Looking for the Blitzcopy Software, I got the Hardware already...

[Hacky]

Hello

I just got the Blitzcopy Hardware.
It is a modified floppy drive build in 1995 (printed inside).

I do not have any Blitzcopy Software and could not find out very much about it.

Does anybody own this piece of software ?

I would be happy to get an ADF of Blitzcopy.

[Hacky]

As I found out the Power Computing Company released some different versions of this "dongle".
(It is different through X-Copy/Cyclone and Siegfried dongles)

The first release was a dongle which comes with a copy software.
A later release was this modified floppy drive which includes the "dongle".

So I got the hardware and the drive is working as normal but I´m not able to use the hidden special features of this drive because I do not have the software "Blitzcopy".

Does anybody here knows something about this mystious Soft and Hardware ?

I´m really interested to try out the missing Blitzcopy software.

If someone could help me I would be very grateful.

Here are some picutures of the hardware.
The drive has an ON/OFF/Auto switch.







.

Update:

A person told me it is a "Power Computing XL drive" for HD floppys.

I need a driver and could only find some update/patches for the driver to work on 68060 but NOT the driver disk.

Does anybody here own a "Power Computing XL drive" and the driver disk ?

[coze]

Power XL driver disks zoned.

I have a couple of these, the adapter PCB looks different though. Never got them to work reliably so they're just gathering dust.

[Hacky]

Originally Posted by coze

Power XL driver disks zoned.

I have a couple of these, the adapter PCB looks different though. Never got them to work reliably so they're just gathering dust.

Thank you I will try the disk(s).

I found one Update in the Aminet and an other inofficial update for 68060 CPUs here:

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/1739/1260software.html

[prowler]

Originally Posted by Hacky

Hello

I just got the Blitzcopy Hardware.
It is a modified floppy drive build in 1995 (printed inside).

I do not have any Blitzcopy Software and could not find out very much about it.

Does anybody own this piece of software ?

I would be happy to get an ADF of Blitzcopy.

Hi Hacky,

I've just won a Power Computing Amiga external floppy drive on eBay. It has turned out to be a model PC880B drive, complete with manual and floppy disk. The '880B' in the model number indicates that it is an 800kB drive which incorporates Blitz Copier hardware.

The floppy disk contains the Blitz! Amiga copier program.

I'm sure that this must be the same is the disk drive you have, which is why you have been unable to get the High Density support working.

I will check the disk tomorrow and upload an .ADF image of it to the Zone for you if it has no read errors.

[Hacky]

Thank you.

regards Hacky

[Retro1234]

Ive also got the manual for the PC880/b but not the drive anymore:-( This was quite a nice drive and Blitz copier wasnt bad, Im sure ive got Blitz Copy somewhere if needed.
Prowler let me know if you ever want to sell this drive

[Supamax]

Originally Posted by prowler

The '880B' in the model number indicates that it is an 800kB drive which incorporates Blitz Copier hardware.

The floppy disk contains the Blitz! Amiga copier program.

Do you think it could be Cyclone-compatible?
Perhaps you could give it a try... after all, many different versions of Cyclone (some very simple, some more complex, with ICs) were produced...

If it's compatible, perhaps we could use the Blitz! copier with a Cyclone dongle...

[cosmicfrog]

so the drive you won on evilbay was`t a highdesity one then prowler ??

[prowler]

Originally Posted by Hacky

Thank you.

regards Hacky

I've made an .ADF image of the Blitz! disk (which had no read errors ), and copied the pages of the manual which refer to the PC880B drive and Blitz! copier software. I'll upload them to the Zone for you shortly.

The manual covers several of Power Computing's external drives, including the Atari PC720 and PC720E drives as well as the Amiga PC880, PC880B and Dual drives. The pages I copied today were scanned in LineArt quality only, but later I will upload good quality PDFs of this manual and the one which I have for my Power Computing XL Drive (High Density).

Originally Posted by Boo Boo

Prowler let me know if you ever want to sell this drive

Of course, but it won't be any time soon.

Originally Posted by Supamax

Do you think it could be Cyclone-compatible?
Perhaps you could give it a try... after all, many different versions of Cyclone (some very simple, some more complex, with ICs) were produced...

If it's compatible, perhaps we could use the Blitz! copier with a Cyclone dongle...

This thread should really be read in conjunction with this one.
In particular, Hacky mentions some tests he carried out in this post.

Originally Posted by cosmicfrog

so the drive you won on evilbay was`t a highdesity one then prowler ??

Not at all. I won the high density drive in an earlier auction.

In fact, I have several other Power Computing external Amiga floppy disk drives, which I got without manuals. So, now I'm going to open them up to see exactly what I've got...

[Supamax]

Originally Posted by prowler

I won the high density drive in an earlier auction.

I'm very curious to know if the Power Computing XL drive contains a common 1.44MB PC-type floppy drive connected to a little board with some ICs etc., or a modified drive with reduced speed etc.
When you'll receive it, could you open it and investigate?

[prowler]

Originally Posted by Supamax

I'm very curious to know if the Power Computing XL drive contains a common 1.44MB PC-type floppy drive connected to a little board with some ICs etc., or a modified drive with reduced speed etc.
When you'll receive it, could you open it and investigate?

I have several Power computing external disk drives, two of which I think are XL drives and the others are 880kB drives which may or may not contain one of the various type of Blitz hardware and, as I explained above, I am going to open them all up to see exactly what they contain.

The most reliable way of checking if PC-type high density disk drives are used for the XL models is to see if swapping out the original units and replacing them with PC drives affects the performance.

Originally Posted by Supamax

I'm very curious to know if the Power Computing XL drive contains a common 1.44MB PC-type floppy drive connected to a little board with some ICs etc., or a modified drive with reduced speed etc.
When you'll receive it, could you open it and investigate?

Sorry to drag up an old thread - came across it whilst nosing around the web and started feeling all nostalgic

I designed the PC880B back in the day, as well as the Blitz hardware and software, plus the HD drive... oh, and the Atari stuff too ( which came first. ) Then there was the 2Mb trap door RAM for the 500.... those were the days

In case you're still interested, the HD drive contained a standard PC style drive ( though with some non standard interface options to do with disk inserted signals ) with a custom chip and a 256kbit ram. It buffered a track read at full speed from the disk and replayed it at half speed so that the Amiga hardware could read it. Although it could read disks without the driver it needed the driver to write them ( because it had to allow time for the buffer to be emptied before moving to the next track. ) The driver also did read buffering so that the drive was much faster than standard.

I actually suggested to Commodore and to NEC at the time that they could produce a half speed drive but they both said it was not possible - then about 12 months later they came out with the 3000 which had one... D'oh!

[prowler]

Originally Posted by sidepipe

In case you're still interested, the HD drive contained a standard PC style drive ( though with some non standard interface options to do with disk inserted signals ) with a custom chip and a 256kbit ram. It buffered a track read at full speed from the disk and replayed it at half speed so that the Amiga hardware could read it. Although it could read disks without the driver it needed the driver to write them ( because it had to allow time for the buffer to be emptied before moving to the next track. ) The driver also did read buffering so that the drive was much faster than standard.

Thanks for the information, sidepipe!

Are you saying that the Power Computing XL drive contains a PC HD floppy drive unit which is not itself modified from standard?

It turns out that I have two Power Computing XL HD drives, but I had forgotten to try them with a standard PC HD floppy drive inserted.

Originally Posted by prowler

Thanks for the information, sidepipe!

Are you saying that the Power Computing XL drive contains a PC HD floppy drive unit which is not itself modified from standard?

It turns out that I have two Power Computing XL HD drives, but I had forgotten to try them with a standard PC HD floppy drive inserted.

The drive itself was un-modified, yes. However, there were various options which were selectable when you ordered the OEM drives, such as whether the disk inserted signal appeared on pin x or y of the interface, and whether there was a signal for "HD disk inserted". It was a loooong time ago, so I can't remember the specifics. So you would probably find that you couldn't just swap the drive with one from a PC - not without moving some zero ohm resistors on the drive's PCB or hacking it with a knife and some bits of wire!

[prowler]

Originally Posted by sidepipe

The drive itself was un-modified, yes. However, there were various options which were selectable when you ordered the OEM drives, such as whether the disk inserted signal appeared on pin x or y of the interface, and whether there was a signal for "HD disk inserted". It was a loooong time ago, so I can't remember the specifics. So you would probably find that you couldn't just swap the drive with one from a PC - not without moving some zero ohm resistors on the drive's PCB or hacking it with a knife and some bits of wire!

Aha! It's just as well I didn't try it then.

Hey, and welcome to EAB!

BTW, I hope that someone of your pedigree intends to stick around here for a while.

Originally Posted by prowler

Hey, and welcome to EAB!

BTW, I hope that someone of your pedigree intends to stick around here for a while.

Thanks prowler . I'll try to check in from time to time in case I can help.... 25 years ago I may have been a little more useful though

[cosmicfrog]

welcome sidepipe

its good to see you drop by and add extra info, hope you come by often
25+ years and how things have changed

[Supamax]

Originally Posted by sidepipe

Sorry to drag up an old thread - came across it whilst nosing around the web and started feeling all nostalgic

I designed the PC880B back in the day, as well as the Blitz hardware and software, plus the HD drive... oh, and the Atari stuff too ( which came first. ) Then there was the 2Mb trap door RAM for the 500.... those were the days

In case you're still interested, the HD drive contained a standard PC style drive ( though with some non standard interface options to do with disk inserted signals ) with a custom chip and a 256kbit ram. It buffered a track read at full speed from the disk and replayed it at half speed so that the Amiga hardware could read it. Although it could read disks without the driver it needed the driver to write them ( because it had to allow time for the buffer to be emptied before moving to the next track. ) The driver also did read buffering so that the drive was much faster than standard.

I actually suggested to Commodore and to NEC at the time that they could produce a half speed drive but they both said it was not possible - then about 12 months later they came out with the 3000 which had one... D'oh!

WOW sidepipe! Nice to have you here, and thanks for the info!

[Eclipse]

My drive is also a 880B.
Prowler, can you re-zone that software? I don't have it.
Interestingly the 880B works fantastically well with Cyclone and it's dongle if the drive is set to "Normal".