[sdiy] Floppy drive data [was: OTA book on eBay]

[Tom Arnold]

On Thu, Oct 13, 2005 at 11:20:47PM +0200, Rainer Buchty wrote:
> For example, tried to get information on how floppy controllers work 
> lately? I mean, not just the basic blurb like "magnetic recording" with 
> nice pics of elementary magnets, but the hard tech facts (FM vs. MFM, 
> GCR, RLL codes). That stuff pretty much vanished from the web.

Actually, I've been collecting that exact data extensively. :-)  I was
fortunate to have the headstart of Sanyo MBC1000 service manuals from the
late 1970's as a starting point.  I recommend datasheets from YE-Data ( teac
and mitsumi data is worthless ) for floppydrive theory, and you can find
info on controllers on most sites with info about BBC computers or upgrades
for Sinclair computers.  Nice site in Finland has many popular floppy drive
controllers.  Western Digital also provided me ( free of charge ) about 200
pages of faxes for all their old controller chipsets.

In case anyone is curious why I'd be interested in this data, I've been
working on a flash replacement for floppy drives that actually plugs in in
place of the drive itself and deals in common disk images.  ie : for the
mirage you use mread/mwrite images written to compact flash, for the DSS-1
its CopyQM images.  That way I dont have to deal with writing the PC side of
things, I just deal with the hardware and you use existing tools to make the
images.  The timing is a PITA and has been my stumbling point.  I'm hoping
in a few months to get back to work on this but I have other projects to
finish right now...

-- 
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 - Tom Arnold       -  Free Synth DIY webspace http://www.sdiy.org 
 - SynthGeek        -
 - BBD Fanatic      -  "...is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?" 
 - echo evho wjxo   -    Juanita Shrugs. "What's the difference?" 
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