30-08-2020, 05:30 PM
(30-08-2020, 04:04 PM)ChickenMan Wrote: Looking at those pics, those 2 floppy drives are not the same thats in my unit and I cant see any D0, D1, etc drive selector on them. They also have Beige front faces and not the original Black that I've seen in all the 256TC's I've ever seen. So I assume they are both B: drives with the drive select twisted to allow the drive on the right side to appear as A: and somehow the bees able to sort that out. The 256TC boots to a menu if there is no floppy in A: drive. You then have the option to press SHIFT F1 and it can boot from B: drive. I've put a Gotek in as B: in my 256TC which allows booting from a real floppy in A: or the Gotek in B:.Hi Ian,
ChickenMan is 100% correct, this was very much a none standard way of getting around the issue with latter model 3.5" dives which were hard wired as IBM B-drive or if you prefer Shugart drive 1.
Without the ability to change the drive selection by jumper on these newer drives then drive selection must be changed externally, in this case by swapping DS0 and DS1 by applying the unconventional twist. The use of the standard IBM twist cable just would not have worked.
If you have no option but to use the method above that RedskullDC used, then do not simply dissassemble the connector and twist the cable over and reconnect. I would strongly recomend cutting the cable just short of the old connector create your twist and perform a fresh assembly of the connector to the cable. Once a displacement type connecting to the cable is disturbed it can easily end up with a break to the conductor giving all sorts of intermittant issues.
Caution must be taken though when using these modern derives for the Microbee, they are fine for reading the old 80 track DSDD disks but a very different story when it comes to writing. If you only use the written disks on the same system they were written with you should be fine, however compatibility with the old drives can be a problem with narrower the head width, so the disk may not work on other drives (very hit and miss).
Ernest