[Coco] Disk drive question

[hhos at st-tel.net]

> It may be slightly more complex than that, as in switching a 12 volt pin
> to
> have it wired for 5 volts.  Having looked at its specs (I even had a sheet
> around here someplace) I also got the impression it would also work at 500
> kilobaud allowing the use of many of the more modern drives.  I have
> encountered 3.5" drives that will not function at all with the coco's 250
> kilobaud controllers.  A full megabaud or even 2 is likely beyond its
> reach
> though.

I'm not sure you understood me correctly. What I meant was that the 8877
does not require +12VDC at all where the 1793 does. The +12VDC could be
present, or not, it would not matter to the 8877/8876 chips. They don't
need them. So, when you put a 8876/8877 in for the 1793 it will read SD
and DD disks without further modifications. That is what I remember
anyway, but I'm not certain that I remember correctly.

>
> ??  Does anyone know where the 8877 can be obtained today?

Little John was selling them a couple of years ago. I bought two and have
never installed them. I use a MicroSDPak now so I don't have much use for
floppies at the moment, and I don't know where I stored those chips, so I
can't dig out the hardware and try it out, at the moment. I believe John
sells stuff on eBay under "shadownightwarrior".  I looked for 8877 and
8876 on eBay, but there weren't any on there right now.