UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Discussion Forum - View Single Post - Using 5.25-inch BBC Micro Floppy Drive with a PC

JohnBHanson · 9th Aug 2019, 12:10 am

You might need to check/jumper the correct use of pin 34. On the IBM-PC this is disk change. Most non PC systems use pin34 as a ready signal.

Older drives usually have a jumper to select this. New drives are usually for a PC and have pin 34 as disk change. As your drives started on the BBC micro they will be set for READY and need to be changed to DISK CHANGE. There is probably a jumper to do this.

I also think that the PC uses a stepping rate of 3ms for 80 track drives and 6ms for 40 track drives. Some BBC drives might not be able to step at this speed.

9th Aug 2019, 12:10 am	#6
JohnBHanson Heptode Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Worthing, Sussex, UK. Posts: 662	Re: Using 5.25-inch BBC Micro Floppy Drive with a PC You might need to check/jumper the correct use of pin 34. On the IBM-PC this is disk change. Most non PC systems use pin34 as a ready signal. Older drives usually have a jumper to select this. New drives are usually for a PC and have pin 34 as disk change. As your drives started on the BBC micro they will be set for READY and need to be changed to DISK CHANGE. There is probably a jumper to do this. I also think that the PC uses a stepping rate of 3ms for 80 track drives and 6ms for 40 track drives. Some BBC drives might not be able to step at this speed.