEB ARE Double Density capable, but the TI Disk Controller card only uses them in Single Density mode) are capable of being formatted (or of formatting disks) in single density mode. This is not an issue. Things that CAN be an issue: do the disks have the proper index hole (some don't, but this is VERY uncommon)? Are the disks Hard Sectored (when you rotate these in the disk sleeve and look through the index hole, there will be a tiny hole punched very so often that passes the hole)? TI disks are Soft Sectored (only ONE tiny hole will be visible through the Index Hole per revolution of the disk). Hard sector disks are very uncommon. At this point, you have one of three possible problems: a bad disk controller card (possible), a bad cable (much more likely), or a pair of bad drives (least likely, only because the symptom is the same with both drives). If you have a single drive cable, I would use that connected to one drive with termination pack and set as disk 1. That will isolate the problem further. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LynxHandyCaster Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Found the problem with my floppy drives in my PEB...simple fix. Thanks to Pete and Flash at the Atlanta Historical Computing Society meeting today for finding the problem quickly. The AHCS rocks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omega-TI Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Found the problem with my floppy drives in my PEB...simple fix. Congratulations! What was the solution? It might come in handy for a future person. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Schmitzi Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 . Hi, what was the problem they found ? Do you know about ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LynxHandyCaster Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 It's almost too embarrassing to mention, but the Epson drives have a button that says "Push". I though it was the ejector button. It apparently doubles as the button to engage the head after inserting a disk. I thought, as many later floppy drives did, that just inserting the disk was enough. So stupidity was the problem...MY stupidity. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Schmitzi Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 . nono, and really good to know about, if running in this drives next time. thx for the info Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 That is a very important bit of information--as none of us had any of the EPSON drives, so it wasn't on our radar. You have just saved the next EPSON user a lot of head scratching! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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