Floppy disc interface fell from the sky

Hardware Hacking, Programming and Game Solutions/Cheats
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schombi
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Floppy disc interface fell from the sky

Post by schombi »

By pure accident I came across a floppy disc interface. The seller did not know what it was and I had just a vague feeling it could be something for the Dragon. Today the item arrived and when I opened the case, I spotted this:
fdd1.jpg
fdd1.jpg (83.91 KiB) Viewed 8176 times
I installed the interface on my Dragon 32, attached a floppy drive and switched on the machine
fdd2.jpg
fdd2.jpg (72.64 KiB) Viewed 8176 times
Without knowing anything I tried a DIR and there was a reaction on the drive! I searched the internet, found a DragonDOS manual and managed to format a DD disk with the command DSKINIT 1,1,80. Finally I wrote a short BASIC program, saved it to disc and loaded it successfully after a reset. More than happy. The price I paid was 1 GBP!

The label on the case reads DDI-1DR. Would anybody have more information on this interface and/or the SuperDOS? Where to find a manual? Thanks!
Last edited by schombi on Sat Dec 06, 2014 5:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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robcfg
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Re: Floppy disc interface fell from the sky

Post by robcfg »

Nice!

I don't think we have that controller on the wiki. Could you make nice pictures (or better, 300dpi scans) of both sides of the case and the board?
simon
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Re: Floppy disc interface fell from the sky

Post by simon »

COOL !!!!

£1 for a disk controller... don't get much better than that.....

/Simon :-)
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schombi
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Re: Floppy disc interface fell from the sky

Post by schombi »

I tried to apply for a Wiki log-in, but only got some exception errors?!?

Anyway, I took a few more photos and I think I found an advert. Will try to get a better close-up for the board,
top_cover_removed.jpg
top_cover_removed.jpg (620.43 KiB) Viewed 8150 times
top.jpg
top.jpg (634.36 KiB) Viewed 8150 times
bottom.jpg
bottom.jpg (769.92 KiB) Viewed 8150 times
pnp.jpg
pnp.jpg (51.95 KiB) Viewed 8150 times
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robcfg
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Re: Floppy disc interface fell from the sky

Post by robcfg »

Thanks for the pictures!

I'll create a wiki page for it and upload the pictures.

Is there any chance you could scan the interface and the pcb, or consider sending it to me so I can scan it?

Cheers,
Rob
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robcfg
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Re: Floppy disc interface fell from the sky

Post by robcfg »

I created the wiki page, worked the pictures a bit and added some IC datasheets.

There's a couple of chips which I cannot read their numbers right. Could you please take a look and post all chip numbers?

Regards,
Rob
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schombi
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Re: Floppy disc interface fell from the sky

Post by schombi »

Thanks Rob!

I will try my best and let you know.

I´m still struggling to understand what exactly SuperDOS is and how it is different to DragonDOS.
zephyr
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Re: Floppy disc interface fell from the sky

Post by zephyr »

schombi wrote:By pure accident I came across a floppy disc interface. The seller did not know what it was and I had just a vague feeling it could be something for the Dragon.
Nice find! 8-)
schombi wrote: I´m still struggling to understand what exactly SuperDOS is and how it is different to DragonDOS.
SuperDOS E6 "appears to be DragonDOS with about half the faults corrected".
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4779#p10660

A copy of the DragonDOS manual (Introduction to Dragon DOS) can be downloaded from the archive.
http://archive.worldofdragon.org/archiv ... r=Manuals/
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schombi
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Re: Floppy disc interface fell from the sky

Post by schombi »

Thanks Zephyr! Very interesting.

Scanning the board failed, the result just looked crappy. I made a few more photos. Hope this helps.
IMG_1679.JPG
IMG_1679.JPG (2.37 MiB) Viewed 8068 times
IMG_1681.JPG
IMG_1681.JPG (1.82 MiB) Viewed 8068 times
IMG_1682.JPG
IMG_1682.JPG (2.21 MiB) Viewed 8068 times
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robcfg
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Re: Floppy disc interface fell from the sky

Post by robcfg »

Thanks for the pictures!

I could finally identify all chips, and updated the wiki page with their datasheets.

It's a pity the scans didn't go well. My recommendation is to use HP 36xx or HP43xx series scanners, they are absolutely top notch! In any case, if you'll be willing to send it to me via registered post so I can scan it and return it to you, I'll cover the shipping costs both ways.
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