[Coco] Floppy drive setup HELP!

[Gene Heskett]

On Tuesday 13 January 2009, Darren A wrote:
>On 1/13/09, Gene Heskett <gene.heskett at verizon.net> wrote:
>> Are you sure that is a coco controller and cable?  I think I have had at
>> least
>> one of every controller made, and have never seen a keyed connector on the
>> controller end of the cable.
>
>I just looked at my 26-3029, FD-501 and FD-502.  They all have the key
>slot on the controller board. I no longer have any of the original
>cables supplied by Radio Shack so I can't say if the cable connectors
>were keyed or not.
>
Which prompted me to go play rat terrier in the basement for about 10 minutes.  
A 26-3022 does have the slot, Tony's 4n1 has the slot, 2 J&M's don't, and I 
wasn't able to find either the HDI or the short pack from the EDISK I built.

And like you, no original cables so I can't further declaim.  All of mine are 
keyless.  And I sit corrected.  My apologies.

But that does take us back to one of the drives is plugged in upside down 
doesn't it?

This can be done hot if a clip lead to ground is connected to everything, 
otherwise plug it all into a power strip and use that as a power switch, not 
by using the strips switch, but by unplugging it.  Unplug the interface cable 
from all drives but one.  Test to see if the drive led comes on and stays on 
when powered up, if so, turn it over at that drive & test again.  If not (and 
it should not stay on), move the cable to the next drive using the next 
connector.  Repeat.  If all drives turn on the led and probably run the motor 
regardless of the connector up or down, the controller is probably toast.

Frankly, I'm amazed at how dependable this stuff has been in the face of the 
poorest AC power connections ever foisted off on the consumer, with no static 
grounding thru a 3rd pin power plug in 90% of whats out in the wild.  This is 
just one of the many reasons all the power supply parts have been removed 
from mine and it is all running on an old AT style supply, with the std 3 
wire power cable used for everything.

That poor, shoulda been sick bird even then, power cabling was probably the 
controlling factor in the loss of 3 drive controllers in the 13 years one of 
them spent at the tv station playing like it was an EDISK, using the factory 
power cords and getting slapped around seriously by mother nature, who just 
loved to use that 255 foot tower 50 feet away for target practice.  That 
stuff took several blow all the audio da's all to hell hits on my watch cuz 
many of the output lines, being as much as 200 feet long to reach the 
newsroom, made great antennas for the EMP generated by a good lightning 
strike. In retrospect, 200% predictable. :)

>Darren
>
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-- 
Cheers, Gene
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