Can you convert ST programs from the net back to floppy disc?

[TGB1718]

You can use any 720K or 1.44MB floppy drive with a 34 way ribbon, but as @ColecoGamer said, only use normal DD disks, the ST

just doesn't like HD (1.44MB floppy disks).

 

I've used floimg in my old PC using a 1.44MB floppy drive, but only use 720K DS disks

[Forrest]

I watched the Floppy Featherwing video I posted above and Ladyada mentioned it doesn’t work reliably at WRITING floppy disks at this time.

 

If you want toWrite floppy disks, the Greaseweazle hardware is probably the best choice.

[ijor]

7 hours ago, ColecoGamer said:

Will an authentic Atari ST floppy drive work instead?

Yes. I didn't try it myself, but it should work. Just be careful and note that ST drives have the connector reversed in relation to a standard PC drive. Also note that ST drives are configured by default as drive 0, instead as drive 1 as PC drives.

[ijor]

7 hours ago, Forrest said:

Ijor you are correct about converting the voltage levels. Ladyada directly connected the Pico for development purposes only. Adafruit has since released Floppy Featherwing board that converts the voltages for $4.95 https://www.adafruit.com/product/5679 

Voltage level shifting is not as important as buffering in this case. The additional board is an improvement, but still doesn't seem to solve all the issues. I'm not sure, but it seems like the designer doesn't have much expertise and experience in the topic. IMHO he is using the wrong chips and certainly the wrong pull-up resistors.

[Forrest]

Ladyada is very well respected engineer - maybe you should research her company Adafruit.

[ijor]

49 minutes ago, Forrest said:

Ladyada is very well respected engineer - maybe you should research her company Adafruit.

May be you should read more carefully what I posted. I didn't say she is a bad engineer, did I? I said that it seems he (she) doesn't have much experience and expertise in the topic.

 

I'm sure there are lots of top electronic engineers in the world that have no idea about how the interface with legacy floppy drives work. I can assure you that somebody with more experience in the topic would never use those weak pull-ups in the faster signals. You can check by yourself the pull-ups used in other boards and systems. Also those buffers will probably won't work with older drives, but I guess she only tried with (relatively) modern 3.5 drives.

 

Edit: Changed the gender. Didn't know it was she. Sorry about that

Edited October 23, 2023 by ijor