Amstrad 3in disc drive troubleshooting

[Tony Duell]

> > What's silly about them (if picofuses are sensible)? 
> 
> Maybe they're common on European gear, but the Joyce was the first 
> time I'd ever seen one--they're just not what I'd consider to be a 
> "universal" part.  

They were (at the time of the PCW, probably still are) common in 
far-eastern TV and video equipment. I've certainly seenm them elsewhere. 


>  
> > I still think the nicest CP/M machine I've seen is the Epson QX10.
> 
> That's a hard call--if we're talking about Z80-based CP/M machines 

I was restricting it to CP/M 80. For the 80-x86 and 68K there are other, 
more interesting OSes. Actually, there are more interesting Z80- SOes too 
(LS-DOS 6.x on te TRS-80 Model 4 comes high up my list...) but CP.M has a 
heck of a lot of software written for it.

> (not x86 or 68K), some of the other late Japanese machines were 
> pretty impressive.  The QX10 was interesting to me mostly in its non-

I did say 'nicest .. that I've seen' :-). The QX10 seems to have some 
pretty nice hardware. Mostly stnadard chips too (alas mine has the later 
video board with the gate array chip :-() and those lovelly voice coil 
floppy drives. 

I am not familiar with many other Japanese CP/M machines. What was nice 
about them?

-tony