[Coco] Floppy Drive for Coco / Dragon software compatibility

[Phill Harvey-Smith]

Steve.Lancaster at Moorestephens.com wrote:
> Hi all
> 
> Does anybody know if a Watford Electronics 40/80 switchable track floppy 
> drive work on a Coco 3. I have one of these that primarily is intended for 
> a BBC Micro / Master.

It should do, I have a 5.25" switchable from that era that works fine on 
My CoCos and Dragons.

> Perhaps one of the UK subscribers may know the answer since I am not sure 
> if the BBC computers were popular elsewhere.

I believe that they where released in the US, though not nearly as 
popular there as here...having them adopted by the BBC and schools 
helped that greatly.

> Failing that, I also have a 3.5 inch floppy drive adapted for use with a 
> BBC (it is a Sony standard PC drive in a Cumana case) - would that work 
> also.

Again I have a pair of Sony 1.44MB drives that are now my main 
CoCo/Dragon drives and they seem to work fine, the important thing is 
that you *MUST* use 720K media, HD media with the hole covered will 
appear to work but the contents will decay over time, in most cases.

> Both drives have standard IDE cables. 

<nitpick>Well they're like IDE cables, but 34 way rather than 40 way 
:)</nitpick>
>			Since I am awaiting delivery of my 
> first ever Coco can somebody tell me where the drive draws the power from.

Normally you would use an externally powered drive, as neither the CoCo 
or Dragon power supplies would be up to powering the drives.

> I also own a Dragon 32 with some tapes and cartridges. I am aware that 
> some software (particularly cartridges) are compatible but does anybody 
> know what Dragon tape / disk images (if any) are Coco compatible.

Not specifically, I guess it would be a case of suck it and see, depends 
  one what ROM routines the things use, some of them are common (or have 
common entry points) and will therefore work on both machines, some 
might work but have odd keyboard layouts due to the differences between 
the two machines. Basic programs should work, *IF* you can re-tokenize 
them, it's a real shame that you can't use CSAVE "file",A on the Dragon, 
as that would make transfering them a doddle.

Cheers,

Phill.

-- 
Phill Harvey-Smith, Programmer, Hardware hacker, and general eccentric !

"You can twist perceptions, but reality won't budge" -- Rush.