1. Forum
  2. Usenet
  3. COMP.OS.CPM

  • MFM to IDE Adapter

    From gulgul2006@21:1/5 to BrightFame on Sat Jun 19 11:55:24 2021
    On Thursday, February 24, 2011 at 9:00:39 AM UTC-5, BrightFame wrote:
    I have a CompuPro 816 System with a Q540 MFM 40 Meg HD that is getting
    shaky. Sure would like to be able to use an IDE of which I have
    several that would work. Maybe Someone will consider creating a MFM to
    IDE Adapter Board that would insert between the MFM Cables and the IDE
    Drive. I'm sure there is a lot of Older CP/M machines out there that
    would benefit.
    Bob in Wisconsin


    Really what you should seek is either full emulation in an MFM card or a PCI compliant MFM adapter.

    If you could hook up your MFM drive to a more modern system this would solve a lot of your problems.
    Extracting data being the goal, you mount the drive in any OS you want... linux perhaps.. and get the data off onto that PC's local storage or over the network or to USB..etc.

    This has been done by the way... https://hackaday.com/2018/10/10/recovering-data-from-a-vintage-mfm-drive/

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Peter Higgins@21:1/5 to All on Sat Jun 19 22:40:52 2021
    Since "gulgul2006" has brought back to life this discussion started by "Bob in Wisconsin" back in February 2011...

    Bob started this discussion because he wanted a solid state replacement for the aging Quantum Q540 connected to his CompuPro 816 system. The easiest way to do that now (which didn't exist back in 2011) is to use the DREM MFM drive emulator - it can
    easily be configured to emulate the Q540's geometry, and directly supports the drive format generated by the CompuPro Disk3 MFM drive controller. The only setup required is to create an blank file on the DREM's SD card equivalent in size to the formatted
    capacity of the Q540, and to modify a configuration file on the same SD card to specify "CompuPro Disk3 format" - from that point, it is "plug and play". See https://www.drem.info/

    On Saturday, June 19, 2021 at 11:55:25 AM UTC-7, gulgul2006 wrote:
    On Thursday, February 24, 2011 at 9:00:39 AM UTC-5, BrightFame wrote:
    I have a CompuPro 816 System with a Q540 MFM 40 Meg HD that is getting shaky. Sure would like to be able to use an IDE of which I have
    several that would work. Maybe Someone will consider creating a MFM to
    IDE Adapter Board that would insert between the MFM Cables and the IDE Drive. I'm sure there is a lot of Older CP/M machines out there that
    would benefit.
    Bob in Wisconsin

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)