Atari ST floppy drive?

[David Betz]

> I can't help you much on the Mega4 ST keyboard issue, having left the
> Atari universe before the Mega4 came out.   However, it seems
> reasonable to assume that the Mega4 follows the 520 and 1040 in the
> keyboard design.
>
> If this is so, there are several problems.  The first is that the
> serial signal levels are TTL, not RS232C, so a generic serial port
> interface is out of the question.  The second is that the bitrate is
> a little odd (7812.5 bps) and not one you'll find on a PC serial
> interface.
>
> On the ST, the keyboard processor also handles the mouse and joystick
> as well as the time-of-day clock.  Keypresses are simple key-number
> depress/key-number+128 release codes, but there are also a couple
> dozen commands from the CPU that the keyboard understands, so we're
> not talking about a simple terminal interface here.
>
> It might be possible, if you're handy, to take a PC keyboard and a
> microcontroller and concoct what you require for the Mega4 with
> little more than a bunch of programming.  But I'll leave that
> exercise to you!

Hmmm... Sounds like cutting my floppy cable in two and trying to  
interface it with a standard PC floppy drive might be the easier  
approach. I was just trying to find a way that didn't involve  
destroying my only floppy cable. I figure as soon as I do that I'll  
find someone with a floppy drive and no cable and be sunk...