The Sinclair QL Forum

Hi forum ,

help needed ..............i am rebuilding my old kit , and i am stuck with a weird problem ( and my old drawings are all binned about 20 years ago ) .

i got a original ql , qimi ( without mouse ) , minerva 1.98 , 512k module , and , ....................

i recently bought a cst qdisc interface and wanted to hook it up to 2 3,5" drives ( to be flp1 and flp2 ).

i connected them the way that goes in " pc-world " 1 straight , and the second with a twist in the cable .

All boots up correctly , but i cannot access them in a correct way.

symptoms besides " format failed " , are that both drives have their led's on ( when flp2 is accessed ) , i can only give a format command to flp2 , flp1 is not responding ( so no light too ) .

something must be wrong there ........................


Can anyone shine a bright light on this problem



techy

Do you have PC floppy drives, or Shugart standard floppy drives?
Under normal circumstances, PC drives will not work, Shugart standard drives will work.

(But I have seen a home made QL floppy interface, that required PC drives instead of Shugart).

You need to start off with a straight cable from the interface to the disk drives.

Then check if the drives have a jumper on them to select DS0 or DS1 (DS0 = flp1_, DS1 = flp2_).
PC drives are shipped set to DS1 unfortunately.

If there is no jumper, then many drives will work as FLP1_ if you swap over lines 10 and 12 on the cable as it goes into the drive.

Some CST disk interfaces also need the cable to be upside down (ie you need to shave off the locating pin so you can turn it around !!) - you will see the disk drive light is on constantly if the cable needs swapping around.

Thanks for all the answers

i will try your suggestions this weekend.

the 2 drives i have are both mitsumi D359M3 versions.

with a pc-style cable which has cables 19-25 crossed ( that might be the problem ?? ) for drive 2 .


Any info welcome .

techy

techy wrote:the 2 drives i have are both mitsumi D359M3 versions.

http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=26465
http://www.pitsch.de/stuff/amiga/a1korg_01.pdf (german)

Thanks again !!

i assume only 10 and 12 need to be swopped over , all others are straight through ??


luckily my german is not that bad................


techy

Thanks for all your replys ,

It is working as it did in '85

The only problem i see is that one of the mitsumi D359 drives is acting up a bit .

I am constantly missing sectors when formatting on that dirve .

Case has been finished and it looks rather smart ( IMHO ) .




techy

Looks really nice - what did you do for a case?

The case is an old HP optical 3,5" single unit with build in powersupply and green power led..

Disadvantage , beeing scsi it has a couple of really big holes on the back , but the advantage of a build in quiet-fan is making up for that.

Cut out the front panel to house double 3,5" , adapted the internal cabling , and ofcourse sprayed it black to suit q'elly .

drives are mitsumi's .


techy

Looks really good, I thought it was a proper QL drive unit!