Re: Mac Plus floppy interface

[Mike Pfaiffer <pfaiffer@mts.net>]

Simon Biber wrote:
> 
> This is continuing on from a topic below...
> 
> I tried plugging my Apple 5.25" drive which works fine on a platinum IIe
> into the drive expansion connector on the Mac Plus.
> 
> With it connected, the Mac sits at the flashing question mark while checking
> for a disk in both the internal 3.5" and external 5.25" drives. Yes, the
> light on the 5.25" drive flashes on and off, and it is looking for a disk to
> start up off.
> 
> It's interesting that it doesn't try to boot off the hard disk when I have
> the 5.25" drive connected, but just sits there checking each drive.
> 
> I then turned it off, removed the 5.25" drive, and restarted it, and it
> booted off the hard disk immediately, no problems encountered.
> 
> Then I put the drive back in and started off a 3.5" floppy since it wouldn't
> start from the hard disk with it in. The Mac desktop came up, then it tried
> to read off the 5.25" drive. I get a "This disk is unreadable: Do you want
> to initialize it? (Eject) (Initialize)" box. I attempted to initialise a
> disk, it tried to do something on the drive, then said Initialise failed. I
> say Eject, but the drive can't eject! So it just finds the disk again and
> repeats the "This disk is unreadable" message, in an infinite loop.
> 
> It seems quite promising; is writing a driver to support this drive
> feasible?
> 
> I wonder if it is possible to read a ProDOS disk from that drive on the Mac.
> I also wonder if it is possible to format a 5.25" disk as a Mac disk on that
> drive.
> 
> Simon.

	FYI, I also have a Mac plus. I have a unidisk clone attached to it. The
3.5 was attached to my //e before I sold it and later to my GS before I
bought the AE drive. It works well on the Mac. Not so well on the GS.

	Your idea about connecting a GS floppy to the Mac sounds interesting.
If you can do it with a plus then you can do it on any Mac with an
external floppy connector. Since the Macs can read ProDOS 3.5 floppies
if you have the appropriate software then there should be no problem
reading the 5.25 floppies. The only problems I can see have to do with
harware compatability. Perhaps some of the hardware gurus can address
this issue. 

				Later
				Mike




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