| Creator: Matt |
| Date: 2004-08-08 |
Rating:  |
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Description
Five years ago !mURx and I tried to build an adapter cable to connect a standard 3.5" floppy disk drive to the Schneider CPC6128. This was actually the first mod that was shown on this website (read it here).
Unfortunately it didn't work because the pin-out of the cable was wrong. I made a second try with a 5.25" drive later which failed, too. After that, the project was practically dead.
Luckily I recently found a working tutorial in a newsgroup. Of course I had to try it and after some modding the 3.5" drive finally worked! Most of the old Basic programs could be saved that way but a few floppy disks were damaged due to their age. At least most of them still work after 20 years, now that's quality! |
 | This is the correct pin-out of the adapter cable. For the CPC6128 a 36pin centronics connector is required and for the CPC664 a PCB connector for 5.25" FDDs.
It is important to solder the wires 33 and 34 (READY) together. It is recommended to solder a switch between wires 31 and 32 so the second side of the 3.5" disk can be used (the CPC has only one head, it's disks have to be flipped). |
 | These are the finished cables and the drive. Be careful with the flat cable connectors, the clips break off easily (the reason for the hot glue). I used a crossed cable here (for drive A:), it's better to use a 1:1 cable. To protect the drive from dust I duct-taped the openings. |
 | The 5V supply of the floppy disk drive was taken on by a Swisscom DNG power supply. |
 | This is the primary 3" floppy disk drive of the CPC. It has some constructional defects, the drive belt gets worn out often or falls off. This forces you to tediously open the drive and replace the belt. |
 | The CPC6128 with external 3.5" drive, ready for copying data.
To do that start the CP/M OS from a disk, the programm PIP can be used to copy the data. You can only use 3.5" disks formatted at 720 KB (tape second hole on HD disks).
To store the data on your PC the programs CPDRead and CPDWrite for DOS come in handy. Check out www.amstrad.org for more info (it's in French). |
 | Although the 3.5" floppies are not designed for the CPC you can access the data as if they were CPC floppies. To format them for the CPC just write a blank DSK image using CPDWrite. |
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