Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!wuarchive!rex!rouge!pc.usl.edu!pabres13
From: pabres13@pc.usl.edu (Joubert John V.)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: More than two floppies on PC (adding tape drive)
Message-ID: <30790@rouge.usl.edu>
Date: 10 May 91 13:34:42 GMT
References: <1991May10.033425.11031@techbook.com>
Sender: anon@rouge.usl.edu
Organization: Univ. of Southwestern La., Lafayette
Lines: 56

In article <1991May10.033425.11031@techbook.com> philb@techbook.com (Phil Biehl) writes:
>I just got a cheap Irwin Model 245A 40 Mbyte tape drive for my AST 286. I 
>already have two floppies neither of which I do not want to lose to the tape.
>
>My question is: how does one add more drives to a AT? Add another controller
>card? Replace my existing card with one that can handle three or more? Give
>up? My AT seems to only recognize two drives (in CMOS RAM) so how do I get 
>it to see a third? Do I need to?


Phil,

     You need to get a hold of a controller card from Irwin, or your favorite
dealer.  I got mine from Valcom in Houston, TX (ask for Grace).  I told her
pretty much what you did, and she sent me the proper card.  This card works by
plugging into a card slot (allways state the obvious!), and then taking the
floppy cable from your controller & plugging into the tape controller card, 
then the card has a cable that plugs into the floppy drive, and another cable
that plugs into the tape machine.  Like this:

-------------------------
| HD/FD controller      |
|                       |
|  (-----) Floppy cable |
|   |||||               |
----|||||--++++++ ++++++-
    |||||
    |||||
    |||||
----|||||------------------|
|   |||||  Tape controller |
|  (-----)                 |
|                          |
|  (-----)   (---------)   |
|   |||||     |||||||||    |
|   |||||     |||||||||    |
----|||||---++|||||||||++++-
    |||||     |||||||||
to  |||||  to |||||||||
floppy|||  Irwin|||||||
drives|||  tape||||||||
    |||||  drive|||||||
    |||||     |||||||||


This allows you to have both floppies and still use a tape drive.  The adapter
costed $120.00.


Hope this helps!

-- 
John Joubert                                      |  /\  |    /\    |     _ 
Internet: pabres13@pc.usl.edu                     |  \|<>|>|> \|<>|>|><`|`|
GENIE: J.JOUBERT                                  |--/|-------/|------------
                                                  |  \/       \/