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Neil Williams wrote: >On Sat, 27 Jan 2007 10:35:37 -0000 >"Ray Smith" <rayjsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > >>>>Has anyone got a working Amstrad PCW with 720K drive ? >>>> >>>> >>Not usually - Amstrad used their own diskette size (3.0 inch) - >>thicker and smaller than 5 1/4. You'd need to have an external >>"standard" floppy drive for the Amstrad to have used any normal >>diskette. It was the larger Amstrads that had standard 3.5 inch >>floppy drives. >> >>The amstrad 720k machines ran cpm using 3.5 inch disks. >> >> > >It turns out that there were two Amstrad PCW's with 720k, one with a >3.0 inch floppy drive and one with a 3.5 inch floppy drive. > >The 3.5 inch can be used with an emulator, the 3.0 inch need a custom >Amstrad drive. > >I expected that as Tom was looking for a "working PCW with 720k drive" >that he was looking for the 3.0 inch version that I knew from >University days. > >I had my dissertation on a set of 3.0inch Amstrad floppies - the OS was >on the floppy in the A: drive and the data on the double density B: >drive. Took almost a full day to print! I can't imagine entrusting such >important data to something as fragile as a floppy drive now but there >was no alternative available to undergraduates at that time. (I'm >feeling old!) > ># The PCW8512 or Joyce Plus (1985) came with 512 kB RAM and two 3-inch ># floppy drives, the second of which could store 720 kB on an 80-track ># double-density floppy without needing the disk to be turned over. > ># The PcW9256 (1991) had a modern, smaller case design similar to the ># 9512, but had 256 kB RAM, a single 3½-inch 720 kB floppy drive, a ># dot-matrix printer, and no parallel port. >(Wikipedia) > >Which disk do you have, Tom? > >-- > >Neil Williams >============= >http://www.data-freedom.org/ >http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ >http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/ > > Problem solved (via hard copy of CV) and (thankfully) finally finding the transcripts for my qualifications (its been 8 years since I last applied for a job). For those that where interested (on a now purely academic note) my disks where for a 3" model. Unfortunately my PCW8512 broke (floppy drive failure), due to drive belt (rubber band) perishing, so you see back in those days computers really did rely on rubber bands. I just couldn't be bothered to fix it in the end. I used mine during my college days for doing documentation. By some strange quirk of fate I went to work BEFORE I went to college. So I could afford a PC (8086) (Amstrad 1512) and the Amstrad PCW8512 I got while I was working. I would write code and test it on the 8086 then turn to the PCW to write documentation (before the days of virtual terminals / work spaces). Not bad for a Z80 chip and arguably function for function the locoscript software covered 90-100% of what people still require in a word processor today ..... It was woefully under spec even before it was released but it served a purpose - word processing, and developed quite a user base, church newsletters up and down the country where never quite the same again. Unfortunely this has triggered my reminiscing routine so you may wish to leave now..... For those that are (still ?) interested in the origins of the 3" drive and microcomputer 80's trivia .... The electronics industry in Japan where interested in standardising hardware (pre IBM PC) and came up with a project called MSX - the idea was that you could get your MSX system unit from Supplier A and buy an MSX joystick from Supplier B and it would all be compatible. It never caught on as the microprocessor market was very diverse and MSX was always crippled (because of the standardisation) in one way or another when compaired to other offerings (BBC Microcoputer, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, Amigas, Sinclair ZX / QL and Atari etc ... etc...). Anyway as a consquence of this the suppliers from Japan had a warehouse full of 3" drives nobody wanted. In walks Mr Sugar, buys the lot for a song and thus the 3" drive became default on CPC's and PCW's (up until PCW9512). However .... A couple of years later IBM decide to get into the Microcomputer market, kick starting the WinTel era and practically killing all diversity in the microcomputer industry, apart from Apple. Now even Apple use Intel CPU's. IBM was just another player in the market at the time, but because it WAS IBM their model became the Defacto Standard that we all love and hate today. And the rest is history ....... Tom. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html