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From: imp@dancer.Solbourne.COM (Warner Losh)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec.micro
Subject: Re: Rainbow EchoMail Digest
Message-ID: <1990Jul31.230825.22108@Solbourne.COM>
Date: 31 Jul 90 23:08:25 GMT
References: <9007191959.AA25390@remote.dccs.upenn.edu>
Sender: news@Solbourne.COM
Organization: Solbourne Computers Inc.
Lines: 32

>Subject:  RE: FLOPPIES AND THE RAIN
>From:     FRANK ZSITVAY
>
>  Do you know if a single sided version of that drive would work?? i've
>seem mitsubishi mf351 (ssdd 400k 3.5 inch) drives for as little as $40
>mail order.   united products in seattle has sony d32v drives (ssdd 600k
>3.5 inch with 8 inch electronics) for $5 each.

No, I don't know for sure.  I would suppose they would work if they
follow the standard interface.  In fact, you should just be able to
hook up the 400K drives, no problem.  The 600K drive would require
quite a bit of work in the Z80 side of the rainbow's BIOS.  Not
exactly the easiest thing in the world to do (I have new respect for
Mr. Thompsen).  I don't know what "8 inch electonics" are, so you may
be SOL.

>  I'd even PAY you for the driver....

Is there a market for this?  I have a driver now that will read/write
double-sided 3.5" disks in its own format (kinda like IBM's, only not
compatable).  To be compatable requires, as near as I can tell, some
Z80 hacking.  But hey, a 800K floppy does come in handy for backing up
largish hard disks (51 disk vs 101 disks is a big difference :-).  It
is written in Turbo C++ with just enough assembler around it to make
it work.  I have no clue if this works with the other disk drives (eg
TEAC 55F's) since I have no others than the RX-50's and a PC 720K
Toshiba disk dirve.

Warner

--
Warner Losh		imp@Solbourne.COM