non-DEC-compat HW to read RX02's?

[Allison]

>
>Subject: non-DEC-compat HW to read RX02's?
>   From: shoppa at trailing-edge.com (Tim Shoppa)
>   Date: Sat, 09 May 2009 08:32:25 -0400
>     To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
>
>What non-DEC-compatible stuff out there can read RX02's?

DSD880 and a few of the floppy contoller replacement boards.

>Obviously the original RX02 drive can read RX02's... as can all the
>DSD, Sigma, etc. Q-bus, Unibus, Omnibus compatible controllers.
>
>But what can read RX02's using a generic SA801-type drive and a PC-clone?

Sigma, and DSD.  Those used generic drives.  The problem is not using 
a generic drive its the encoding by the controller the drive connects
to and generic PC controller (ala 765) is MFM and the DD mode of 
RX02 is M2FM a different thing.  Add to that the RX02 uses mixed
SD and DD on the same track means none of the available (then or now)
integrated FDCs can produce or read that format.


>Several years back I built a doohickey that plugged into a PC's
>parallel port and allowed me to step floppy drives and read
>bit-timing-information, a track at a time, into a RAM buffer, which
>I then dumped into the parallel port and wrote some software
>to analyze arbitrary disk formats. I wired the index/sector hole
>detector to the MSB RAM line and used it with great success to
>analyze and read several 8" and 5.25" hard-sector
>floppy formats and eventually pumped a few thousand disks through
>the scheme. Not bad for something thrown together on a solderless
>breadboard using random TTL chips I had lying around the basement :-).

That is what you would need.


>Obviously similar devices have been discussed here in the past
>decade or two. Is there anything available off the shelf that
>can plug into a USB port and let me do similar? Right now the
>thought of traveling with a 8" HH floppy drive and a laptop
>has a certain appeal as opposed to hauling around a BA23 and
>a DSD440 :-).

No, not without custom programming.

Allison