[Coco] CoCo 1 troubles

[Salvador Garcia]

 Yes, totally agree. The only problem is that when I connect it to the cable's drive 0 connector, the LED does not light at all and the drive is not recognized. The motor spins up though, but that is all.

Currently, I believe I have two problems:

1. Drive 0 is not recognized
2. Drive 1, while recognized, is still giving IO ERRORs

My next steps are:

a. Try with a different floppy to see if that makes any difference while testing drive 1
b. Follow Bill P's advice and clean the heads
c. Swap cables. Barry Nelson provided information on how to make this cable, even providing references to the parts needed
d. Possibly test the speed using the florescent method already suggested (I say possibly because I don't have a florescent light here)

Thank you for your continued help. It is much appreciated! Salvador





    El miércoles, 23 de diciembre de 2020 07:08:52 p. m. CST, Arthur Flexser <flexser at fiu.edu> escribió:  
 
 If the drive is regarded as Drive 1 as you have it currently connected, it
seems like it should be regarded as Drive 0 if you plug it into the other
drive connector on the cable.

Art

On Wed, Dec 23, 2020 at 7:11 PM Salvador Garcia via Coco <
coco at maltedmedia.com> wrote:

>  Thanks again, much appreciated!
>
> I see the socket. It is populated. It looks like a white IC, stamped
> "Beckman". Most certainly that's the resistor pack.
>
> Nope, DSKINI 1 it is. Trying to access drive 0 does nothing, only the
> motors spin up then the IO ERROR.
>
> DSKINI 1 starts the formatting process and after stepping 34 times and
> doing a seek, I get IO ERROR.
>
> Yes, looking straight into the drive connector I see some dark areas.
> That's probably where the pins are missing.
>
> I can not access files on an already formatted diskette
>
> Salvador
>
>
>
>
>    El miércoles, 23 de diciembre de 2020 04:29:14 p. m. CST, Arthur
> Flexser <flexser at fiu.edu> escribió:
>
>  On some systems, especially those Tandy initially sold for the CoCo 1,
> drive selection is done by having pulled pins on the different cable
> connectors, rather than by jumpers within the drives.  If you look at the
> cable connectors end-on, you should see different pins pulled on the
> different connectors.  You should still have a terminating resistor in the
> last drive in line.  Is there a prominent empty socket within the disk
> drive that looks like a resistor might go there?
>
> Do you mean DSKINI1, not DSKINI0?  Ordinarily, with just one drive, that
> one would be Drive 0.  That DSKINI gets through 34 steps and then bombs
> means that correct formatting did not take place, in that DSKINI has gone
> back to Track 0 and begun its verify pass, trying without success to read
> from the just-formatted tracks
>
> Can you access files on an existing, already formatted disk with data on
> it?
>
> Art
>
>
>
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