[Coco] Building dual drives

[James C. Hrubik]

I have a TEAC 55B on the bottom of my 500 case, jumper set to DS1, and a TEAC FD235 (originally intended as a Drive B for a PC) on top.  Cable is slightly modified — it comes in directly to the 55B, then continues on to end at the 3-1/2” drive.  The last connector has the custom cable split.  Lines 10, 11, & 12 are separated and twisted 180 degrees.  My system is set up so that my 80 track drive is D0 and the 40 track is D1, since I don’t mess with the RSDOS stuff, just OS9.  It was also the lazy way to go, since I didn’t have to monkey with changing the jumper settings (soldered) on the 80 track.  The twist is there because the drive is hard-wired as a second drive.  If you set the jumpers correctly, you don’t need the twist — just cable straight through.

CoCo drives were really simple.  After I got my 500 with its 35 track SS drive, I decided I needed a second drive but was not about to shell out the $200 RS wanted for the kit.  The local (I was in Edmonton at the time) RS computer store was having a sale on TEAC 55’s for $99.  I talked to the salesman; he said it wouldn’t work in a Color Computer drive system — no way.  I took my CoCo into the store, with the drive, and in front of him took the lid off the drive case.  He was willing to let me install the drive just to show me it wouldn’t work.  I installed it; the connector was on the wrong side of the drive.  He figured he had proved his point.  I looked at it again, flipped the drive over, plugged in the cable, and I had the second drive formatting a disk quick as a wink.  That’s the 55B that is now my D1.

Hope that helps.

On Feb 27, 2015, at 3:14 PM, Bill <cwgordon at carolina.rr.com> wrote:

> I’ve been trying for a week or so to build a dual drive system with (1) 5 ¼”
> and (1) 3 ½” drive in the same box. No matter how I build the cable it don’t
> work. Does anyone have a drive setup like that? How is the cable designed?
> 
> Thanks
> 
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