Re: CBM Drive Mechanisms

From: William Levak (wlevak_at_cyberspace.org)
Date: 1999-08-12 21:19:57

On Thu, 12 Aug 1999, Nicolas Welte wrote:

> Aha, I had a look at the schematic for those drives and you probably
> mean the input at pin 14 of CN6 or P6. You're right, this input is
> somewhat connected to an optional circuit, but this is not related to a
> track 0 sensor. As I understand that circuit, it will activate the
> spindle motor for some seconds each time it is triggered by a disk
> change signal. This disk change signal can either be generated by the
> write protect sensor (J3 closed) or by an extra disk change sensor at
> pin 14 of CN6 (J4 closed), but I've never seen a drive with that extra
> sensor or the optional circuit.

Not to mention that J4 is open so that it won't work anyway.

> Pin 6 of connector P5 carries the TR0 input to the PA0 input of VIA UC1,
> via two inverters of UC6. The signal can be disabled by J3, which
> enables a permanent connection to GND.
 
> It does go somewhere, it's visible in the schematics. And it works, a
> real 1541B/C drive with J3 open makes use of the sensor and doesn't
> rattle the head on a disk format or error anymore.

I missed that circuit.

So, the 1541B/1541C can use a drive with track 0 sensor.

But this does not make the drive electrically incompatible as Commodore
claimed.  If your drive doesn't have a track 0 sensor, you just close J3.
If you use a drive with a track 0 sensor on a board that doesn' support
it, it doesn't matter as it isn't connected to anything.



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