Finding high density disk for my amiga

[xboxown]

I have an Amiga 500 are there any high density disk drive that is external I can use on my Amiga 500 disk drive port?

[Mrz]

yes there are external HD floppy drives but are rare and expensive
also you need kickstart 2.0 or newer to make them work in HD

[nogginthenog]

I have a Power Computing external floppy drive I used in my A500. Reading works fine (at half speed!) but writing needed a software patch.

[R4M]

A Gotek drive with FlashFloppy firmware also emulates HD disks. If you do not have old disks you want to read, that would be your best (and cheapest) option.

[xboxown]

Originally Posted by nogginthenog

I have a Power Computing external floppy drive I used in my A500. Reading works fine (at half speed!) but writing needed a software patch.

http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php...ppy-disk-drive

You mean this disk drive reads high density floppies?

[xboxown]

Originally Posted by Mrz

yes there are external HD floppy drives but are rare and expensive
also you need kickstart 2.0 or newer to make them work in HD

Do not worry. I have kickstart 2.0+ - grin -

[sneeker]

Thats a normal power computing external, that said the hd version looks basically the same.

[jlin_au]

If you were using a 1200 instead of a 500 I'd have recommended using a clockport based Indivision Rapidroad USB with a USB connected PC Floppy drive ;-)

[xboxown]

Originally Posted by jlin_au

If you were using a 1200 instead of a 500 I'd have recommended using a clockport based Indivision Rapidroad USB with a USB connected PC Floppy drive ;-)

I already have a clockport based and can run rapidroad USB on my A500. So you are saying the normal USB PC external disk drive in my closet drawer if i was to take it out and hook it into my USB (soon to buy) of my A500 I can go ahead and have high density Amiga disk of 1.76 MB? Understand that Amiga 500 and Amiga 1200 are now 99.99% identical (except for AGA).

Let me see:

I have a 2 MB CHIP RAM on my A500, the A1200 have 2 MB CHIP RAM (check)
I have 232 GB hard drive single partitioned as 232 GB and I have 32 GB for coffin installation to a total of 264 GB hard drive (check)
I have ability to have clockport like A1200 and get USB support (check)
I have HDMI (check)
I have external dvd burner that can read/write 4.7 GB a disk (check)
I have RTG support (check)
I have 128 MB RAM (check)
I have an Amiga 500 that runs at speed of 100+ 060 with new AMMX instructions (check)

So....uh......yeah

[nogginthenog]

Originally Posted by sneeker

Thats a normal power computing external, that said the hd version looks basically the same.

Mine had a blue (IBM I think) eject button and a half-height drive.

[jlin_au]

No, I'm serious.

Individual Computers has new stock of their ACA500plus accelerator that adds a 1200 type clock port to a 500 plus 8MB of ram (see store page https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/shop/...CA500plus.html). This 500 expansion also has two CF slots, a faster 68000 type cpu, ..., plus the ability to add a standard 1200 type CPU accelerator card later (e.g. an ACA1233n).

You may be able to use the Aniias USB stack (for a 68000) with a second hand Subway USB card instead of the Poseidon USB stack (for a 68020 or higher) to access the USB FDD for PC HD disks.

Note - the USB FDD will only read PC format disks in DD (720K) and HD (1.44M) as its built in controller only understands those. To read an Amiga HD format disk you need a Individual Computers Catweasel interface connected to a standard PC 3.5" HD floppy drive; unfortunately, they may be limited to 68020 and higher CPU's as the MkII and MKIII were mainly for Amiga 1200s and 4000s.

[xboxown]

Originally Posted by jlin_au

No, I'm serious.

Individual Computers has new stock of their ACA500plus accelerator that adds a 1200 type clock port to a 500 plus 8MB of ram (see store page https://icomp.de/shop-icomp/en/shop/...CA500plus.html). This 500 expansion also has two CF slots, a faster 68000 type cpu, ..., plus the ability to add a standard 1200 type CPU accelerator card later (e.g. an ACA1233n).

You may be able to use the Aniias USB stack (for a 68000) with a second hand Subway USB card instead of the Poseidon USB stack (for a 68020 or higher) to access the USB FDD for PC HD disks.

Note - the USB FDD will only read PC format disks in DD (720K) and HD (1.44M) as its built in controller only understands those. To read an Amiga HD format disk you need a Individual Computers Catweasel interface connected to a standard PC 3.5" HD floppy drive; unfortunately, they may be limited to 68020 and higher CPU's as the MkII and MKIII were mainly for Amiga 1200s and 4000s.

Dude I already have a v500. My Amiga is more capable of doing everything you fear my Amiga 500 cannot. But seeing I need catweasel...it is not worth it.

Thanks.

[Mrz]

btw,

there is a polish AMiga site which sells HD floppy drives, external and internal
but I don't remember the link sorry


if I remember correctly around 100 € external and 80 internal

my opinion is that not worth very much unless you want to compile a video game which comes in 2 disks to work only in 1 disk
ie yoe yoe, arabian nights etc

[xboxown]

You are right. It is not worth it. After all I have WHDLoad that solved the disk issue. But I just want to clear something for general public in the future. Thanks to Vampire 500 V2 Amiga 500 no longer hold that old stereo type of been a weak Amiga and incapable of holding a 68040+ and that it is stuck in 68030 only and it you cannot use CD-ROM, USB, ...that is gone now.

Also no longer you need to change the shell of the A500 and pay millions to hack it to come close to 68040 spec of an Amiga 1200.