I'm just posting this here as a general appeal to anyone who has a Microdrive to sell to contact me personally before putting in on EBay ..
I'm developing a hardware "plug and play" replacement for the Microdrives, so that the Oric-1/Atmos machines can mount .DSK images stored on Micro-SD drives. I've already got the hardware I need for this project in the form of Micro-SD/controller interfacing, but in order to adequately fulfill my plug and play requirement, I need a real Microdrive to test against, and for verification purposes.
So if anyone at all has a Microdrive they can sell me, please contact me. I'll even take non-working drives off your hands, since I would be very happy to repair them as well.
Thanks!
Desperately need a Microdrive!
I really hope you can get one, as they are quite rare. I am sorry I don't have one (not even a working atmos right now), as I would at least lend it to you so you can make your tests.
We really need a replacement using modern data storage, so I hope you succeed in your project.
P.S. How is it going?
We really need a replacement using modern data storage, so I hope you succeed in your project.
P.S. How is it going?
-
ibisum
- Wing Commander
- Posts: 1655
- Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2009 8:56 am
- Location: Vienna, Austria
- Contact:
I've got my hardware rigged up with Arduino mega, SD reader, and display, and I've gotten as far as getting output on the display and reading/writing with the disk by the Mega .. next up will be to configure the data i/o on the Mega to get some sort of status display happening, so I have a little 'oscilloscope' mode for the rig that will show me what the oric is doing on its data lines.
I've had to really learn Oric DOS (Sedoric), though! Since I never had a Microdisc I've been doing some familiarization with Oricutron to try to get a better understanding for how I can easily test things - looks like I can just write some very simple BASIC test apps that will exercise the port and so on .. This is a fair bit of design/analysis work for me so far, and not much progress to report on that front other than that I'm personally becoming familiar with an aspect of Oric I never had a chance to deal with personally before .. took me a couple hours to figure out that to change the disk from A to B the command was simple "B-" .. this point is *not* obvious in the Sedoric docs, alas!
Also been pouring through the Sedoric disassembly to try to understand the details and form some sort of requirements for how I should respond to various cases with i/o ready and so on.
As soon as I get some sort of communication actually occurring - my data-line display showing the Oric port status, for example, I'll update you guys .. but in the meantime I really need to find a Microdrive as well, concurrently to the project.
EDIT: BTW, Chema, if you need an Atmos I have a spare one .. PM me.
I've had to really learn Oric DOS (Sedoric), though! Since I never had a Microdisc I've been doing some familiarization with Oricutron to try to get a better understanding for how I can easily test things - looks like I can just write some very simple BASIC test apps that will exercise the port and so on .. This is a fair bit of design/analysis work for me so far, and not much progress to report on that front other than that I'm personally becoming familiar with an aspect of Oric I never had a chance to deal with personally before .. took me a couple hours to figure out that to change the disk from A to B the command was simple "B-" .. this point is *not* obvious in the Sedoric docs, alas!
Also been pouring through the Sedoric disassembly to try to understand the details and form some sort of requirements for how I should respond to various cases with i/o ready and so on.
As soon as I get some sort of communication actually occurring - my data-line display showing the Oric port status, for example, I'll update you guys .. but in the meantime I really need to find a Microdrive as well, concurrently to the project.
EDIT: BTW, Chema, if you need an Atmos I have a spare one .. PM me.
Re: Desperately need a Microdrive!
I has one without the case but I gave it to Fabrice years ago, I don't événement know if it was Still working, sorry.
Kml
Kml
ibisum wrote:I'm just posting this here as a general appeal to anyone who has a Microdrive to sell to contact me personally before putting in on EBay ..
I'm developing a hardware "plug and play" replacement for the Microdrives, so that the Oric-1/Atmos machines can mount .DSK images stored on Micro-SD drives. I've already got the hardware I need for this project in the form of Micro-SD/controller interfacing, but in order to adequately fulfill my plug and play requirement, I need a real Microdrive to test against, and for verification purposes.
So if anyone at all has a Microdrive they can sell me, please contact me. I'll even take non-working drives off your hands, since I would be very happy to repair them as well.
Thanks!
Last edited by kamelito on Wed Mar 17, 2010 4:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
/kml
skype pseudo : kamelitoloveless
skype pseudo : kamelitoloveless
I would suggest contact the CEO, they have a certain number of Microdisc/Cumana components (motherboards, controllers, schematics) so possibly could be what you are looking for.
You may also want to take a look at this thread:
http://forum.defence-force.org/viewtopic.php?t=19
Contains documentation and photos on how to build your own!
You may also want to take a look at this thread:
http://forum.defence-force.org/viewtopic.php?t=19
Contains documentation and photos on how to build your own!