★ HARDWARE ★ LECTEURS DE DISQUETTES ★ GIVING YOUR AMSTRAD THAT EXTRA DRIVE ★ |
| Lecteurs Externe - Pace Disc Drive | Hardware Lecteurs De Disquettes |
David Wallin weighs the pros and cons of addinq a second 5¼ inch disc drive to your PCW. The PCW machines have now gained credencc as fully fledged computers as opposed to electric typewriter sub stitutes So it s no surprise that the conventional peripherals have begun to appear for them
One of the obvious addons for a PCW8256 is the addition of a second disc drive While you can upgrade to a second 3 inch drive through Amstrad itself, you can also opt for a 5¼ inch drive through several manufacturers, including Pace Micro Technology The cost of different drives is about the same, but adding a 5¼ inch drive to your PCW set up has some not immediately apparent advantages. Moulded in cream coloured plastic the drive is strong enough to support the monitor of the 8256, yet light enough to carry around by hand The entire unit has just two switches, an LED and a catch One switch ts an On/Off switch, the other a 40/80 track select The LED shows when the drive is in use (as does the drive A LED) and the catch locks the disc in place releasing it when opened (again, as does drive A s) simplicity itself as is the manual. Consisting of a single folded piece of A4 card one page tells you how to plug the drive in and format discs and the other how to use TDOS (more in a minute). The six stages to connecting the drive are easy to follow initially you are told to lay the monitor face down on a flat surface. I found the best surface to be a firm mattress as it has a small amount of give in it Having removed the rear of the case, you have to locate the internal second drive ribbon (with the case open it will stare you m the face). This has to be fed out of the case, through the same slot as the printer interface emerges from. The unit is reassembled and the end to the cable connected to the cable on the disc drive A five minute operation if that (it can be a bit fiddly to get the cable through the case). The power lead has to be plugged into the mains, and it even comes complete with its own plug The drive is now ready to use You have to switch the drive on before turning the computer on otherwise the computer does not know it's there. This is useful when you want drive B to be drive A, as it were. With the 80/40 track select set to 80. each disc can be formated for 800K with Disckit (some users may have an old version ol CP/M and if this is you. you need to gel the latest version The old version does not recognise second drives properly I did have this trouble, but Pace knew exactly what to do the upgrade is free on return of the original disc). The second page of the manual is about TDOS COM TDOS.COM is supplied on a inch 80 track disc Once loaded, it will enable you to transfer MSDOS or PCDOS tiles lo CP/M once compatible with the Amstrad You cannot run MSDOS or PCDOS programs, but you can use data created under those DOSs. For example, a test file created on an Amstrad PC 1512 could be converted to a text file on the 8256 but the text editor used on the PC cannot be converted tor the 8256. Even (lies such as Wordstar ones with control codes can be converted lo CP/M without corrupting the codes. Therefore a Wordstar file created on a PC 1512 can be converted to a Wordstar PCW file and all the control codes will still be there OS change (Operating System change) of a file is the only lime when the 40/40 track switch will need switching to 540 tracks as most IBM machines use 40 tracks. Do not forget to switch back! I had just one problem with the drive. The discs can be very temperamental. The PCW manual advises that you do not switch the computer off with a (3 inch) disc in the drive In reality this rarely has any ill effect. With 5¼ inch discs it can be a far greater problem. Overall, I consider the drive to be worth while as well as economical for a user with lots of discs It's priced very competitively with other 5¼ inch drives, comes with reasonable software and is remarkably easy to fit and use. The On/Off switch I consider to be invaluable and the fact that the interface is housed in the case with the drive means there's no awkward filling as with some drives Highly recommended - I don't know whal I'd do without it.
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