5.25 floppy question

[jedie]

I made a diagram based on the cable I made, so feel free to try it and share your results.

+1 Put it into Wiki

[robcfg]

Sure!

As soon as anyone else besides me tries it and confirms that it works.

I'm not sure what modifications would be necessary for a 4-drives floppy cable though...

[Vato]

It works!!!!
I made a simpler cable, but using robcfg's instructions.

dragondiskcable.jpg (281.62 KiB) Viewed 7316 times

And I'm happy to say that it works with my old Panasonic 5.25" drive. I had to fiddle a bit with some of the jumpers.

ju55jumpers.jpg (106.69 KiB) Viewed 7316 times

The picture above shows the default jumper positions. The obvious thing was to switch the jumper from DS2 to DS1 to make it Drive 1(0). Then the drive responded to commands, but returned a "SK Error" (seek) every time.
The jumpers that did the trick was those marked DS MX. When I changed the jumper from DS (Drive selection enebled in a multidrive system) to MX (Drive selected by the Drive Select signal) everything worked perfectly. With the jumper in the DS position, every command responded with a "SK Error", but the fact that it actually responded to commands encouraged me to just try some different jumper positions.

I will post a video later today.

Thanks for the help!!!

[robcfg]

That's great news!

I made the diagram with that many connectors, to show that you can use 5.25" and 3.5" drives, but obviously you use the ones you need.

I'm supper happy that you got it working! I'll create the wiki page later today.

Waiting for your video

[Vato]

Thanks for the help Rob!

Here's a small video of the Panasonic drive working with your cable and a DragonDos controller on a Tano Dragon.

https://vimeo.com/124643952

I'll make a "full" cable later some time. I actually found a stable of seven 3.5" drives of various brands and models in a box I had stashed away. Surely one of them must work.......

[robcfg]

Hehe, nice video, thank you very much!

Edit:

I added the floppy cable page to the wiki, you can find it here.

[Vato]

Hehe, it suddenly appears to me that it has been a loooong time since I have used floppy disks..... I can't remember if I can take High Density (HD) disks and format them as Double Density (DS).

So the question is: can I take disks marked DS/HD and format/use them as DS/DD with the Dragon?

[Stig]

Hi guys,

Hope this is the relevant place to post this. I have a single drive original Dragon floppy drive and one of Lafumat's recreated floppy controllers.

As I only have one drive, am I correct in thinking that I do not need a twist in my cable at all ? Just a straight wired floppy cable from a PC ?







Thanks for your help

John

[robcfg]

Yes, you are right. You only need the flat cable with no twists.

If you don't get the drive to work properly, then either the drive needs maintenance (like replacing the belt, though my drives are working with no repairs) or you have to play with the variable capacitor (the round yellow piece) and an oscilloscope, to calibrate the controller.

[Stig]

Yes, you are right. You only need the flat cable with no twists.

If you don't get the drive to work properly, then either the drive needs maintenance (like replacing the belt, though my drives are working with no repairs) or you have to play with the variable capacitor (the round yellow piece) and an oscilloscope, to calibrate the controller.

Thanks very much for your reply. I don't have an oscilloscope, nor would I know how to use one. Here's hoping that it works first try !