Article-I.D.: amiga.321
Posted: Fri Nov 22 13:51:39 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 24-Nov-85 07:15:38 EST
References: <233@mips.UUCP>
Reply-To: bruceb@hunter.UUCP (Bruce Barrett)
Distribution: net
Organization: Commodore-Amiga Inc., 983 University Ave #D, Los Gatos CA 95030
Lines: 39

In article <233@mips.UUCP> kim@mips.UUCP (Kim DeVaughn) writes:
 > 
 > Does anyone have any experience/recommendations on the advisability
 > of turning the external 3.5" disk-drive on its side (so the slot is
 > vertical) in order to save some space?  Same question on the 5.25"
 > drive?
	Bill Kolb, one of our chief hardware people (sorry I'm not
very good about remembering titles in this environment) says (I paraphrase):
	"There is no reason I know of that placing our floppy drives
	vertically should cause a problem.  This applies to both 3.5 and
	5.25 drives."

	Several people around here have placed their 3.5" drives vertically.
The only "problem" I have noticed is that when you press the eject button
it can shoot the diskette across the room (well, in a small room :-))
I've *never* seen anybody try the 5.25" drives vertically.

 > BTW, anyone know who's drives Amiga uses?
	
	Again from Bill:
	"3.5 inch = Nec or Matsushita.
	5.25 inch = Alps"

=-=-=-=-=-=- O T H E R   I M P O R T A N T   N O T E S -=-=-=-=-=-=

1) You can *not* just buy a generic drive (either type) and plug it
	in to your Amiga!  There is a little "front-end" board that
	we place between the cable and "generic" drive.  It has to 
	do with our drive selection scheme.

2) They connect using a DB-23 (somewhat rare, but availability should
	be improving).

3) NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER Yank the cardboard shipping "restraint"(?)
	out of a 3.5" drive.  NEVER.  The correct way of getting this 
	thing out is to press the "eject" button.
	There have been reported cases that removing this "protector"
	(by force) and then attempting to "jam" a diskette into a drive
	that is already in the "I've-got-a-diskette-in-me" state.