deramp5113
Veteran Member
As discussed in several threads recently, hard sector 5.25" disks - especially the ten sector disks for North Star controllers - are getting very hard to find.
I now have a working prototype of a virtual sector generator that connects onto the 34 pin ribbon cable (in-line or just an extra socket pressed onto the drive cable) that makes soft sector floppies look exactly like hard sector floppies to the controller. The board syncs to the rotational rate of the currently selected drive and generates sector pulses to the controller so the controller can't tell the difference. It has been working very reliably, even with the older, full-height, belt-driven drives. The board requires no external power connections and is very unobtrusive - barely wider than the drive cable.
For example, with the board clamped onto the drive cable, an original North Star system with original drives can work transparently with hard or soft sectored disks.
I'm going to finalize the layout and run a panel of the boards. I'll probably get 20 or so boards off the panel for those who are interested.
Mike
I now have a working prototype of a virtual sector generator that connects onto the 34 pin ribbon cable (in-line or just an extra socket pressed onto the drive cable) that makes soft sector floppies look exactly like hard sector floppies to the controller. The board syncs to the rotational rate of the currently selected drive and generates sector pulses to the controller so the controller can't tell the difference. It has been working very reliably, even with the older, full-height, belt-driven drives. The board requires no external power connections and is very unobtrusive - barely wider than the drive cable.
For example, with the board clamped onto the drive cable, an original North Star system with original drives can work transparently with hard or soft sectored disks.
I'm going to finalize the layout and run a panel of the boards. I'll probably get 20 or so boards off the panel for those who are interested.
Mike