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Model III 360K Drive Replacement

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Bungo Pony

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I've ordered myself a full-height Tandon 360k floppy drive. If I just stick it into my model III, does it actually function like a 360K drive, or will it function as a 180K drive?

If it functions as a 360k drive, then perhaps both of them should be changed over to 360k
 
Bungo Pony said:
I've ordered myself a full-height Tandon 360k floppy drive. If I just stick it into my model III, does it actually function like a 360K drive, or will it function as a 180K drive?
Click to expand...

If you use standard (non-patched) TRSDOS 1.3, it will act as an 180K (single-sided) drive. If you use a more advanced operating system (e.g. LDOS) you can use it as a 360K (double-sided) drive.

Bungo Pony said:
If it functions as a 360k drive, then perhaps both of them should be changed over to 360k
Click to expand...

Not necessarily; it depends on what you want to do. The advanced operating systems will quite happily work with a mix of drive types.
 
Thanks for all the feedback!

TRS-Ian said:
Just make sure you use a drive cable with all teeth in place on the disk drive connectors.
Click to expand...

I'll have to check and see what comes default in my Model 3. Worst case scenario is that I make a new cable.

I also have a couple of IBM XTs kicking around in the garage. I don't know if any of those are 180k. I'm more about keeping everything original on the unit.

My biggest problem is I threw one floppy drive out of alignment. I found a nice tutorial on how to re-align it, but I need to make the software to accomplish the task, and I can't do it with one floppy drive.

As much as I love my Model III, it's a pain in the rear to deal with :D
 
Yes it applies to internal and external disk drives. With double sided drives all pins on the cable are active and the drive selection is done on the disk drive via the DS jumper. Tandy's way as all DS lines on the disk drive active and the drive is selected by the teeth on the cable which are left at each drive position. Since double sided drives need pin 32 for side selection, this needs to be enabled so selecting your drives DS0, DS1, DS2 or DS3 is needed.

On an external drive on a Model 3 or 4 you would select DS0 for your 1st external disk drive and DS1 for your 2nd external disk drive.

Ian.
 
Bungo Pony said:
I've ordered myself a full-height Tandon 360k floppy drive. If I just stick it into my model III, does it actually function like a 360K drive, or will it function as a 180K drive?

If it functions as a 360k drive, then perhaps both of them should be changed over to 360k
Click to expand...

In a standard Model III, a 360K drive with a standard (IBM) all-pin cable will act as two 180K drives. Set to whatever the lowest DS number, it will be drives 0 and 1. If set to the next highest DS number (some drives start at DS0, some at DS1), it will act as drives 2 and 3.

As mentioned, with this set up, some advanced operating systems can be configured to see them as 360K drives.

In this way, you can have your full compliment of 180K drives all internal to the computer.
 
Druid6900 said:
In a standard Model III, a 360K drive with a standard (IBM) all-pin cable will act as two 180K drives. Set to whatever the lowest DS number, it will be drives 0 and 1. If set to the next highest DS number (some drives start at DS0, some at DS1), it will act as drives 2 and 3.

As mentioned, with this set up, some advanced operating systems can be configured to see them as 360K drives.

In this way, you can have your full compliment of 180K drives all internal to the computer.
Click to expand...


That is really odd. I have had a couple Model 3's and have not experienced this... Or maybe it has been Model 4's- are they different in this respect?

I've hooked up two DSDD drives and they were accessible as DS0 and DS1 as normal. It didn't have the second side of the disk as another ID...

I used NewDOS and could format as single or double-sided, as needed. One of them even had a TM100-4 so it was 80 track DSDD.
 
rittwage said:
That is really odd. I have had a couple Model 3's and have not experienced this... Or maybe it has been Model 4's- are they different in this respect?

I've hooked up two DSDD drives and they were accessible as DS0 and DS1 as normal. It didn't have the second side of the disk as another ID...

I used NewDOS and could format as single or double-sided, as needed. One of them even had a TM100-4 so it was 80 track DSDD.
Click to expand...

You have to remember that, when I last did this for a customer was when the Model IIIs were new. It should be the same with a Model IV.

They HAVE to be connected to the FDC with a full pin-set cable though, to get the DS signal.

There may have been a patch to TRSDOS, but NewDOS 80 should handle it if configured for 180K drives.

I know I've done it many times before, but the details might be a little fuzzy........long time ago.
 
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