[Coco] Re: 512K vs disk copy

[Robert Emery]

> What model 1.44 3.5 drive has the jumpers for making it DS1 (B: drive in PC
> world). I have 8 1.44 drives on my desk and none of them have jumpers of any
> kind :(

Most 3.5" floppy drives are hardwired as drive 1, or B:. The twist in the PC
floppy cable swaps drives 0 and 1 (not for CoCo). This was done so OEM's could
use all drives jumpered as drive 1 without re-jumpering half of the drives as
drive 0.

My advice, if you want to be able to boot from a 3.5" floppy is to leave the
drives jumpered as-is (5.25=/d0, 3.5=/d1), but intercept the drive select lines
coming out of the controller and use a toggle switch to swap them at will. Then
you can boot from either drive.

As far as floppy disks, you can use HD disks for temporary backups if you cover
the HD hole or glue the (non-optical) switch in the drive down. The disks I've
used this way start developing errors after a few weeks, but they *may* have
also been too close to a magnet. Not enough real experimentation to draw any
conclusion other than "be careful".

Bob


		
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