HARDWARE - A few words about the drives 5'25 and 3'5. Refinement of the Baltic. Falcon SounDrive.

<b>HARDWARE</b> - A few words about the drives 5'25 and 3'5.
Refinement of the Baltic.
Falcon SounDrive.


                HARDWARE



         (C) Falcon / Atlanta h.g.


   Hi everyone! I, Andrew, once again with you
Dear readers, ECHO, and offer a few notes, which I hope will 
interest you. Write to ECHO and ask questions on iron for 
ZX-SPECTRUM, and I as far as possible try to answer them. I 
would be grateful for the advance reports possible errors.


-----------------------------------------

           A few words about

          drives 5'25 and 3'5.


   Comrades contrived to connect themselves
second disk drive, we strongly recommend
put yourself 3'5-inch floppy drive. I
at least put himself, helped
connect to some of the friends and none of
We have not regretted this choice. By
At least in the exchange program with my friends 3'5 inch have 
been no cases of data loss or illegible discs. But I want to 
warn not helluva lot of savvy in this business friends

- Do not expect to be able to write to disk all of 1.44 Mb. 
Increase disk capacity in drives 5'25 (1.82 Mb) and 3'5 (1.44 
Mb) is not due to an increase of tracks on the disk - it all 
drives the same and standard and is equal to 80 (except, of 
course, drives a 360 Kb - its 40 tracks), and by increasing the 
number sectors (in MS-DOS on the IBM / PC, for example,

9 sectors per track of 15 sectors for
5'25 drives and from 9 to 18 in the drive
3'5). In our case, this path is impossible
because of inability to TR-DOS to adjust to the available 
HARDWARE. In addition, if the drives 5'25 at best on the board 
was a jumper that allows switching between 800 Kb and 1.2Mb 
(see article in the ECHO # 1), then 3'5 drives the definition 
of disk capacity automatically!



   A bit of history: the first model 3'5 drives were designed 
capacity of 720 Kb (Development of SONY in 1980), which 
appeared shortly drives designed for 1.44 Mb, for compatibility 
were equipped avtoopredelitelem type of floppy disk (since the 
disks at 720 Kb and 1.44Mb differ in the quality of the 
magnetic layer). 


   Avtoopredelitel represents
simple mechanical switch,
installed in the drive. In diskettes 3'5
inch high density (HD) on the left side there is a latch write 
protection, and opposite her, on the right - slotted hole (720 
Kb floppy disk such openings do not). To ensure efficiency 
drive should be carefully removed the top cover of the drive 
and lock mikrik (in case of it on the opening

just gently vypayat).


   3'5 drives require only
one power - 5 volts. Interface
connector, despite the external differences, is identical to 
the numbers of contacts with usual. It should be noted that 
modern model, some firms are available without

DIP-switch selection drive AC.
They are hard drives configured as A. This
conditioned standard from IBM to
connecting disk drives. To
simplify the connection of disk drives are available configured 
as a device A, and cord for the drive in your computer has 2

a pair of plugs. In each pair there is
a connector for disk drives 3'5 and one for
5'25. In the pinch line selection drives are connected as 
follows: A line drive to controller - on pins select the drive

A first pair of plugs, a line drive B
with controller - on pins select drive A second pair of plugs. 
Thanks this, any device connected to

the first pair of plugs will be chosen as
device A, and connected to the second pair of plugs - as B. In 
this case, you will need to transfer the relevant wire 
connector on the drive. Just in case will remind the pin 
numbers: 


       A - 10 C - 1914

       B - 12 D - 6

-----------------------------------------

            Refinement BALTICA.


   Tuning once the computer model
BALTIC and downloading ZX-BENCHMARK, was unpleasantly 
surprised. In a computer, the processor is overclocked to 4 
Mhz, test shows performance in the ROM of 91% (in RAM

Nevertheless, 99%!). For lack of time and desire did not 
elaborate scheme turbirovanie entire computer, and simple

Z80 can accelerate the ROM to 119%. For
This requires only 1 gate
IC 555 (1533) LL1.


      A broken communications 24 °
 D26 x D48
 Fe3 Z80
 (M)



              1

                  LL1 3


               2


  1 D38 2

    LN1


-----------------------------------------

         Coming soon from FALCON:

-----------------------------------------

           1.Falcon Sound Drive


   Soon one of the rooms ECHO for those wishing to build their 
own musical prefix (similar to Sound Drive, Azure Sound

Drive, etc.) will be published scheme
FALCON SOUND DRIVE.


   The advantages of this device:


   1. Competently make the connection
Chipset DAC delivers quality audio (in other music boards use a 
simplified connection chip DAC, which is why they are highly 
susceptible to interference). 


   2. Fully Buffered address bus and
Data bus (the developers of other boards, this
problem does not seem particularly worried about).


   3. A small number of buildings chips
(Sound Drive - 9 pcs., Azure Sound Drive -
11 pcs., FALCON SOUND DRIVE - 7, and 8 standard with built-in 
stereo amplifier 2 * 6 Tues). 


   Similarly Azure Sound Drive my board
emulates the work of other music boards and has a stereo 
output, ie 4 eight-channel DACs are grouped in 2

channel stereo (Azure Sound Drive though
touted as the board Quadrovyhodom,
actually is not, because
channels are grouped into a stereo output).

-----------------------------------------

             2. "Bright-eyed BYTES"


   Maybe soon for the owners 'byte'
(Perhaps in Belarus is the most
common SPECTRUM-compatible
computer) will come the best of times and they
able on their own machines normally run programs such as 
Vibrations, MicroEditor (which, actually, I

stuffed with the text (Best text processor!),
since I have PROFI) and others who
mercilessly inhibited the brakes on these cars.


   The first 'byte', which to me after a long
effort (or maybe someone has already done it
and I should not suffer?) managed sensibly disperse around 
after a year (worked this issue occasionally - on the mood) 
work on this issue: 


   12.07.1996 48 th diskless 'Byte' work, showing a ZXBENCHMARK 
test indicators in the performance RAM - 118% in the ROM - 
128%. Will now have to test 128-x disc machines, and test the 
repeatability and reliability of the circuit. 

-----------------------------------------
   Andrew Panyutich (FALCON / ATLANTA h.g.)


                 7.12.96

        phone (8-016-32) 2-13-90

Address:


   225140, Belarus

   Brest region., G.Pruzhany,

   st. Vashkevich, 4, kv.42

   Panyutich AB
-----------------------------------------

   From the Editor:


   The news that could finally
accelerate the 'Byte' gave us a lot of joy, because almost all 
the works in Brest 'Bytes' (including editing 'Echo') and

suffers huge inconvenience because of the small
velocity of these, in general, not bad, but
strongly tormoznutaya machines. We additionally
Falcon'om contacted and learned that the distillation of 128 
agricultural machines and was successful! True, not yet solved 
some problems of conflict overclocked 'byte' to drive, but 
hopefully that decision will be found and the owners 'bytes' 
finally be able to work properly with programs previously 
inhibited or simply do not worked.



      Read the following numbers Echo!


   By the way, we have a normal working
on a conventional 128-m 'bytes' Micro Editor, so
that if anyone needed-call. However, usually we use the 
IS-EDITOR'om or ZX-ASM'om.