Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!munnari.oz.au!uhccux!ames!think!snorkelwacker!usc!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!rutgers!rochester!rit!ultb!clf3678
From: clf3678@ultb.isc.rit.edu (C.L. Freemesser)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Single-sided atari drives
Summary: They DO work
Message-ID: <2579@ultb.isc.rit.edu>
Date: 27 Mar 90 01:38:24 GMT
References: <900223.22031795.042770@SFA.CP6> <1189@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU> <1990Mar11.224712.24011@rbdc> <633@ksr.UUCP> <2593@calvin.cs.mcgill.ca>
Reply-To: clf3678@ultb.isc.rit.edu (C.L. Freemesser)
Organization: Information Systems and Computing @ RIT, Rochester, New York
Lines: 27

In article <2593@calvin.cs.mcgill.ca> depeche@calvin.cs.mcgill.ca (Sam Alan EZUST) writes:
>In article <633@ksr.UUCP> fay@ksr.UUCP (Peter Fay) writes:
>>Has anyone tried upgrading one of those old cruddy single-sided Atari
>>external drives to a double-sided drive by just pulling out the old
>>drive and inserting a 720K TEAC or whatever? Does it work with no
>>hitches? How about a 1.2 Meg drive - anyone tried that?

The problem with building your own drive is knowing what mechanisms
work.  I've had good luck with the Toshiba ND-354, but the 352 gives
me problems.  Ergo, you can't just say a company's drives will work.
I'm using both a Teac 3.5 and a 5.25 inch drive on my system, and am
pretty happy with them.  I also know that Epson drives are good too.
If you want to upgrade a SS mech, get rid of the PCB board.  Buy
a $10 drive cable from Best Electronics, or hack one end off of your
drive cable and put on a 34-pin header for the drive.  You can rig
the power supply pretty easily.  I've found that eliminating the
PCB solves more problems than keeping it.

By the way:  somebody mentioned that they were able to get a Toshiba
ND-352 working by some internal modification.  Could you please repost
what you did?


Chris Freemesser, Rochester Institute of Technology (  THE ACORN BBS
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