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#1 Can I make floppy disks for a Model I/III with a Coco 2 and DriveWire?


DistantStar001

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The title pretty much sums it up... I have a Model III with disk drives and a hand full of floppies I got from TRS-80.com, including a few game disks they had been generous enough to include. Unfortunately, I accidentally zapped my favorite game disk (Wayne Westmoreland), and it's been dodgy ever since. Sadly, I hadn't figured out how to make a backup at the time, so now I need to replace it, but I don't know how. Also, there are some other programs and games that I would love to put on a disk, so I would really like to figure this out.

 

I do have a 486 PC, but the instructions to write disks that I've found have always been a little vague. I still don't know how to map an emulated drive to the B drive, nor have I found a suitable 180k disk image to work with. I watched the video on this from Adrian's Digital Basement, and he suggested a NewDOS/80 image, but none of the ones I've found match the needed file size. And long story short, I've been hitting my head over this for more than a year now, with no success. (Side note, I've also been having similar trouble using it to write Atari 8-bit disks as well. So there may be other issues with my setup that I haven't figured out yet)

 

Then it occurred to me that there might be a simpler solution if I can use the DriveWire setup for my Coco 2 to write disks for the Model III? To my knowledge, the physical floppy drives are interchangeable, and I can hook my Coco floppy drive directly to the disk controller of my Model III... So maybe the two machines use the same disk format? If so, is there a program that would allow me to make copies of a Model III or Model I disk with my Coco? Alternatively, could there be a program that would allow me to transfer cmd or bas files onto a Model III disk through DriveWire? They're both Radio Shack computers, so I have to imagine that someone has addressed these cross compatiblity issues before?

 

I'd ask if there's a program similar to DriveWire for the Model III, but I don't have a networking card for it. So for the time being, even if it does exist, it's probably a nonstarter for the moment. At least until I can find one (and work up the courage to disassemble my Model III to install it), or alternatively, find an Expansion Interface for my Model I, then that would be helpful. But for now, I'm stuck with the hardware I've got. 

 

In any case, I'd love to know if this is possible? Or alternatively, a better idea on how to get my 486 to work? Or an archive of TRS-80 disks in .wav format, similar to the Apple II Disk Server? Anything that will finally let me start making some disks? Any help is greatly appreciated.

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