Amiga 5.25-inch floppy disks and drives

[mips]

I got a external drive with my A500, I later purchased a 5.25" drive as the disks were 1/10th the price of the normal ones. Cut some traces on my MB and soldered in a toggle switch to boot of any of the 3 drives.

[Retro1234]

Originally Posted by mips

I got a external drive with my A500, I later purchased a 5.25" drive as the disks were 1/10th the price of the normal ones. Cut some traces on my MB and soldered in a toggle switch to boot of any of the 3 drives.

What was the capacity of 5.25" Disks on Amiga?

[prowler]

Originally Posted by Boo Boo

What was the capacity of 5.25" Disks on Amiga?

It was identical to the 3.5" disks - 880kB!

An image of one type of disk can be written to a disk of the other type with no problem, so mips was definitely on to a winner with his 5.25" drive if the 5.25" disks really were 1/10 of the price of the 3.5" disks!

[mips]

Originally Posted by Boo Boo

What was the capacity of 5.25" Disks on Amiga?

880k

From what I recall they used a 1.2MB PC drive and amigaos would format the disks to 880k

[Zak]

Originally Posted by mips

880k

From what I recall they used a 1.2MB PC drive and amigaos would format the disks to 880k

Are you sure? So you would actually need a high density drive and disks for Amiga?

Also: could you use Cross Dos with a 5,25" drive?

[prowler]

Originally Posted by Zak

Are you sure? So you would actually need a high density drive and disks for Amiga?

Also: could you use Cross Dos with a 5,25" drive?

Yes, come on, spill the beans, mips! I would be interested to know as well. Though I suspect that CrossDOS can be used with any floppy drive.

[mips]

Originally Posted by Zak

Are you sure? So you would actually need a high density drive and disks for Amiga?

Also: could you use Cross Dos with a 5,25" drive?

Originally Posted by prowler

Yes, come on, spill the beans, mips! I would be interested to know as well. Though I suspect that CrossDOS can be used with any floppy drive.

My memory is not that great but from what I recall I used DD disks with the drive. CrossDos worked with the drive but I cannot remember if it could read pc formatted 1.2MB disks.

Every month when my parents went shopping I would get 50-100 new 5.25" disks. When some of my friends heard about this they also got 5.25" drives.

If you google Amiga 5.25" drives you will find other people that also had them.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by mips

Every month when my parents went shopping I would get 50-100 new 5.25" disks. When some of my friends heard about this they also got 5.25" drives.

Did trackloaders work with 5.25" drives when stuff was transferred from 3½" disks?

[mips]

Originally Posted by demolition

Did trackloaders work with 5.25" drives when stuff was transferred from 3½" disks?

I don't recall any disks that would not work on the 5.25" drive. Everything worked just as it would on a 3.5" drive.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by demolition

Did trackloaders work with 5.25" drives when stuff was transferred from 3½" disks?

Yes, the 5¼-inch disks behave exactly likre their 3½-inch counterparts.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by mips

I don't recall any disks that would not work on the 5.25" drive. Everything worked just as it would on a 3.5" drive.

I guess it would require identical timing. I can see that they both run at 300 rpm, so it would probably work most of the time. The question is if the seek time is a little worse since the head has to move further.

Edit: I'm guessing the exact seek time might not be important since the tracks are not interleaved so there's plenty of waiting time to find the sync.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by demolition

Edit: I'm guessing the exact seek time might not be important since the tracks are not interleaved so there's plenty of waiting time to find the sync.

That's right, and not only are Amiga tracks not interleaved, the start of each track is randomly orientated.

[TCD]

Maybe move a few posts to a new '5.25" Amiga drives' thread?

[demolition]

Originally Posted by prowler

That's right, and not only are Amiga tracks not interleaved, the start of each track is randomly orientated.

Aren't there some copy protection schemes which rely on a certain sync offset from one track to another, which would make timing quite important?

But one thing is trackloaders from cracked games, another is original disks. Is it possible to write IPF files of originals to 5.25" disks and keep the copy protection intact?

Edit: I actually never owned a 5.25" drive. Even on the C64 I relied solely on the datasette.
And today those drives are priced as if they were made of gold, at least on ebay. Guess they are becoming rare.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by TheCyberDruid

Maybe move a few posts to a new '5.25" Amiga drives' thread?

Good suggestion. Done!

[Cymru]

The 5.25" drives came with the Transformer PC Emulation software so their first function was to read PC floppies (360K), but could be formatted by MS/PCDOS to 720K. I recall an article about them being replaced with HD PC drives that would format PC standard 1.2 MB or Amiga 1.76 MB disks. Later there was a way to read C64 disks with an emulator, but I can't remember which one did it. It was easier to use a 1541 drive and a small interface to do this.

The BridgeBoards had issues with the drives I think, but by the time I had a BridgeBoard, I only had internal drives on my A2000.

[Loedown]

Originally Posted by Cymru

The 5.25" drives came with the Transformer PC Emulation software so their first function was to read PC floppies (360K), but could be formatted by MS/PCDOS to 720K. I recall an article about them being replaced with HD PC drives that would format PC standard 1.2 MB or Amiga 1.76 MB disks. Later there was a way to read C64 disks with an emulator, but I can't remember which one did it. It was easier to use a 1541 drive and a small interface to do this.

The BridgeBoards had issues with the drives I think, but by the time I had a BridgeBoard, I only had internal drives on my A2000.

The small interface you speak of was a slightly modified serial port, just the connections for a 1541C, I can probably dig out the archive.

[Cymru]

Yeah, that was it.

[Loedown]

http://aminet.net/package/util/misc/c64kopik

There it is.

[pandy71]

Originally Posted by demolition

I guess it would require identical timing. I can see that they both run at 300 rpm, so it would probably work most of the time. The question is if the seek time is a little worse since the head has to move further.

5 1/4 inch are two speed type: 300 and 360rpm