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TL/2 Floppy drives

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shawn510

Experienced Member
Joined
May 6, 2008
Messages
95
Location
Alabama
I have just recently acquired a somewhat dirty but otherwise decent 1000 TL/2. The 3.5" works ok, but the 5.25" doesn't work so good. I've run a cleaning disk on it and it still can't read or write without errors.

Is there any other maintence I can try (maybe some 3in1 oil?)?

Failing that, how compatible are the 5.25" T1000 drives? I know the 3.5" are not interchangeable due to the odd power setup, but the 5.25" drive has a normal power connection. Can I hook up a normal drive without letting the magic smoke out?
Thanks!
 
Terry Yager said:
Yep, any ol' 5.25 drive will work, as long as it's the last drive on the cable (beyond the holes).

--T
Click to expand...

I have run into a more basic problem. The power cables in the Tandy were made just long enough to accomodate the drives that came in the system. I'm going to have to dig up an extension to reach the connector on my other drive. No biggie. My goal was to use the Tandy as my bridge system between the two formats since I fried the floppy controller in my modern PC.

PSA: Don't try to reseat a floppy drive cable while the system is powered on.
The more you know [tm]
 
shawn510 said:
I have run into a more basic problem. The power cables in the Tandy were made just long enough to accomodate the drives that came in the system. I'm going to have to dig up an extension to reach the connector on my other drive. No biggie. My goal was to use the Tandy as my bridge system between the two formats since I fried the floppy controller in my modern PC.

PSA: Don't try to reseat a floppy drive cable while the system is powered on.
The more you know [tm]
Click to expand...

Extension cable - good...different cable - not good (unless you sever the power lines to the top drive).

--T
 
Another issue I've run into is with the 3.5" drive. It reads fine, but sometimes gets stuck on a disk. Once that happens it will not recognize that another disk or no disk is in the drive. I can have no disk in the drive, do a dir a: and get a directory listing of the disk that was in there. The only way around that I have found is to do a reset.
This happens in Tandy DOS or FreeDOS.
 
Those Tandy systems with the special disk drives can be retrofitted with standard 3.5" drives if you can find one that lines up with the bezel on the front of the case.

It's easiest to use older Sony drives for that since those were the drives of choice by Tandy.

On normal floppy drives every other pin is ground. On the Tandy drives they took a group of them and made them +5v and left the rest as ground. Simply clip those +5v wires on the ribbon cable so they no longer connect to the drive, plug in a standard drive, and use a power splitter & extension to power the drive from the 5.25" drive's power source.

RJ
 
shawn510 said:
Another issue I've run into is with the 3.5" drive. It reads fine, but sometimes gets stuck on a disk. Once that happens it will not recognize that another disk or no disk is in the drive. I can have no disk in the drive, do a dir a: and get a directory listing of the disk that was in there. The only way around that I have found is to do a reset.
This happens in Tandy DOS or FreeDOS.
Click to expand...

Check the microswitches on the drive. There is one for disk insert, one for 720/1.44 sensing, and one for write protect. The disk insert one is sticking on you.

They are all at the very front of the drive and make contact with the upper edge are of the floppy disk.

RJ
 
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