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From: dyer@atari.UUcp (Landon Dyer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: NEC Floppy Disk Drive at the Atari
Message-ID: <515@atari.UUcp>
Date: Wed, 14-Jan-87 14:01:38 EST
Article-I.D.: atari.515
Posted: Wed Jan 14 14:01:38 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 15-Jan-87 03:32:36 EST
References: <8701131708.AA08318@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Organization: Atari Corp., Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 26

>     I just bought a NEC FD 1036 A disk drive and I added it to my
> ATARI 1040 STF as a second disk drive.
> 
>     How do I have to modify the drive so that the media changes will
> be recognized? I'm pretty good in soldering, and I'm definitely not
> afraid of soldering on the disk drive's electronic board.

The floppy disk driver peeks at the write-protect status of each
floppy drive every few vblanks.  Atari floppy drives are spec'd
to return valid write-protect status all the time, whether the
drive is active or not.  The write-protect transition information
is used as an aid for detecting the removal of non-write-protected media.

Some drives (possibly including the one by NEC mentioned above)
return valid write-protect only when the drive is spinning.
You'll have to call the drive manufacturer, or find a schematic
somewhere.

-- 

-Landon Dyer, Atari Corp.		        {sun,lll-lcc,imagen}!atari!dyer

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