09-30-2020, 06:06 PM
Hi,
I'm trying to image 3.5" floppies from a Tandy Portable Disk Drive (TPDD). It is an odd drive made by Brother for knitting machines that has an RS232 interface. The drive comes in two variations, the TPDD1 stores 100K on a single sided 3.5" DD disk and the TPDD2 stores a whopping 200K. I formatted a new 3.5" DS/DD disk on a TRS-80 Model 100 with an TDPP1. Then I wrote a few files to the disk and made sure I could read them back. So, I know I have a good source disk.
I then make a flux copy with disk type set to 'IBM 1.44', Copy Mode to 'Index'. If I tried to use and analyzer to look at the data from Head 0 it was fine but if I tried Head 1 the SCP software would crash with an 'Error 9 subscript out of range'. (I'm 90% sure that was the error anyhow.)
I then used the SCP to erase the disk, formatted it again on the TRS-80 Model 100 with the TPDD1 and wrote a few files to it. I then imaged this with the same settings. I can use the Analyzer on this image file without it crashing so I'm guessing the garbage it was reading form the new/raw disk from Head 1 was throwing things off and after erasing it with the SCP it was now reading all zeros which is OK because the TPDD1 only reads the bottom, Head 0, of the disk.
But even though the image was better it still does not work when written back to another new 3.5" DS/DD disk that I first erased on the SCP.
The drive is not a normal 3.5" drive. It uses a 6800 based MCU (RAM/ROM/UART built in) and a few other chips plus a very simple mechanism. It is also FM encoded. When researching how the thing worked I did stumble across a flux copier project, that I had never heard of before (Flux Engine), that says it can copy these disks with a standard PC drive so I'm guessing a flux copy is not impossible but rather it is just an odd duck and I don't have the SCP software set correctly.
Any help as to other things to try, other settings, etc. would be appreciated. The image I made of the working disk formatted on the TPPD1 is attached.
I'm trying to image 3.5" floppies from a Tandy Portable Disk Drive (TPDD). It is an odd drive made by Brother for knitting machines that has an RS232 interface. The drive comes in two variations, the TPDD1 stores 100K on a single sided 3.5" DD disk and the TPDD2 stores a whopping 200K. I formatted a new 3.5" DS/DD disk on a TRS-80 Model 100 with an TDPP1. Then I wrote a few files to the disk and made sure I could read them back. So, I know I have a good source disk.
I then make a flux copy with disk type set to 'IBM 1.44', Copy Mode to 'Index'. If I tried to use and analyzer to look at the data from Head 0 it was fine but if I tried Head 1 the SCP software would crash with an 'Error 9 subscript out of range'. (I'm 90% sure that was the error anyhow.)
I then used the SCP to erase the disk, formatted it again on the TRS-80 Model 100 with the TPDD1 and wrote a few files to it. I then imaged this with the same settings. I can use the Analyzer on this image file without it crashing so I'm guessing the garbage it was reading form the new/raw disk from Head 1 was throwing things off and after erasing it with the SCP it was now reading all zeros which is OK because the TPDD1 only reads the bottom, Head 0, of the disk.
But even though the image was better it still does not work when written back to another new 3.5" DS/DD disk that I first erased on the SCP.
The drive is not a normal 3.5" drive. It uses a 6800 based MCU (RAM/ROM/UART built in) and a few other chips plus a very simple mechanism. It is also FM encoded. When researching how the thing worked I did stumble across a flux copier project, that I had never heard of before (Flux Engine), that says it can copy these disks with a standard PC drive so I'm guessing a flux copy is not impossible but rather it is just an odd duck and I don't have the SCP software set correctly.
Any help as to other things to try, other settings, etc. would be appreciated. The image I made of the working disk formatted on the TPPD1 is attached.