PEB Disk configurations

[Arnuphis]

So, I am about to take the plunge and get the Lotharek SD card reader. I am trying to decide on what PEB configuration to go with and am reaching out to those with one.

 

So a few questions and a thank you in advance.

 

Did you have your Lotharek as DSK1/DSK2 and a regular floppy as DSK 3?

What type of floppy did you go with internally? a 3.5 or 5.25"? Why did you choose that format?

Did you also have an external drive?

[ti99iuc]

This is Mine

i just mounted my HxC SD internal to the PEB, i modified the case and use other two floppy drive, one external.

 

 

You can see the complete desctiption clicking HERE

Edited June 2, 2016 by ti99iuc

[Iwantgames:)]

I have the HxC in my PEB and a 5.25 external.

[Omega-TI]

I have my HxC internally configured as DSK 1 & 2 in 80 track format, with a 3.5 external as a 40 track, that way if I want to transfer anything to my backup box, I can disconnect the external drive and hook it up to that box as it only has a single standard TI 5.25 drive.

 

[Shift838]

I think whenever I break down and buy a Lotharek HXC (maybe 2 of them) I will have it configured as DSK1 and DSK2 and use nothing but disk images of those 2 drives. I may just put one up for backup hardware purposes. Then have DSK3 as 80 track 3.5 and my DSK4 as a 5.25 40 track.

[Omega-TI]

I think whenever I break down and buy a Lotharek HXC (maybe 2 of them) I will have it configured as DSK1 and DSK2 and use nothing but disk images of those 2 drives. I may just put one up for backup hardware purposes. Then have DSK3 as 80 track 3.5 and my DSK4 as a 5.25 40 track.

 

I cannot wait for the day when I'm able to finally stuff a new UberFDC into my P-Box and fulfill a long-time dream of mine. Once that happens, my current controller will go into my backup box. I'm not sure if I'll ever need to run a DSK4 as 2.16M (at one time) seems adequate considering the size and availability of decent TI programs.

[vectrexroli]

I have a Lotharek drive as DSK 1 & 3 (could not get it working as 1 & 2) and a Sony 3,5" disk drive as DSK 2. I have taken the Sony drive just beause it was cheap, easy to find and I had the space in my PEB.

I did the 80 track TI controller mod with 80 tracks for all 3 drives.

No external drive so far.

Edited June 3, 2016 by vectrexroli

[Airshack]

I just ordered th rev.c external Lotharek because I like having the internal 5.25 as original. I enjoy running 5.25 software I find on eBay. I'm not sure how I'm going to hook the external up right now because the Lotharek.pl site lacks TI specific guidance. Also, I'm not privy to where to get the right ribbon cable? Great post!

[Arnuphis]

Great feedback so far and some lovely looking setups. I can see the use of the 5.25" drive for backwards compatibility for old TI disks you may come across but the 3.5? What practical use is that?

[RickyDean]

Great feedback so far and some lovely looking setups. I can see the use of the 5.25" drive for backwards compatibility for old TI disks you may come across but the 3.5? What practical use is that?

With the Geneve, and a HFDC controller, a 3.5 disk can hold the full 1.44 MB of data. Quite a bit for a TI type storage device.

[Omega-TI]

Great feedback so far and some lovely looking setups. I can see the use of the 5.25" drive for backwards compatibility for old TI disks you may come across but the 3.5? What practical use is that?

 

Some peoples mileage may vary, but from my experience only, I've not had as much success with 5.25" disks holding up over the decades/duration as I've had with 3.5's. Also the 3.5' drives on average take less juice than many of the the legacy 5.25's, which may make it slightly easier on these ancient power supplies we're running.

 

Just from an engineering aspect, I like the built-in door as dust protector, as well as the smaller physical size for storage reasons.

 

As for backwards compatibility, I'm not really sure that matters anymore. I've swapped a lot of files in the past couple of years via the Internet, SD card, CF card and even USB memory stick, never once did I need to swap files with anyone via a diskette.

 

In the end I guess it all comes down to what one likes best.

[iKarith]

The way I look at it, magnetic media is all doomed to die anyway. The sooner we accept that and prepare for alternatives the better. Ideally, the best preparation I can see is one that allows an arbitrary microcontroller to feed data off arbitrary binary disk image files to the system. If we have that, the microcontroller may change, the memory device may change, and even its format may change, but it won't matter to the computer it's connected to.

 

From there? Multiple redundant copies of everything. That's the only way to ensure that nothing is lost. I've seen the estimation that Atari VCS carts are going to begin failing en masse within the next decade, and that seems likely to me. But to my knowledge, those are all archived all over the place. As long as that continues to be the case, carts can have their ROM chips pulled and replaced without (IMO!) harming their value. I say that as someone who would use them, not collect them for future resale.

 

No media will last forever, and we knew back in the 80s that magnetic media would (and did even then) degrade beyond usefulness. I've also had burned CDs from the 90s become unreadable today, so the key remains the copies in too many places for the copies to be easily wiped out in anything short of a global extinction-level event. In which case it won't matter anyway, because we'll all be gone, along with our retro computers.

 

On that cheery note...

[Arnuphis]

Funny you say that http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/mar/03/research.elearning

 

The original book has been around since 1086.

[+Ksarul]

Data preservation is a booming business. There are folks out there reverse-engineering the data formats of ancient computer systems so they can read the data off the tapes and other media they were stored on (quite successfully, actually) and transfer it to media readable by more modern equipment. They key is to keep moving the data forward as formats change. And for those looking for real archival storage media, you really want to use some M-Disks, as they will reliably hold your information for about a millennium. . .and in the computer era, the CD/DVD formats have been one of the longer-lasting and most widespread non-magnetic media formats out there.

[Omega-TI]

I can just imagine someone finding one of these disks in their family history album about 100 years from now...

 

Scenario #1: The equipment to read them is no longer available, or the connection capability to new equipment does not exist.

Scenario #2: We're back in the stone-age due to an EMP and nothing works.

[iKarith]

Arrrrr! Thread hijacked, cap'n!

 

Funny you say that http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/mar/03/research.elearning

 

The original book has been around since 1086.

 

The thing they should have done would be to archive the data in a format that could be read with minimal hardware so that anyone with a computer that can take a bit stream is capable of building with simple tools the means to read the data. Magnetic media seemed to be all right in 1986, but if magnetic media ever went out of fashion... USB seems good today, but again, if USB ever goes out of fashion... ROMs degrade in time, so that's not ideal either. Today, I'd argue the best format ... is an archive-grade printing process on to plastic media using a QR-type technology printed just large enough that it can be read by discrete electronics components if someone were to build the shift registers to do it line by line, or using a single sensor on threaded rods being stepped through page by page. Anyone NOT trying to do it for an exercise or trying to recover from doomsday will use a camera sensor and process the image optically. A human with a magnifying glass could likewise, with time and effort, if the technology to develop the electronics needed to be recreated from scratch.

 

My "day job" of sorts is preparedness. I think about these things. In fact, it's another reason to appreciate the retro computers: If you can find a way to get data in and out of them in the modern era, they are something that could be understood down to the transistor level and recreated if necessary. They can also be created in small, ultra-low-power cores now that can run on miliwatts of power and be heavily shielded from things like EMP.

 

In fact the idea of an 8 bit machine with a high quality LCD display in a hardened GRID-like enclosure with some thoughts to being able to interface with the world as if it were one of only a handfull of computers a person would ever likely see again... I'd like to own that.

 

 

Data preservation is a booming business. There are folks out there reverse-engineering the data formats of ancient computer systems so they can read the data off the tapes and other media they were stored on (quite successfully, actually) and transfer it to media readable by more modern equipment. They key is to keep moving the data forward as formats change. And for those looking for real archival storage media, you really want to use some M-Disks, as they will reliably hold your information for about a millennium. . .and in the computer era, the CD/DVD formats have been one of the longer-lasting and most widespread non-magnetic media formats out there.

 

Of course, people have piles of legacy data out there they never thought about the possibility that they wouldn't be able to access forever. And now we've reached a point where it takes puddle jumping to bring some of it into the modern era, and people don't have the time/money to do it themselves. So they're paying other people who specialize to do it for them. Great business plan if you got into the game on the ground floor a few years ago because the people who did are now trusted names in that sort of business now that the world is catching on to the idea of needing the service.

 

 

I can just imagine someone finding one of these disks in their family history album about 100 years from now...

 

Scenario #1: The equipment to read them is no longer available, or the connection capability to new equipment does not exist.

Scenario #2: We're back in the stone-age due to an EMP and nothing works.

 

And that's why any proper doomsday-proof data storage technique ultimately has to be readable by humans, printed using ink that cannot bleed, smudge or fade on paper that cannot be easily waterlogged, torn, or mildewed along with a printed tech note defining the archive format in a carefully printed, bold, OCR-friendly slab serif font. Iconsolata at a weight half between Regular and Bold is a good example of what I have in mind.

 

As I saw starting to say before, it should be possible then to build an apparatus that holds the book open and runs over the optical data using a couple of motors, limit switches, and a pair of threaded rods. Some very simple logic (or equivalent logic in the cheapest of microcontrollers set should be able to begin reading data. The reader homes, then scans to find the page block origin. Stepper motors would allow you to just read the timing info once and figure out how many steps to the bit. A DC motor requires more logic to generate a timing signal. The block is then something like a QR code with the read head reading through a small hole so that it can have more precision than you'd normally get with a scanning head like this you'd build out of parts they actually still sell at Radio Shack along with a bit of low precision stuff from Home Depot.

 

It could be read by the eye using a reading aid that follows the timing marks on the page, which should be a standard size.

[Airshack]

Hi guys! Does anyone here know where I can find specifics on connectors and cables for hooking a Lotharek up to my PEB? The Lotharek site mentions just about every retro-computer except TI. If the details are there I have been unable to locate them. I appreciate seeing the different configuration choices yet I'm clueless as to how you connected your various devices. I'd appreciate some detail on the matter. Thanks in advance!

[Arnuphis]

Just a straight through 34 pin floppy cable and a Molex to 3.5" power adapter I think.