400k floppy drive in a PowerPC?

[unity]

Silly question. And I have to ask, because I am not a fan of fried components! But can I put a 400k internal floppy drive in a PowerPC. Never mind actual fitment, I am curious about compatibility. I know MacOS 7.6.1 or earlier will be needed to even read the 400k single sided disks.

 

[techknight]

Nope. 400K drives require an RPM signal amount other things.

 

[uniserver]

silly question… what macs will the 400k drive work in?

pretty sure my 400k external works in all the macs with external floppy ports… but i could be mistaken…

 

[unity]

silly question… what macs will the 400k drive work in?
pretty sure my 400k external works in all the macs with external floppy ports… but i could be mistaken…

That was my next question! Lets say I have an SE, which came with dual 800k, and I want one to be a 400k cause I am weird.

 

[uniserver]

From what i remember, as long as the se still has the 800K IWM and not the upgraded FDHD superdrive SIWM.

but even then i am pretty sure i tried it with my SE/30 and it worked… but i would hate for you to cause damage to something.

 

[unity]

From what i remember, as long as the se still has the 800K IWM and not the upgraded FDHD superdrive SIWM.
but even then i am pretty sure i tried it with my SE/30 and it worked… but i would hate for you to cause damage to something.

Okay, I will look into it. I have 7 SE boards. Three have no ROMs or IWM chips. Three have an IWM from '82. The last one has an IWM from '88 (344-0062) and updated ROMs (342-0701/2) and the only board with a battery cage. So when my SE arrives I will play around to be sure. I also have 3 Plus motherboards to test drive. Looks like I will have to hunt down some empty cases!

 

[techknight]

As long as the powermac supports the legacy PWM/RPM functions.

 

[volvo242gt]

The last Macs that could use any auto-inject drive were the Nubus PowerMacs. I had a 7100/80 with the shell of a Centris 650 and an auto-inject Sony floppy drive inside. Worked fine. Now, whether or not the 400K drive is compatible, good question. The 800K drives probably would work, but you'd have to run 7.5.x or older to initialize disks as single-sided, IIRC.

-J

 

[unity]

The last Macs that could use any auto-inject drive were the Nubus PowerMacs. I had a 7100/80 with the shell of a Centris 650 and an auto-inject Sony floppy drive inside. Worked fine. Now, whether or not the 400K drive is compatible, good question. The 800K drives probably would work, but you'd have to run 7.5.x or older to initialize disks as single-sided, IIRC.
-J

The PowerMac I am trying this all out in is my 5215CD. 7.6.1 installed, will probably move down to 7.5.1 (the oldest it supports). This Mac has a an archive of all older systems and utilities for creating 400k disks on a second internal hard drive. I think I will try 800k drives and see what happens. I did try the 400k anyway - and everyone was right, no go. Powers up but does not spin up.

But I have an SE coming (dual 800k), so I may delegate that machine my new work horse for vintage floppy production. I have a spare 400k. For simple use, I may instal that drive in there and install an internal HD. Then I will see if it will run and recognize it as a 400k. I know its not needed to make 400k, just me being weird.

 

[Macdrone]

I write 400k disks on a color classic which uses 7.5.5. All the drives should be able to write the MFS for the disk. I use disk copy 4.2. At some point some of my files were messed with in disk copy 6 and I have to keep both on it and open with one to let 4.2 recognize it.

 

[volvo242gt]

The PowerMac I am trying this all out in is my 5215CD. 7.6.1 installed, will probably move down to 7.5.1 (the oldest it supports). This Mac has a an archive of all older systems and utilities for creating 400k disks on a second internal hard drive. I think I will try 800k drives and see what happens. I did try the 400k anyway - and everyone was right, no go. Powers up but does not spin up.

But I have an SE coming (dual 800k), so I may delegate that machine my new work horse for vintage floppy production. I have a spare 400k. For simple use, I may instal that drive in there and install an internal HD. Then I will see if it will run and recognize it as a 400k. I know its not needed to make 400k, just me being weird.

I'd probably leave the SE as is. If necessary, either use a ZFP case for a hard drive, or install an internal. The 800K drive will read/write MFS 400K disks no problem. Set it up with 6.0.8 or a light install of 7.1, and it should work fine.

Re: the 5215CD, I suspect it has the same controller chip as a 7200 or 7500, so it probably will just continually run the eject motor on the auto-inject Sony mechanisms.

-J