[rescue] SparcClassic floppy

[Mr Ian Primus]

--- On Fri, 10/31/08, Bill Green <bill at supposedly.org> wrote:

> Does anyone know if the lunchbox Sparcs (Classic,
> specifically) takes a
> standard 1.44 MB floppy drive and cable?  Mine won't
> recognize the only
> spare I have.  Does it need a special drive or is this
> drive just kaput?

They take a standard _Sun_ floppy drive, and a standard _Sun_ cable. You can, however, use a PC/clone type floppy drive. I have done it before, but I forget how exactly I did it. Try a straight through cable (or the "B" connector on a PC cable), setting the drive to DS0 (PC's use only DS1), and setting the disk change signal jumper.

You'll have to play with it, but it can be made to work. Of course, a PC drive doesn't have an auto-eject motor, and the lunchbox case has no provision for an eject button. But electrically, it can function.

-Ian