[Coco] PC-to-CoCo floppy drive cable

[Mike Pepe]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com [mailto:coco-
> bounces at maltedmedia.com] On Behalf Of theother_bob
> Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 2:47 PM
> To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts
> Subject: Re: [Coco] PC-to-CoCo floppy drive cable
> 
> Roger,
> the CoCo and PC pinouts are not different, only the OS implementation
> of the Side Select line is different (aside from the few lines that are
> not even used by the CoCo controller.) Since the CoCo didn't "support"
> DS drives, the SS line was used as DriveSelect3 (using 0-3 numbering).
> Four single sided drives for Basic/RSDOS/HDB-DOS can equal two Double
> Sided drives, or *any* four sides of three DS drives.
> 
> For anyone interested, I have an article on my website with all the
> gory details of mapping physical drive sides to RSDOS drive numbers.
> It's in the Technical Info section under Using Double Sided Drives.
> This information was a cornerstone of my Basic GUI's capabilities.
> 
> cheers,
> Bob
> http://www.geocities.com/theother_bob
> 

Bob,

They are indeed different. The "standard" IBM cable is wired with two motor enable and two drive enables.

As Darren correctly points out, if you take an IBM-style cable, untwist it, and then twist 10-12, you'll correctly get the motor/drive enable signals to an IBM-type 3.5 inch drive 0.

That's how I got mine wired up.

Also using switches is a great idea. I set up one drive case with a 3.5" drive, one 40T and one 80T 5.25" drives and 3 switches to select which one is drive 0 and 1. I can convert any media format to the other. That gets a smiley. :)

-Mike