ED diskettes...

[Pr0f]

I aquired a ps/2 drive yesterday - which needs some reworking of the cable to make it work with a QL interface supporting such drvies - but I was looking through my large stash of floppies and it appears i have foolishly let my box of ED diskettes go along with my gold card some time ago.

Does anyone have some for sale? I have seen what I consider to be silly prices on ebay for a single disk, but it maybe they are really that rare...

No massive urgency as I haven'y yet soldered the disk controller to anything that would allow me to test it yet, although I could test this on a PC I suppose.

[RWAP]

They are very hard to find now but I have some in stock for £3 each:

https://www.sellmyretro.com/offer/detai ... d%29-31983

If you only need a couple for testing purposes I have some second hand ones for £1 each (plus postage) - although I have no idea what state they are in as I don't have the means to test them myself!

[Pr0f]

Many thanks Richard - I will have to have a good look there after lunch - that's a much more reasonable price.

I wasn't going to look at floppies, but it seemed to be a good choice to make that interface available on my build, as it's a 1 chip solution (not including rom or decoding). The chip I found does everything the chip on the gold card does, but requires not external filter caps. It also supports all the enhanced floppy stuff - not that there is any QL software around to make use of that I don't think.

[RWAP]

It also supports all the enhanced floppy stuff - not that there is any QL software around to make use of that I don't think.

What is the "enhanced floppy stuff" ?

[Pr0f]

It also supports all the enhanced floppy stuff - not that there is any QL software around to make use of that I don't think.

What is the "enhanced floppy stuff" ?

I'm glad you asked - I have no idea ! (well not much of an idea) Still trying to find out exactly what this is and what it does. I know that PS/2 models in the later years had some funky extras in the floppy drives like electronic eject from software, locking the drive to prevent eject or prevent loading a floppy into the drive. I believe there was also some media id detection stuff, but I am not sure if that was just basic looking at the 2 density hole switches and reporting back the capability of the media in the drive or if it was more advanced than that. The standard PC/AT inteface makes no provision for these, it's left to the drive to handle.

[Dave]

Looks like if I just hold onto these unopened ED boxes a bit longer, I'll have my retirement sorted.

[NormanDunbar]

They are very hard to find now but I have some in stock for £3 each:

https://www.sellmyretro.com/offer/detai ... d%29-31983

If you only need a couple for testing purposes I have some second hand ones for £1 each (plus postage) - although I have no idea what state they are in as I don't have the means to test them myself!

Maybe, just maybe - but I doubt it after all this time - these are the ones I sent you ages ago? If so, they were brand new and unformatted.

If not mine, then just pretend I'm not here!

Cheers,
Norm.

[RWAP]

Maybe, just maybe - but I doubt it after all this time - these are the ones I sent you ages ago? If so, they were brand new and unformatted.

If not mine, then just pretend I'm not here!

Hi Norm,

These second hand ones are not the ones you sent - as they have labels and did have data on them at some point

[NormanDunbar]

Ok Rich, thanks.

Cheers,
Norm.

[Pr0f]

Many thanks Richard, the disks arrived today