Date   : Mon, 10 Oct 2005 19:51:01 +0100
From   : "A. J. Davis" <mail@...>
Subject: Re: 3.5" Floppy For A Master

Hi Jeff,

If the 5.25" drive you have is powered by the BBC, I would use that to 
power a 3.5" drive. The only thing you'll need to get is a convertor to 
change the 5.25" drive power connector (PC hard drive / CD-ROM style) to 
fit the 3.5" drive (PC floppy disk style).  You can usually pick up 
these 'splitters' from most computer shops for around £1.

The biggest problem with BBC powered drives is finding the AMP 
connectors that fit the BBCs power socket.  I believe they haven't been 
made for years and I've not yet found a supplier, which is why my drive 
project relied on taking power directly from the BBC PSU - not 
recommended if you can help it!

The only drawback with putting a 3.5" drive into a 5.25" drive case is 
mounting points.  It's very different to a PC where you can get an 
adaptor to put a 3.5" drive into a chassis for mounting into a 5.25" 
bay. I've got a couple of 5.25" external powered drives here and a 3.5" 
drive in a chassis will not simply fit into the 5.25" case.

You could do a search for a MGT 'Lifetime' drive on Ebay, quite a lot of 
them were sold with the MGT / Datel Electronics +D / Disciple disk 
systems for the Sinclair Spectrums, but I've never seen one thats not 
overpriced.

But, when you do have a 3.5" drive, it's all plain sailing.  Jason 
Watton's OMNIDISK or OMNIFLOP tools allow you to read and write all the 
popular BBC disk image formats to and from floppy disks on your PC - in 
DOS or Windows.  There's a thread about this on the stairwaytohell.com 
forum right now. You can even use (Sprow's?) DOS FS utility to read PC 
disks on your Beeb.

Andy.



Jeff Gaines wrote:

>Hello Group,
>
>I 'won' an eBay auction this evening for a BBC Master plus BBC floppy
>and the RF lead. I need to decide between GoMMC, a serial connection
>or an external 3.5" floppy to get my disk images on to the Master.
>
>I have read Andy Davis's article on converting an Amiga or ST external
>drive, I'm not sure that having a 5.25" BBC floppy helps any because
>if I understand it the BBC drive runs on 5 volts and ordinary floppies
>need 12v and 5v. I kept the powered case I had, designed to hold 2
>floppies, until I had a clean out last year, b*gger, b*ugger, b*gger!
>
>Can anybody think of any type of external enclosure available nowadays
>that has built in power and that I could persuade a floppy drive into?
>Or a way of making use of the 5.25" floppy?
>
>I could be the proud possessor of a Master soon-ish with no way of
>getting any apps on to it :-( I do have my old cassette recorder with
>the appropriate leads for it to be controlled by the Beeb.
>
>Any pointers appreciated, I am OK with a soldering iron, bit more
>concerned about un-twisting a floppy data cable.
>
>  
>