Author: Jan Thomas (213.208.70.155)
Date: 09-24-2001 18:00
Cohen, I have used PC floppy drives quite successfully in the past, as long as you are aware that the facia that may not quite fit properly.
The main reason why PC floppy drives wont work of the shelf is because of the historical perspective of the 3.5" floppy.
Originally FD's came fixed as drive 0. There wasnt a jumper on them to make it drive 1, so in order to make the drive co-exist (as drive "B") with a 5.25 drive in your IBM-XT/AT, you had to put a twist in part of the floppy cable after the 5.25 connector. This changed the floppy from "A" to "B". When 5.25's started to die out, drives were being shipped that had the drive change jumper on them so technically the twist wasnt required. However, once a standard is established in the PC world it is here to stay, so what you have is floppy drives that come set as drive 1 ("B") of the shelf, and because the floppy cable still has a twist, it makes it drive "A".
So by theory, if you move the jumper, and take out the twist in the cable, then the drive should be set to "A", - but most PC's will not recognise the drive, or you will have disk access problems if you do this, but this is exactly what you have to do to get a PC floppy drive working in an Atari. --- Use an untwisted floppy cable, and change the jumper on the drive (assuming they still have them, you may have to move a solder link instead).
Hope this helps.
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