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From: wales@valeria.cs.ucla.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: 1.44Mb 3.5" drive in XT clone?
Message-ID: <19248@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 2 Jan 89 05:54:52 GMT
Sender: news@CS.UCLA.EDU
Reply-To: wales@CS.UCLA.EDU (Rich Wales)
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Lines: 38

I have a 2-year-old Taiwanese turbo (4.77/8.0 MHz) XT clone with a 30Mb
hard disk and two 360Kb, 5.25" floppy drives.

I am considering replacing one of the two floppy drives with a 1.44Mb,
3.5" diskette drive.  While I'm at it, I might also replace the other
floppy drive with a 1.2Mb, 5.25" floppy drive.

The floppy controller in my system right now, according to a technical
consultant at the Taiwanese company (Wugo)'s US office, will not handle
high-density drives.  Hence, I expect I'll have to get a new controller
card along with the new drive or drives.

Some local hardware dealers have cautioned me that the high-density
drives (1.44Mb/3.5" and 1.2Mb/5.25") frequently do not work well on XT
clones, due to the restrictions imposed by the 8-bit data path (as
opposed to the 16-bit data path on AT's and clones).  One dealer simply
dismissed the whole idea out of hand as unworkable.  Another said it
might work *if* I use good drives; he specifically recommended the Sony
1.44Mb/3.5" drive, and told me to avoid the Toshiba 1.44Mb drive, based
on his own experience.

Has anyone else on the net tried to add a high-density drive (3.5" or
5.25") to an XT or clone?  What happened?  Should I stick to -- or avoid
-- certain specific makes of drive and/or controller?

My current system, as best I can tell, handles the 360Kb floppies very
well.  I have heard people caution, for instance, against trying floppy
I/O at "turbo" speed; however, I routinely run my system at 8 MHz and do
floppy I/O with no problems at all.  When I ran the FASTBACK PLUS "DMA
test", it rated my system as passing "fast DMA" at 8 MHz.  Might this
mean I have a better-than-even chance of success with a high-density
drive in my system?  Or is 360Kb floppy performance at "turbo" speed not
really any kind of indicator of what will happen with a 1.44Mb drive?

-- Rich Wales // UCLA Computer Science Department // +1 (213) 825-5683
   3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, California 90024-1596 // USA
   wales@CS.UCLA.EDU      ...!(uunet,ucbvax,rutgers)!cs.ucla.edu!wales
   "A monk, a clone, and a Ferengi decided to go bowling together . . ."