MediaWiki:Sitenotice:
2025-12-29: I have restored the wiki to a backup from the end of November. Starting in September 2025, accesses went form the 800MB-1.2GB range per month to 26GB in September, 42GB in October, and 70GB in November with most accesses originating from China. As soon as I realized what was causing all the access problems in November, I shut it down (it had reached 36GB by then) behind a password/login screen. The database had gotten corrupted, and I tried a restore from just before the spike in access but that didn't work. Thus, end of November. I still have the other daily backups so if there were any important additions in December, let me know and maybe they can be recovered. - Allen H.
26-3022: Difference between revisions
Luis46coco (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
Luis46coco (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
||
| Line 12: | Line 12: | ||
The disk drive is a TEC (Tokyo Electric Corp.) (or Texas Peripherals?) drive mechanism unit encased in a gray-silver-colored enclosure, matching the exterior of the original CoCo (and other early TRS-80 machines and peripherals). The drive unit stands vertically, making it taller than it is wide, with a simple linear power supply and a 5.25" full-height, single-sided (in most cases), double-density, half-height (in most cases) floppy drive. The drive is capable of accessing about 37 tracks, so a 35 track limit was imposed in Disk BASIC. This resulted in a capacity of approximately 160 kilobytes per disk. | The disk drive is a TEC (Tokyo Electric Corp.) (or Texas Peripherals?) drive mechanism unit encased in a gray-silver-colored enclosure, matching the exterior of the original CoCo (and other early TRS-80 machines and peripherals). The drive unit stands vertically, making it taller than it is wide, with a simple linear power supply and a 5.25" full-height, single-sided (in most cases), double-density, half-height (in most cases) floppy drive. The drive is capable of accessing about 37 tracks, so a 35 track limit was imposed in Disk BASIC. This resulted in a capacity of approximately 160 kilobytes per disk. | ||
The drive unit has an AC power, power switch, | The drive unit has an AC power, power switch, fuse and power cord and in the front an activity LED. | ||
A captive (in most cases) ribbon cable exits the drive unit, terminated in a 34-pin card-edge connector which attaches to the controller pak. | A captive (in most cases) ribbon cable exits the drive unit, terminated in a 34-pin card-edge connector which attaches to the controller pak. | ||
Revision as of 06:57, 10 September 2012
| WELCOME |
|---|
| Looking for CoCo help? If you are trying to do something with your old Color Computer, read this quick reference. Want to contribute to this wiki? Be sure to read this first. This CoCo wiki project was started on October 29, 2004. --OS-9 Al |
See Recent Changes. | About this site. | Join the E-Mail List or Facebook Group. | Contact me with updates/questions.
This page was last updated on 09/10/2012. Total Pages: 747. Total Files: 997.
Controler
the 26-3022 Mini-Disk System was the first production release of a disk controller/drive for use with the original Color Computer.
The controller is based on the Western Digital WD1793. It features an analog data seperator circuit, infamous for its inherent unreliability and has multiple potentiometers which are used to calibrate various delay and timing features of the disk-side interface. It requires a +12 volt DC supply to operate, and is thus not compatible with a CoCo 2 or 3 unless a Multi-Pak Interface (or other source of +12V) is used or the CoCo or controller are "hacked", also contains the Disk BASIC ROM chip, and the necessary interface logic.
The 26-3022 controller is the only one capable of being modified (though with considerable difficulty) to allow use with high-density 3.5" floppy drives.
All subsequent controllers use the WD1773 controller chip, do not use the unreliable analog data separator, do not require +12V (so they will work with any CoCo model), and are capable of double-density operation only.
Drive
The disk drive is a TEC (Tokyo Electric Corp.) (or Texas Peripherals?) drive mechanism unit encased in a gray-silver-colored enclosure, matching the exterior of the original CoCo (and other early TRS-80 machines and peripherals). The drive unit stands vertically, making it taller than it is wide, with a simple linear power supply and a 5.25" full-height, single-sided (in most cases), double-density, half-height (in most cases) floppy drive. The drive is capable of accessing about 37 tracks, so a 35 track limit was imposed in Disk BASIC. This resulted in a capacity of approximately 160 kilobytes per disk.
The drive unit has an AC power, power switch, fuse and power cord and in the front an activity LED.
A captive (in most cases) ribbon cable exits the drive unit, terminated in a 34-pin card-edge connector which attaches to the controller pak.
Even though the drives and controllers were sold as packages, they can be interchanged almost universally.
These drives are not the most robust, and many that are out there are probably in need of work. (if they work at all)