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1994-12-13
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Path: news.uh.edu!barrett
From: rigby@cs.unr.edu (Wayne Rigby)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews
Subject: REVIEW: AIR I3010HD internal high-density floppy drive for A3000
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Date: 13 Dec 1994 15:28:48 GMT
Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett
Lines: 307
Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator)
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <3ckejg$ssl@masala.cc.uh.edu>
Reply-To: rigby@cs.unr.edu (Wayne Rigby)
NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu
Keywords: hardware, floppy, high density, A3000, commercial
Originator: barrett@karazm.math.uh.edu
PRODUCT NAME
AIR I3010HD internal high-density floppy drive for the Amiga 3000
BRIEF DESCRIPTION
This is a Chinon FZ-357A high density floppy drive (the same type
Commodore used) packaged by AIR. It is meant to be used as an internal
floppy drive on Commodore Amiga 3000 series computers.
AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION
Name: Advanced Integration Research (AIR)
Address: 3006 North Main Street
Logan, Utah 84321
USA
Telephone: (801) 753-4947
LIST PRICE
I paid $139.95 (US) for each I3010HD.
SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
Requires at least AmigaDOS 2.1, i.e. Kickstart 2.04 or better and
Workbench 2.1 or better. This product also requires an Amiga 3000.
HARDWARE
An Amiga 3000 computer. This drive probably could be
mounted in an Amiga 3000T, 2000, 4000 or 4000T series
computer, but you would have to provide your own mounting
screws. A similar version is mentioned in the brochure
for the 2000 series computers.
SOFTWARE
AmigaDOS 2.1 or better; i.e., Kickstart 2.04 or better and
Workbench 2.1 or better. Works under AmigaDOS 3.1.
COPY PROTECTION
None.
MACHINE USED FOR TESTING
Amiga 3000-25, 2 MB Chip RAM, 4 MB Fast RAM
Maxtor 120 MB internal hard drive
Bernoulli The Box 150 removable media drive
MultiFaceCard III serial and parallel card
ZyXEL U-1496E 16.8 kbaud modem
IDEK Iiyama MF-5021 multisync monitor
Kickstart version 40.68 and Workbench version 40.42
And every possible combination of 2 AIR I3010HD 1.76 MB internal
floppy drives and my original Chinon FB-354 880 kB internal floppy drive.
INSTALLATION
[MODERATOR'S NOTE: If you are not comfortable opening up your
Amiga, then you should have the work done by an authorized Amiga
service center. Opening your Amiga yourself may void your warranty,
and careless work may even damage the machine. - Dan]
Installation can be either easy or rather laborious. I highly
suggest finding someone else to install these drives in your 3000, if you
can find someone who is willing to go through the trouble. Do not forget to
indicate to this person whether or not it is acceptable to cut away at the
front of your Amiga's case.
The so-called "easy" way, which is what I finally decided upon, is
to leave the cover to your 3000 off, permanently. This is not suggested in
many environments, as this leaves your computer open to anything that might
fall its way, such as dust, a fumbled glass of water, a heavy brick, and so
forth... all of which could possibly be quite harmful to your computer. And
it also leaves your Amiga's internals bare and defenseless from the casual
touch which may deliver a fatal static electricity discharge. I highly DO
NOT suggest this way of installing these floppy drives. Over the next
several months, I will be slowly installing the floppy drives the proper way
until I can close my 3000's case.
The laborious and somewhat difficult way of installing these floppy
drives, which also happens to be the correct way, requires some good use of a
metal file. The Chinon FZ-357A floppy drives in the AIR I3010HD package are
not as tall as the standard FB-354 floppy drives in most A3000's. Actually,
they are smaller in all dimensions than my original FB-354. This requires
the use of four metal spacers and long screws (both provided by AIR in the
package) to mount the floppy drive high enough to allow floppies to be
inserted through the plastic case front and into the drive mechanism.
However, these spacers are too tall. This requires, as stated in the basic
and slightly scrambled instructions, taking a metal file to the spacers to
file them down about 1/16th of an inch (approximately 1-2 millimeters). I
tried using several washers stacked up instead of filing away slowly at the
spacers. This worked great, except for the fact that I could not find any
washers with a small enough circumference to fit in the spare mounting
bracket in the 3000. This bracket is a U-shaped piece of metal. The sides
of the U go around the edges of the floppy drive. It is tight enough that I
would guess that I really do not need any screws to hold it in place, except
for the height problem. Unfortunately, the screw holes on the floppy drive
are so close to the edges that none of the hardware stores in my area
carried washers that would fit with room enough to allow the screws to go
through their centers and into the floppy. At this point, one can finally
push a floppy through a closed 3000's case and have it easily insert and
eject from the drive.
Now, however, there is a new problem not mentioned in the slim
instructions. Once the floppy drive is at the right height, the eject
button no longer fits through the 3000 case's eject button slot. The eject
button on the AIR I3010HD floppy drive is not the nice, contoured and wide
button on stock Amiga 3000 floppy drives. Rather, it is the standard
straight and fat eject button. This button ends up having its right edge
just a little beyond the right edge of the eject button slot. Its left edge
is less than half way across the slot. That is, these buttons are about half
the width of the standard 3000 floppy eject buttons. Also, the button is so
thick that it barely fits through the slot, if it were at the correct
height. In my case, I somehow have to file away approximately the top half
of the eject button and a little bit of its right side to get it to fit
through the eject button slot. It may be easier to cut away at the 3000's
case and enlarge the slot; however, I am not willing to do this.
Now another, more minor, problem is that the floppy's busy light is
not at the correct height to fit in the cover's light dimple. This is not a
big problem, but the LED (Light Emitting Diode) will get squashed, but will
still be viewable when the case is closed.
Now, some small details about what to name the floppy. In my case,
I bought two of these high density floppy drives and have one mounted as DF0
and the other as DF1. To accomplish this, there is a set of jumpers on the
back of the floppies. The settings are listed not only in the installation
instructions, but also on the back of the floppy drives, themselves. The
DF0 floppy drive has its jumper set to DS0, and the DF1 drive is set to
DS1. The DF0 drive goes on the end of the floppy cable, after the twist,
and the DF1 drive is attached to the middle of the cable. This puts DF0
nearest the power switch.
There is a jumper (J351) on the 3000's mother board, near the
daughter board slot, under where a Zorro card would be installed. In this
case, do not change the jumper. Leave it set to NODF1. Whenever one of
these high density floppy drives are in the DF1 position, this jumper should
always be set to NODF1. [MODERATOR'S NOTE: Strange but true! - Dan] If a
normal, double density floppy drive is to be DF1, then jumper J351 should be
moved to the DF1 position. If this is not done, then the system will not
recognize that a second floppy drive exists.
REVIEW
These drives work just fine. The first one that I received, however,
had a bad alignment problem. It would format neither double nor high
density floppies, failing on the higher numbered cylinders. After returning
this drive, I was sent back a replacement drive that worked just fine.
The drives handle double density floppies just like my original
double density floppy drive does. They can format, boot from, read, and
write standard Amiga 880 KB floppies with any filesystem (e.g., OFS, FFS,
FFS-International, FFS-DirCache, and so