Date   : Mon, 10 Oct 2005 22:38:55 +0100
From   : "Jason Watton (Lycos)" <jason.watton@...>
Subject: Re: 3.5" Floppy For A Master

I thought I'd better add this - my experiences with 5.25" drives in PCs are
different to Jules':

(1) My BBC drives [double-density, 80-track, plus two others of same spec]
did **not** work in my PC. So, seeing as the IBM PC was designed for 360kB
(40-track double-sided double-density) and 1.2MB (80-track double-sided
high-density) drives only, I opted for a 1.2MB High-Density 5.25" drive for
the PC which **does** read/write the BBC disks OK.
(2) I tried 50+ PCs and only one couldn't do BBC DFS Single Density (tested
using the 1.2MB 5.25" drive or a 1.44MB 3.5"). The failure was a Dell
Latitude XPi P133ST laptop (from c.1996). My experience with Single Density
support on PCs has been pretty positive (albeit not 100%).
(3) Jules has tonnes more experience than me; my experiences might not be
typical.

Summary... if you want 5.25" in a PC and you're willing to have a go, I'd
recommend having a try - if you don't assume it'll work you can't be
disappointed!

Jason.
----- Original Message ----- 

>
> As David says, the aux connector underneath the BBC outputs both +5 and
> +12 volts. *but* I think you'll likely have problems writing BBC-format
> disks on a PC due to the limitations in typical PC floppy hardware (some
> controllers - either built in to the motherboard or not - reportedly do
> it, but out of the ten or so different boards I've tried over the years
> I haven't found one yet!)
>
> Again, as David said, trays to fit a 3.5" drive in a 5.25" bay do exist.
> If you're close to Cambridge or Milton Keynes I can probably rustle one
> up when I'm back in the UK, but that's not for another 5 weeks yet!
>
> I've only ever used xfer to get stuff *off* a BBC onto a PC, but it was
> a pretty painless experience (I see you're ok with soldering!). Took
> about ten mins to wire up a suitable cable, and the xfer software (on
> linux in my case) worked perfectly. Don't expect it to be fast, though -
> but it's a start.
>
> Oh, the 5.25" drive you'll be getting with the BBC will work fine in a
> PC of course (as above, whether the PC can write BBC formats is another
> matter) - if you've got a newer PC then they may not give you a floppy
> data cable that has the 5.25" type of connectors on it though (I can get
> shedloads of these, just not until I'm back in the UK)
>
> cheers
>
> Jules