Yay, now I need some Osborne boot media!

tony duell ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk
Mon Nov 24 13:12:19 CST 2014


> > If you can make a real DEC RX02 unit do anything useful with a PC type
> > '1.2M' disk then I feel like saying I will eat one. The RX02 drive. It's
> > a dual 8" unit...
> 
> My mistake!
> 
> BUT, couldn't a "1.2M" 5.25" drive be cabled to the DEC?
> Those diskettes might be slightly easier to find blanks than 8"

Not easily. The RX02 drive unit contains a PSU, a pair of 'bare' drives (no electronics, just the 
motors, heads, track 0 and index sensors, etc), a R/W board (which links to both drives) and a 
controller board (full of AMD 2900 ICs). The interface between controller and R/W board is 
similar to a normal floppy drive interface, but by no means identical (I seem to remember
gotchas like having 2 pulses on one of the lines to move the heads one track).

Even if you could, you would want to use 600 Oestedt disks...

-tony




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