SCSI floppy drive combo

[Rustynutt]

Came across some combo SCSI DVD/floppy dive mechanisms giggling it.
May have misread, seems they were used primarily in servers.
They were just piggy backed.
Only visable connection is SCSI, reads as if SCSI controls the floppy.
Think HD Driver would see the floppy as a removable drive?
Other than auto boot disk seems like an option for us die hard floppy users.

[Bama]

Hoping to hear about your investigation.

[Rustynutt]

Found a bit more info. When I'd first saw one, the site was sort of a museum. Didn't bother to actually look where to purchase a unit. There's a number on the auction site, purchased one for about $20 shipped.

Wiki has some info about the "superdrive" mechanisms, different formats and disk they can use, but they are backward compatible with HD floppies. On a PC, they show up as drive A (depended the jumper and chain), can't be any different with HD Driver.

The SCSI controller bumps the driver height a bit, so if you have an internal SCSI connection on a Falcon (where this one is going) the standoffs will have to be shortened. For starters, will just hang the unit off the external SCSI chain and take it from there.

That was the inexpensive "ebay" visit. Been looking for a Type II PCMCIA SCSI card reader. Because everyone is using them on their samplers, sellers are asking a ton. Like Falcon prices . Too embarrassed to say how much the one I purchased cost, it's NOS, multi card reader. I've got a Dayna PCMCIA Ethernet card I've been really wanting to test. Betting Rogers (Anodyne) drivers will work. If not, I'll send him the entire package and a case of beer and see what he can do. The SCSI Ethernet setup is a no brainer, if this works, I'll have a full brain with two units.

[Bama]

Very nice. I have been wanting one of those pricey multi-card units too. How’s progress on the “super drive”? Any pics of the unit you have to share?

[Rustynutt]

Hoping to hear about your investigation.

I'll post update tonight. In short, it works like a removable drive using HD Driver.

[Rustynutt]

Hoping to hear about your investigation.

I'll post update tonight. In short, it works like a removable drive using HD Driver.

Apologize, got off onto other "duties".

This is as far as I've tested.

First, the drive is very fast, with the SCSI controller, nothing like a standard floppy controller onboard.

HD Driver sees the device as removable media.
Don't know much about how the driver assigns drive ID's. HD Driver knows to format the floppy at 512 sectors. Pretty sure that's correct for a floppy.

Since HD Driver doesn't install the device as a floppy, you must format the disk with HD Driver. Which brings up another issue, while the drive (HD Driver?) reads 720/1.44k media very reliable (would not read 360k disk), if formatted the disk becomes unreadable (remove-insert/reboot-refresh).
Didn't get to try the disk on a PC afterwards.

Wondering, I've never modified a PC floppy to work with an Atari, think this may have something to do with the format issue?
I'll swap out the floppy with a known functional Atari drive and test.

The floppy does have jumpers, AIRC, that's one of the easier drives to configure for Atari hardware compatibility.

I'm doubting that would have any effect on the SCSI controller.

Physically, the mechanism attaches below the floppy, offset from the front of the drive, extending rearward enough for cabling.

It's approximately 8mm thick, with rails to mount to standard floppy screw pattern. I'd have to inspect, there is easily enough length on the floppy raisers to take them down so the floppy would fit the existing opening in an ST style case, offhand haven't looked at IC/board component interference. The controller can be removed to relocate, however being the length of a floppy case, it's rather large to do so.

Ideally, the device would make a great external"B" drive. I threw a couple of PD disk and game disk at it with no problem. Ran a few PD apps without issue, other than the program loading extremely fast

Need to check drive jumpers (they look like STD SCSI configurations), the ideal situation would be to have HD Driver recognize it as a floppy device and install it as drive "B", something to ask on Uwe's forum.

As inexpensive ad they are, going to purchase a 3 or 4 more

[alienkidmj12]

link please

[Rustynutt]

link please

eBay
Purchased one of the sub $25 units.
There's sellers asking over $200, think they are on the SCSI music recording craze!

[Bama]

Pics and updates please.

[Rustynutt]

Have tried the SuperDrive on both a Falcon and TT. Was hoping as the TT "knows" about a B drive, with HD Driver assigning it as drive B, it would be recognized by the OS as so.
Thats not the case, and the drive is treated the same under TOS 3.06 as 4.04.
Uwe stated a long while back he had an IDE version of the drive working, but didn't elaborate about if it was seen as a true B disk.

The drive cannot be formatted from the desktop.
HD Driver can format the disk as 1.44k, however after so the disk is unreadable.
The drive can read and write to 1.44 and 720k pre-formatted floppy disk (TOS/PC).
Setting the floppy to either Master, Slave, or Cable Select had no influence.
The SCSI jumpers on the controller board are a bit non-standard than what you'd expect from a SCSI device. IE, no jumper is ID 0, Jumper on first pins ID 1 Jumper on ID 2 is drive two, and so on. Parity and termination option is available.

There are utilities for PC DOS that allows DOS to see the device as a drive B. Have no clue if those could be modified as a utility patch for TOS.

Even set with HD Driver as Drive A, any TOS or other application routines that call drive a will not see the drive.
So, it's not a floppy replacement per-sey. As for storage purposes, users would be much better off finding a pair of old EZ135 or zip drives to move data around with.

My job is done here

[spiny]

Good investigation work