[Coco] Floppy Controller available.

[L. Curtis Boyle]

I am kind of curious if that is the "basic" J/M floppy controller with a switchable ROM, or the one that also had the parallel port built it (that even doubled as a hard drive interface with the right driver/cable, if I remember correctly).

L. Curtis Boyle
curtisboyle at sasktel.net



On Apr 15, 2013, at 9:06 PM, Stephen H. Fischer wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I just got this via private e-mail.
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "J. Kanowitz" <jkanowitz at snet.net>
> To: <mmarlett at isd.net>; <dickbatt at buffalo.com>; <martygoodman at worldnet.att.net>; <SFischer1 at MindSpring.com>
> Sent: Monday, April 15, 2013 2:46 AM
> Subject: TRS-80 CoCo J&M floppy system: "Want one?"
> 
> 
> Lucky you, you folks posted about this hardware in 2004 and it's the first hit on Google.
> 
> I'm stuck with one of these (controller and FH floppy enclosure and PSU populated with one HH floppy) that I'm trying to get out of the ol' family basement.
> 
> 
> 
> Any chance any of you are still at these email addresses and want it or know people who want it? Unfortunately I believe it lacks any identifying marks other than the J&M name - just a black metal box with the logo on a corner, and I was never a heavy CoCo user, just was given someone's abandoned system as a toy about... well, more than a decade ago.
> 
> 
> I believe I managed to run something that "mis-flashed" it (could it possibly have some sort of NVRAM?) back in the day and rendered it incompatible with pretty much all the disks that came with the castaway system (helpfully they were hard-sectored floppies that someone'd stuck masking tape over to make soft-sectored, which had already lost its stick by the mid 90s) - was an unpleasant surprise that pretty much ended my noodling with the system - but presumably this can be recognized and remedied by people who actually know what they're doing.
> 
> 
> The rest of the CoCo debris may still exist in storage somewhere as well, but access is quite inconvenient even though I'd like to get this stuff out of my life and into the life of anyone who actually wants it. ;)
> 
> I'm in CT, nearish NYC, and if this hardware is a true rarity you could probably talk me into paying shipping to keep it "alive" (the controller's no big deal, the floppy + PSU is a minor boat anchor, though).
> 
> -Cheers,
> -Joe Kanowitz, N1KZZ
> 
> 
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