Comparison of Dragon mass storage options

A place to discuss everything Dragon related that doesn't fall into the other categories.
bluearcus
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Comparison of Dragon mass storage options

Post by bluearcus »

Phil H-S suggested a comparison between the various mass storage options available for the Dragon would be worthwhile. so I've created one.

It's here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing
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robcfg
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Re: Comparison of Dragon mass storage options

Post by robcfg »

That's nice, thank you!

I'd add a Gotek floppy drive emulator to the list.
prime
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Re: Comparison of Dragon mass storage options

Post by prime »

robcfg wrote: Sat May 23, 2020 12:30 pm That's nice, thank you!

I'd add a Gotek floppy drive emulator to the list.
That's effectively what DragonDrive is isn't it? A DragonDOS cart with built in Gotek running flash floppy.

Cheers.

Phill.
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robcfg
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Re: Comparison of Dragon mass storage options

Post by robcfg »

Well, You can have a gotek and/or real floppy drives by themselves without a DragonDrive.

In any case, I was thinking actually of the HxC Floppy Emulator, which comes in a SD Card and in a Connect-to-a-PC-via-USB versions.

Now that I think of it, should also the DriveWire be included in the list?
tjewell
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Re: Comparison of Dragon mass storage options

Post by tjewell »

robcfg wrote: Sat May 23, 2020 10:57 pm Now that I think of it, should also the DriveWire be included in the list?
Perhaps this should! http://tormod.me/udw.html - does anyone here own one?
sorchard
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Re: Comparison of Dragon mass storage options

Post by sorchard »

tjewell wrote: Sun May 24, 2020 10:36 am Perhaps this should! http://tormod.me/udw.html - does anyone here own one?
Yes, I have one of those and am very happy with it. For best results it needs some form of rom support, such as Tormod's modified BASIC rom, or (I imagine) a DriveWire extended DOS.

To make it more convenient to use, I added a cassette output port to my udw to supply a driver for those machines without rom support.
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bluearcus
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Re: Comparison of Dragon mass storage options

Post by bluearcus »

Interesting Stew - so have you added a ear and remote socket, and made the uDW play out the cassette loadable Drivewire dweeb?

I might try to add in a drivewire column.
sorchard
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Re: Comparison of Dragon mass storage options

Post by sorchard »

bluearcus wrote: Tue May 26, 2020 10:16 am Interesting Stew - so have you added a ear and remote socket, and made the uDW play out the cassette loadable Drivewire dweeb?
That's pretty much the size of it, though I just fit the ear socket and chose a switching type, such that plugging in the cable triggers the file playback. This scheme also allows an external splitter cable with both ear and remote connections, but it works well enough as-is for my purposes.

The cassette file is Tormod's tape-based DWLOAD client i.e. the one that you run with EXEC&H7400"MYFILE", though it could easily be replaced with something else as it's just a BIN file on the SD card.

I'll put the modified firmware and details up on gitlab at some point.

A cool feature of the udw is it has a footprint to fit an ESP-01. I haven't tried it yet, but it's on the list.
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bluearcus
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Re: Comparison of Dragon mass storage options

Post by bluearcus »

I've added in a generic Drivewire option (uDW or PC server) now.

Gotek or Flashfloppy standalone I'm a bit cautious about adding in.
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robcfg
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Re: Comparison of Dragon mass storage options

Post by robcfg »

I had an external HxC working with the Dragon.

That said, I managed to connect an Amstrad FDI-1 3” drive to the Dragon :mrgreen:
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