New to forum - hello

[XorA]

Isnt a centronics style connector on a floppy highly likely to be an Amstrad CPC drive?

[dilwyn]

Pretty sure there were drives like this for the SAM Coupe computer (made by Miles Gordon Technology). Although I had one in the dim and distant past, I never had an external disc drive for it. There were internal drives and an external one. This might not be the exact one in this link, but it might give clues as to what it eventually turns out to be:

https://www.worldofsam.org/products/ext ... -interface

[ScottC2024]

The ROM Pack is the Lightning SE

Internally:

[ScottC2024]

It's this:

https://www.envytech.co.uk/mgt/

MGT Lifetime

[dilwyn]

I get an error message when I try to access that site:

envytech.co.uk

[dilwyn]

But here's a manual for it. See page 13 for QL connection details.

MGT Lifetime Drive Manual.pdf

MGT Lifetime Drive manual

(2.54 MiB) Downloaded 94 times

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

The Disk Drive needs a WD1772 Disk Controller chip, which is located on a QL expansion board, which is not present.

The Disk Drive Data connection which is usually 34 way IDC cable connection, but the extenal connector is a 25D Socket, so the Miracle SERial to Parallel Interface, maybe just plugged into the Disk Drive data socket, because it fits. The Miracle board connects to a parallel port printer.

The interface board inside the Disk Drive does not have a Disk Controller and only 2 IC chips, which maybe only doing something to provide disk drive selection via a DIP switch.

If I am wrong about this this, I would like to see the device driver that performs Serial to Floppy disk transfers, never seen on a QL.

[ScottC2024]

Internet archive for link https://web.archive.org/web/20070608002 ... umentation

Thanks for all of the info!

It currently is just connected using the centronics card to the serial so i guess that must be wrong then and i need the interface card?

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi

Thank you for the extra information, which in the connector section details the of the 36 pin Centronics style socket and needs a special cable for connection to the QL Disk Interface and the DIP switch set for QL.

The Connector on the Disk Drive is wired for connection to a disk Interface, not a printer interface.

You will a Disk Interface for the QL and the custom cable.

If you need a cable I can make if required.

The Miracle SER-Parallel adapter connects into SER1 on the QL and connects to a parallel port printer or Retro Printer unit.

[bwinkel67]

Here's the QL page from the manual just to affirm what Derek had been saying. So to the QL it's just a plain old disk drive that needs an interface. It would have been curious if it did all this through a serial port via the Miracle Systems interface.