5.25" Floppy Drive with PEB?

[NickH93]

Hello everyone! Finally piecing back together my collection and cleaning what I could salvage after it all got damaged in a house fire. Oh well, sob stories later.

 

At any rate, when looking for TI994/a stuff, I hit the jackpot and came across a boatload of stuff including 2 consoles (one for me and my father, perfect!), a bunch of carts, 2 speech synthesizers, original cables, cassettes, and the PEB! The PEB has a the flex cable interface, P-CODE card, rs-232 interface, Foundation 128k RAM card, and the disk controller. What a score! The best part is I scored it all for free. (I felt so bad, but he was insistent. I told him the kind of things I do and work on in my free time, and he felt better that he knew these things were going to someone who'd use them.)

 

So here is my question: the PEB does not have an FDD in it. Are there restrictions as to which ones I can use? Or if I find one on eBay that uses the same hookups, can I just plug it in and go? If I get a floppy drive suited to handle bigger disks than the TI was meant for, will the TI still use it and just write it as if it were a 90kb disk (that's what I'm hoping for so I can just use whatever 5.25" drive)?

 

Thanks everyone!

Edited October 9, 2016 by NickH93

[Shift838]

Hello everyone! Finally piecing back together my collection and cleaning what I could salvage after it all got damaged in a house fire. Oh well, sob stories later.

 

At any rate, when looking for TI994/a stuff, I hit the jackpot and came across a boatload of stuff including 2 consoles (one for me and my father, perfect!), a bunch of carts, 2 speech synthesizers, original cables, cassettes, and the PEB! The PEB has a the flex cable interface, P-CODE card, rs-232 interface, Foundation 128k RAM card, and the disk controller. What a score! The best part is I scored it all for free. (I felt so bad, but he was insistent. I told him the kind of things I do and work on in my free time, and he felt better that he knew these things were going to someone who'd use them.)

 

So here is my question: the PEB does not have an FDD in it. Are there restrictions as to which ones I can use? Or if I find one on eBay that uses the same hookups, can I just plug it in and go? If I get a floppy drive suited to handle bigger disks than the TI was meant for, will the TI still use it and just write it as if it were a 90kb disk (that's what I'm hoping for so I can just use whatever 5.25" drive)?

 

Thanks everyone!

 

First off what type of disk controller did you score in the lot, TI, Myarc, Corcomp or BWG ?

 

the TI will do Double-sided Single density at 40 track unmodded (180k) if modded it will go up to 80 track DS/SD for 360k and you can then use 3.5 drives.

 

The question also is if you got any 5.25 disks with the lot, if so and you want to read them then you will have to have at least 1 disk drive that supports 5.25 40 track mode.

 

If you got a Myarc then you can support up to 4 disk drives and with an eprom replacement (pull and replace - no soldering required) you can pick for Double Sided Double Density at either 40 or 80 track based on a dip switch.

 

Corcomp and BWG will do 40 track at DS/DD (360k).

 

You just need to remember on 5.25 drives most if not all have a resistor pack and the resistor needs to be only on the last drive in the cable chain.

 

Most are plug and play, but there are exceptions. I know there is a list of compatible 5.25 disk drives for the TI . Let me see if I can find that on my NAS device.

 

If you go with 3.5 drives which are a lot cheaper than the 5.25 drives now and the 3.5 disks are cheap and still readily available.

 

You can usually use pretty much any 3.5 disk drive with the TI and 3.5 disks (just remember to tape over the high density hole of the diskette).

 

if you have not found mainbyte.com yet it has a good amount of information on the TI cables and other projects.

 

Congrats on the score. And the Foundation 128k card is a good find!

[+Ksarul]

The Foundation card is definitely a good score, although there are only a few programs out there that take advantage of the extra memory (Mass Copy is one that comes immediately to mind). As already noted, it depends on which disk controller is in the box. All of them work with single or double sided drives that are listed as 48TPI, Soft Sectored. Some jumpers must be changed to get them to work exactly as you want them to, but this is relatively easy once we know what the drive looks like.

 

Welcome to the community!

[+Schmitzi]

Hi & welcome,

 

One addition: If you connect floppydrives to the TI, only use 1:1 floppy-cables. Not twisted ones.

 

Here are some lists for drives, controllers and formats. Not! 100%, but I think they include the well known lists.

 

have fun

xXx

 

 

TI-99-4A-FLOPPY-DRIVES-TI-99-v1.12-ALL.pdf

 

TI-99-4A-FLOPPY-CONTROLLER-v1.00.pdf

 

attachment 471619:TI-99-4A-Floppy-Formats-v1.04.pdf updated, pls see below

 

 

for the drive list:

 

[+mizapf]

One addition: If you connect floppydrives to the TI, only use 1:1 floppy-cables. Not twisted ones.

 

This depends on whether you can set the device number by a jumper on the floppy drive board. I recently tried some different 5.25" drives and noticed that they lack a jumper block, and they do not work with my 1:1 cable but only with a twisted cable.

[NickH93]

Thanks for all the help everyone! Now I know what to look for.

 

I did find a how to on the 80 track mod, definitely looks like something I can do. Luckily I have a chip burner to make my own.

 

The disk controller is just a TI controller.

[Shift838]

Thanks for all the help everyone! Now I know what to look for.

 

I did find a how to on the 80 track mod, definitely looks like something I can do. Luckily I have a chip burner to make my own.

 

The disk controller is just a TI controller.

 

if you burn the rights bin files then you can just pull the old chips, solder in new sockets and plug the new ones in. There is a mod for 80 track out there (the original mod) that calls for a switch to be enabled/disabled and takes 2764 chips. I would go with the newer mod that you decide which disk drive(s) will be 80 track and just plug and go.

 

Also remember on the new 3.5 drives, you will have to mod a cable for DSK1 or DSK3. a straight through cable will be recognized as DSK2.

 

If you need help just post here and someone will respond. The more TI users we can get into the fold the longer our machine will last!

[+Schmitzi]

just an update because of the CF7/NanoPEB-format

 

 

TI-99-4A-Floppy-Formats-v1.05.pdf

 

[atrax27407]

If you need the EPROMs done, I have the code for every combination in both 20ms and 12ms head-step times. I'll be glad to burn them for you - $12 per set which includes shipping..

[NickH93]

So thanks to everyone who helped me, and I'm almost where I want to be. I got a Samsung 3.5" drive which I have reading, formatting, etc. Functions perfectly as drive 1. (Had to solder some jumpers to set it as drive one)

 

I also have a Panasonic JU-475-4 5.25 drive which the controller does recognize as number 2, and it spins and lights up when you call on DSK2, but I've been having some issues.

 

Using disk manager 1000 (waiting on an actual disk manager cart), I can format 5.25" disks and catalog them, but then I can't get anything to save on them. When I try to save a program in BASIC, I get IO error 66. Then when I try to catalog it again, it says it isn't formatted. So saving to it will fail, and then make the disk unrecognizable after it was previously formatted.

 

I am using blank disks that I had laying around for the Atari, so I don't know if maybe the disk format is different or..

 

Any ideas?

Edited November 28, 2016 by NickH93

[Sinphaltimus]

So thanks to everyone who helped me, and I'm almost where I want to be. I got a Samsung 3.5" drive which I have reading, formatting, etc. Functions perfectly as drive 1. (Had to solder some jumpers to set it as drive one)

 

I also have a Panasonic JU-475-4 5.25 drive which the controller does recognize as number 2, and it spins and lights up when you call on DSK2, but I've been having some issues.

 

Using disk manager 1000 (waiting on an actual disk manager cart), I can format 5.25" disks and catalog them, but then I can't get anything to save on them. When I try to save a program in BASIC, I get IO error 66. Then when I try to catalog it again, it says it isn't formatted. So saving to it will fail, and then make the disk unrecognizable after it was previously formatted.

 

I am using blank disks that I had laying around for the Atari, so I don't know if maybe the disk format is different or..

 

Any ideas?

 

 

What kind of disks are they?

 

I'm able to use these if I format them to DSSD.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Maxell-10-Pack-MD2-D-Hard-Plastic-Storage-Case-DSDD-5-25-5-25-inch-/252499216947?hash=item3aca204a33:g:J04AAOSwFnFV80Kf

 

Here's a thread on the topic -

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/256281-i-have-all-this-stuff-and-i-dont-know-what-to-do-with-it/

Edited November 28, 2016 by Sinphaltimus

[NickH93]

 

 

What kind of disks are they?

 

I'm able to use these if I format them to DSSD.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Maxell-10-Pack-MD2-D-Hard-Plastic-Storage-Case-DSDD-5-25-5-25-inch-/252499216947?hash=item3aca204a33:g:J04AAOSwFnFV80Kf

 

Here's a thread on the topic -

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/256281-i-have-all-this-stuff-and-i-dont-know-what-to-do-with-it/

To be totally honest, I'm not quite sure what kind of disks they are. I had a blank box of blank disks from a pile of old Atari stuff I found.

 

Looks like you and I had similar problems, and the disks you mentioned fixed them. Thanks so much for the help. I will purchase the ones you recommended and go from there.

[NickH93]

The recommended disks don't work. I've also tried various jumper settings to no avail.

 

Pin 34 seems to be broken on my floppy controller but that doesn't seem to affect my 3.5" drive.

 

Any ideas?

[Shift838]

The recommended disks don't work. I've also tried various jumper settings to no avail.

 

Pin 34 seems to be broken on my floppy controller but that doesn't seem to affect my 3.5" drive.

 

Any ideas?

 

so the 3.5 drive is working and the 5.25 is not?

[Shift838]

The recommended disks don't work. I've also tried various jumper settings to no avail.

 

Pin 34 seems to be broken on my floppy controller but that doesn't seem to affect my 3.5" drive.

 

Any ideas?

 

another thing that just occured to me. with the 5.25, are you sure you are inserting the disk correctly in the drive?

 

Error 66 typically in Basic means it cannot Save because of a device error like disk not initialized.

 

Not postie what pin 34 does, but it very well may be needed. I think i remember on some schematics of 34 being like a drive ready pin. May not be TI though, it may have been for a PC. not sure.

Edited December 2, 2016 by Shift838

[Shift838]

according to Thierry's site he has the schematic and it says pin 34 is not used.

 

HERE

[NickH93]

I always seem to fix this stuff after posting a plea for help.

So armed with this, I cut a jumper that had to do with setting drive status to pin 34...no dice.

I also cut the 96 TPI jumper, since I don't have an 80 track controller. Still no dice.

Grounded out the speed select line which forced the drive to 300 RPM, because I didn't know it ran at 360RPM stock (this drive).

Voila! Thanks everyone for the help.

[Shift838]

I always seem to fix this stuff after posting a plea for help.

 

So armed with this, I cut a jumper that had to do with setting drive status to pin 34...no dice.

 

I also cut the 96 TPI jumper, since I don't have an 80 track controller. Still no dice.

 

Grounded out the speed select line which forced the drive to 300 RPM, because I didn't know it ran at 360RPM stock (this drive).

 

Voila! Thanks everyone for the help.

 

Nice Job...

[+Ksarul]

The 360RPM for that drive is actually a red flag for compatibility. The drives that used that speed were often HD drives, not DD drives. That can wreak havoc on disks formatted with any other drive, as the difference in track width will cause all kinds of read/srite errors. If the disks are only used with that drive from the moment of initial formatting, no problem--but if you get a disk from somewhere else, read it and make a copy to your 3.5 and then copy it back to a fresh disk. . .it will save you much frustration.

 

You mentioned not having a Disk Manager module as well. I was building cartridges today and came upon one in my box-o-carts that I shell for new games and such. I put it aside in case you still need one. . .just let me know.