Subject: ADAM Disk Drives

Thought I would give you guys an update on my current ADAM disk
drive situation...

I am currently at home in Dothan, Al, where I located my set of
schematics for the ADAM drive controller, and it appears that the
controller could indeed be damaged (the microcontroller, not the
disk controller itself). There's a separate pin used to select 
the side of the disk, and I suppose if that's not working, it 
won't switch sides correctly. I'll drag out my logic probe and 
watch it once I get back to huntsville.

I also had an interesting idea about possibly using the Commodore
1541/1571 disk drives on the ADAM. This would be advantageous as
the Commodore drives are in readily available and affordable. 
This would of course require modification to the drives to make 
them work, but I think that it might be an easy way for every 
ADAM owner to have a working disk drive.

*Geoff!*


EDITOR'S NOTE: As strange as it seems at first glance, Geoff may
just have something here. The basic ADAM disk drive is no diff-
erent than an original ibm except for the way the controller 
board operates.  i.e. it reads an ibm formatted 180k disk (in 
TDOS) and can even write directly to it.  Commodore mice can be
easily adapted to work with the ADAM and Powerpaint (I have done
it!)  Mark Gordon used generic ibm drive units in his products 
along with the correct controller hookup.  There is NO reason
that almost any computer disk drive can't be adapted to the ADAM
al slong as someone can figure out HOW!    GO TO IT GEOFF!!!!  
Necessity IS the mother of invention !!!  


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