| ★ HARDWARE ★ LECTEURS DE DISQUETTES ★ TIMATIC SYSTEMS 5'' 1/4 DISC DRIVES FOR AMSTRAD ★ |
Timatic disc drives - The Bigdisk (Amstrad Action) | New Timatic disc drives for Amstrad (Popular Computing Weekly) |
Timatic Systems has released two makes of 5"¼ inch second disc drives as add-ons for the Amstrad computers. based around standard Pace switchable 40/80 track drives with the appropriate interfaces and driving software. The Timatic Bigdisc for the CPC range fits exactly the same way as a normal second drive - a ribbon connects to the computer and the drive has its own power supply. The first advantage over the normal drive is that the software allows you to get a much higher capacity out of the discs -under CP/M 2.2 or Amsdos. and of course CP/M Plus, you can use 80-track single sided discs to get 400K of formatted storage per floppy Under CP/M Plus only a maximum 800K of formatted storage is possible using 80-track double-sided discs. Before it can be used in either of these modes a small program has to be run to install the drive. The other big advantage is that because inch is such a standard disc size you are half way to being able to read/write discs from other makes of computer. You can fit the discs into the drive, the only obstacle to using them is the probable difference in formats. A formatted disc has been divided into a number of segments, like pieces of an orange seen in cross section. To find a given program the computer looks up in the directory which tracks and which segments the file is held in. Unfortunately there is almost no common standard in disc formats over CP/M machines and the number of segments varies enormously. Traditionally the standard way of transferring information from one make of machine to another has been via an RS232 serial link, a process that logically shouldn't be difficult but can cause endless headaches. However even if you have the required interfaces and software it is only a viable option if you have both computers together in one room or can organise a modem link - what about the business users who want to bring some work home from the office to their own machine? The Timatic drive comes supplied with some format options and utilities that will allow you to read and write 40-track IBM CP/M 86 format and also some more obscure alternatives. An optional extra is a program called Chameleon that will make many more CP/M computer formats open to you. It is extremely simple to use and can program either drive A or drive B intoa variety of formats {although only drive B is 40/80 switchable). Once installed the data can be accessed and altered as much as you wish (as long as you also have a program that can make sense of it for example). Also supplied are some disc utilities including alternatives to Pip Dir.Com and Disckit to make backing up simpler from the large capacity drives. The PCW 8256 version is an alternative to the 3 inch second disc drive that is many times simpler to fit yourself than the official one - you do have to remove the back of the computer, invalidating your guarantee no doubt, but all that has to be done is to thread the disc drive cable out through the hole in the case where the printer plugs in - there seems to be sufficient room to do this without worrying about squashing the cable when it is all re-assembled. The only tricky part is getting the screws out of the back of the PCW. The Timatic drive rests to the side of the computer next to the printer and again has its own in built power supply, although it does slightly spoil the one plug simplicity of the machine A major plus to Timatic was that the thing came with power plug already fitted. Owners of an 8512 will know that the large capacity second drive really comes into its own when you are running some of the top of the range CP/M software - an 800K disc lets you store a huge database or almost a book from your wordprocessor rather than a chapter or two. Alternatively you could have Newword, the spelling checker, and a large document all together on one disc making life very simple indeed Some programs such as dBase really need this capacity to work properly at all. The PCW disc drive does not come supplied with a choice of formats as the CP/M software is already set up to drive it at 800K double sided storage. However you can again buy Chameleon to allow you to play with lots of different formats. Both disc versions are also supplied with a special MSDOS file transfer utility. It doesn't exactly let you read an MSDOS disc but files can be transferred onto an ordinary Amstrad format disc and used from there, and of course you can send them back again This feature may obviously become particularly important when Amstrad releases its PC but will already be of value tor people who are using an IBM at work with, say. Wordstar or Newword. In the past it has been a fashionable thing to do to attack Amstrad for its choice of 3 inch drives because they are nonstandard'. etc. Whatever really was Amstrad's reason for the choice I find myself fully supporting them - the 3 inch CF2s are almost indestructable compared to 5£ inch floppies and even 3£ inch ones and they strike me as being perfect for the average home user. Also judging by the price cutting that was going on at the last Amstrad show any shortage of the 3 inch discs is now over with. However they are still extremely expensive compared to the inch size, and in particular the double density type for use with the one megabyte drive of the PCW cost an absolute fortune. Using Timatic's drive may therefore pay for itself eventually in saved disc costs, although my distrust of the floppies would make sure I used 3 inch ones for backups. Given the other benefits available as well I would suspect that this is an add-on that is hard to resist for those who need a second drive. Tony Kendle , Popular Computing Weekly (86-07-24) |
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