Sources for Disk Controllers
Posted: Wed May 02, 2012 10:34 am
I'm trying to maintain the excuse of keeping my trusty D64 on the basis that if I can get a disk controller I can actually do some practical things with it but obtaining a disk controller is proving entertaining (if I can abuse the word in this way).
Having sat on ebay for months I've only seen a few controllers (dragon dos) come up and they went for frankly stupid money in the end.
So what are the alternatives? I've looked at the diagrams for the DOS controller and it appears simple enough and the components are largely still available (although I suspect the internals have changed) but what I did notice is that there are a couple of trimmers to fine tune the board and not surprisingly no information on what the required corrections might be. We have the code for the eprom so what would be the problem with recreating a board - other than the fine tuning? Would it be easier to adapt a controller from another source?
I'd like to point out that my electronic skills are well and truly stuck in the 80s and at only a modest level - this could actually be an advantage in some ways.
Having sat on ebay for months I've only seen a few controllers (dragon dos) come up and they went for frankly stupid money in the end.
So what are the alternatives? I've looked at the diagrams for the DOS controller and it appears simple enough and the components are largely still available (although I suspect the internals have changed) but what I did notice is that there are a couple of trimmers to fine tune the board and not surprisingly no information on what the required corrections might be. We have the code for the eprom so what would be the problem with recreating a board - other than the fine tuning? Would it be easier to adapt a controller from another source?
I'd like to point out that my electronic skills are well and truly stuck in the 80s and at only a modest level - this could actually be an advantage in some ways.