01 March 2008, 18:37 | #1 |
Zone Friend
Join Date: May 2006
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Looking for the Blitzcopy Software, I got the Hardware already...
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. |
06 March 2008, 12:31 | #2 |
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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 ? |
06 March 2008, 12:39 | #3 |
hastala vista winny vista
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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. |
06 March 2008, 12:48 | #4 | |
Zone Friend
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Quote:
I found one Update in the Aminet and an other inofficial update for 68060 CPUs here: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/1739/1260software.html |
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15 April 2010, 02:35 | #5 | |
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Quote:
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. |
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15 April 2010, 09:54 | #6 |
Zone Friend
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Thank you.
regards Hacky |
15 April 2010, 10:09 | #7 |
Phone Homer
Join Date: Jun 2006
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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 |
15 April 2010, 14:13 | #8 | |
Da Digger :)
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Monza, Italy
Posts: 2,822
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Quote:
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... |
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15 April 2010, 14:59 | #9 |
The 1 who ribbits
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so the drive you won on evilbay was`t a highdesity one then prowler ??
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15 April 2010, 21:55 | #10 | ||
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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). Of course, but it won't be any time soon. Quote:
In particular, Hacky mentions some tests he carried out in this post. Quote:
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... |
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17 April 2010, 01:33 | #11 |
Da Digger :)
Join Date: Nov 2008
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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? |
17 April 2010, 01:53 | #12 | |
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Quote:
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. |
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20 October 2010, 22:45 | #13 | |
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Quote:
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! Last edited by sidepipe; 21 October 2010 at 08:52. Reason: Obvious mistake :) |
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20 October 2010, 22:58 | #14 | |
Global Moderator
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Quote:
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. |
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20 October 2010, 23:06 | #15 | |
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Quote:
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20 October 2010, 23:13 | #16 | |
Global Moderator
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Hey, and welcome to EAB! BTW, I hope that someone of your pedigree intends to stick around here for a while. |
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20 October 2010, 23:30 | #17 |
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21 October 2010, 11:03 | #18 |
The 1 who ribbits
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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 |
31 October 2010, 15:16 | #19 | |
Da Digger :)
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Quote:
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16 November 2010, 11:52 | #20 |
Turpentine
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Kent, United Kingdom
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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". |
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