Hi folks, summer is almost over and I'm still recovering from my "Sinclair Microdrive Nightmare" *1.
Dilwyn Jones wrote: > And if you plug a ZX Spectrum microdrive drive unit into the QL expansion > port there were several problems: > > 1. It faced away from you with a standard microdrive ribbon cable. You had > to fold and crease the short cable to make it face the right way. Earlier this summer I was playing with my ZX Microdrives to work with my QLs. See this PIC: https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=C250D8748980CE5A!4060 > 2. Spectrum microdrives would not format cartridges on a QL, though you > could usually read and write OK. I think there was a bit of a speed difference > IIRC, that Sinclair made changes to make QL drives work at higher capacity. Until late afternoon this Thursday I was unable to DIR, LOAD/SAVE/FORMAT using any of my ZX Microdrives with the QLs I've tried so far (4 ZX Microdrives with 4 QLs). See this PIC: https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=C250D8748980CE5A!4067 My first success was to use another ribbon cable. The one you'll see on the PICs seems to be bad as when trying to use it with the good working ZX Spectrum system, the Microdrive no longer works. > 3. I never got to try this, but apparently if you strung six of those to the QL > expansion port, the whole microdrive system would fail if you accessed > MDV8_ - this is a "feature" of QDOS which Simon Goodwin documented in > his rom bugs articles. Two more ZX Microdrives needed here to be able to verify this. *1 "The Sinclair Microdrive Nightmare" is a 13 episodes video production which was released in June/July 2012. Watch it on my YouTube channel (use link in the footer below). Cheers, Urs ---------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.youtube.com/QLvsJaguar Sinclair, QL, ATARI, JAGUAR, NUON, APPLE & more... Videos, pictures & background information _______________________________________________ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
