FDC+ Question

Discuss construction, troubleshooting, and operation of the Altair 8800c computer

FDC+ Question

Postby toml_12953 » February 12th, 2019, 12:51 am

I have two Shugart 800 drives hooked up to the FDC+ card in my 8800c with a straight-through 50 pin cable. If I select drive type 1 as the manual says, the preliminary test in the Altair disk drive manual fails (page 118). If I select drive type 0, the test passes. Is the FDC+ manual wrong or is my setup weird?
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Re: FDC+ Question

Postby AltairClone » February 12th, 2019, 11:04 pm

No, the FDC+ manual is not wrong, drive type 1 is definitely direct connect to Shugart 8” drives.

You’ll have to be more specific about what you mean by “fails.” If you single step through that code as specified in the manual, there are actually four test points that occur that can pass or fail. What are you seeing (and hearing) at each of those steps for the the drive type 1 switch setting?

Mike
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Re: FDC+ Question

Postby toml_12953 » February 13th, 2019, 5:14 pm

AltairClone wrote:No, the FDC+ manual is not wrong, drive type 1 is definitely direct connect to Shugart 8” drives.

You’ll have to be more specific about what you mean by “fails.” If you single step through that code as specified in the manual, there are actually four test points that occur that can pass or fail. What are you seeing (and hearing) at each of those steps for the the drive type 1 switch setting?

Mike


Ugh! I was setting the wrong switch! (new glasses? old age?) It works fine with drive type 1. The Shugart SA800 drives really ARE easy to interface.
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