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WTB Catweasel MK1 ISA (PC) floppy adapter

Jimmy

Jimmy

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 19, 2012
Messages
593
Location
Fort Walton Beach, Fl
I want to purchase or would consider a trade for an Individual Computers Catweasel MK1 ISA (PC) adapter board.

Thanks,

Jimmy
 
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what will you do with it?
remember that the drives connected to the cw-isa are not usable for the pc,
only for the catweasel.
 
dr.zeissler said:
what will you do with it?
remember that the drives connected to the cw-isa are not usable for the pc,
only for the catweasel.
Click to expand...

I have a 4-drive legacy controller on a PC as well as a Catweasel. Both are brought out to DC-37F connector brackets. I have a pile of various drives in external drive boxes (IBM 4869) that can (and do) plug into either. Why would the CW drives be special?

I'm curious why the ISA CW is more desirable. Most of my work is done with the CW Mk. III, a PCI device. Most CW drivers work with either just fine, even in DOS mode.
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Edit

Although I do mine that way, it should certainly be possible to run a single cable between the drive, the Catweasel and the Legacy controller. The bus protocol there is open-collector (i.e. passive pullup), so more than one controller on a cable should certainly be possible. None of the floppy signals are bi-directional and all are conditioned by drive select. So, unless you somehow manage to run the legacy controller and the Catweasel simultaneously, there should be no conflicts. IIRC, the ISA catweasel drives its output lines with a 7407, so it's cool.
 
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Various formats, but not often--I've even done proprietary 8" hard-sector formats. But again, my interest is in reading, as the need is for preservation. For example, I regularly read Brother WP (240K/120K) GCR floppies, but I can't recall a single time when anyone has asked to write them.

I use my own software with DOS 7.x. Windows/Linux has too much latency for fine control.
 
my is the other way round, I am interested in WRITING back Images to disk.
Therefore it's not the best solution, because I am currently not able to write back
WORKING Apple2 (DSK) Images.
 
The CW MK4 had an extra set of connectors for PC FDC passthrough. I've used my MK4 card to read a little over a hundred TRS-80 floppies, and previously used my MK3 card to read about three dozen TRS-80 floppies. I personally haven't used the MK4's passthrough feature, since I don't need a Tandon TM-100-2 with any PC OS.....

The PCI MK3 and MK4 are better cards than the ISA, and, unless I recall incorrectly, the software is not the same.
 
lowen said:
The CW MK4 had an extra set of connectors for PC FDC passthrough. I've used my MK4 card to read a little over a hundred TRS-80 floppies, and previously used my MK3 card to read about three dozen TRS-80 floppies. I personally haven't used the MK4's passthrough feature, since I don't need a Tandon TM-100-2 with any PC OS.....

The PCI MK3 and MK4 are better cards than the ISA, and, unless I recall incorrectly, the software is not the same.
Click to expand...

The MK3 and ISA have different bit mappings in the registers (I solve that with a simple table lookup) and the MK3 has a faster clock option (better for high density disks). The MK3 and MK4 are similar, but the MK4 has an FPGA for more features.

In fact, if you can program your own software, I don't see the sense in using a CW anymore. Technology has caught up with the CW and even a moderately capable MCU can run rings around a CW.

Apple 2 images have been writable since the PC XT days with various hardware. I've got a Matchpoint PC card in an old XT. Copy-protected images are another matter. ISTR that there was a trick on the II to position to half-tracks by applying power to both sets of stepper windings simultaneously. Otherwise, I don't see many problems with writing Apple II images--mostly a matter of software. I think that the DOB could also write images, though the image file format was proprietary.
 
Chuck(G) said:
I think that the DOB could also write images, though the image file format was proprietary.
Click to expand...

The format is being RE'd on and off by NewRisingSun. I owe him another round of testing, but we've been able to take KryoFlux images, convert to DOB Transcopy, and then I write them out with a DOB and they actually work.
 
Yup, I knew some effort was being made. But today, just about any cheap MCU can do the job, so I don't see much need for the DOB or CW, or for that matter, MP.

What's more interesting is figuring out the encoding and file system...

I do understand that many people just want to make copies of a disk and don't care much about how information is represented.
 
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It looks like this is one of those cases, I should have asked advice here before I purchased a replacement, at lease I learned a few things.

Thanks,

Jimmy
 
I wanted to use it to write-back Apple" Disk-Images to real disks, but this does not work.
What works is to create a new disk.image from a real Apple2-Disk and then write it back to another one.

But that is not usefull for me, because I have no Apple2 Disks, only Disk-Images downloaded over the Internet.
So I'll have to go for the ADtpro stuff (cable).

Doc
 
dr.zeissler said:
I wanted to use it to write-back Apple" Disk-Images to real disks, but this does not work.
What works is to create a new disk.image from a real Apple2-Disk and then write it back to another one....
Click to expand...

In reviewing the thread, you don't say what system you're using to work the CW. I do know that Tim Mann's cw2dmk has issues with a 64-bit system that produce symptoms like you describe, just for TRS-80 disks instead of Apple. Many of the programs for using the CW are old enough to have some 32-bit 'things' going on that don't like a straight compile on a 64-bit system.
 
Machine: SNI-Pro-M6 Celeron 433 /512MB
OS: Dos (not usefull for catweasel (ISA))
OS: W9x (not usefull for catweasel (ISA))
OS: W2k (usefull for catweasel (ISA)) but with the issue above.

Never testet LINUX.
 
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