[Coco] [Color Computer] 3.5" drives on coco 3

[Ron Bihler]

A note on the 720K floppies.
If you look at the HD 3.5" floppies you will notice a second hole like the 
write protect.  I have been covering this extra hole over and have been able 
to use HD floppies on a 720K system.  Not all floppies like this, but for 
the most part it's working out OK for me.  I end up formatting several times 
to get the track information solid.  Seems to make a difference.

Ron

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "J.P. Samson" <jps.subscriptions at gmail.com>
To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2008 2:53 PM
Subject: Re: [Coco] [Color Computer] 3.5" drives on coco 3


> On Sep 27, 2008, at 9:05 AM, Derek wrote:
>
>> Yes you need a 3.5" drive with jumpers that allow you to set the  drive 
>> select or you can do a twist in the cable to set the drive  number if you 
>> want to use it in conjunction with a 5.25" drive. I  have a 1.44MB 3.5" 
>> drive set up with my 5.25" drive in my FD-502  case and it works great
>
> Ah, someone who has the same setup as me.  What did you do with regard  to 
> termination of these drives?  The 3.5" drive has built-in  termination 
> that cannot be turned off.  But I couldn't find a way to  remove the 
> termination on the FD-502 5.25" drive, either.
>
> Right now, I have the 3.5" drive in the middle of the cable, and left  the 
> 5.25" at the end of the cable.  It seems to work okay; I was able  to 
> read, write, and copy between the two drives.  I haven't tested  things 
> too much because I only have one 3.5" disk right now.
>
> So the 3.5" drive works fine in RS-DOS.  Note that you must use 720 kB 
> disks for the 3.5" drive to operate correctly.  Only half the disk  (the 
> first 35-40 tracks) are possible to access.
>
> -- JP
>
>
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