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[andrew]

Does the drive inside an M0130 work with a Lisa 2? I'm assuming it does, since it was released alongside the Lisa 2 with the 128K; presumably they all used the same drive. Long story short, my Lisa has lacked an actual floppy drive for far too long... I guess this seems like a stupid question as I type this out but I figure it would be good to check here first before dropping the money on one. :/

[blusnowkitty]

Yep, they're all Sony OA-D34Vs. There's nothing too special about the M0130, the cable just internally terminates to a standard 20-pin header.

[jamesdenton]

I don't see why it wouldn't. The 128k or 512k floppy drive should be OK, as well as the external 400k. You might reach out to VintageMicros, as he could have some drives hanging around.

Might also be worth looking at an 800k drive with an 800k ROM, or it might work OK with the 400k ROM, I'm not sure. Some other folks here may chime in and have more experience with that.

[andrew]

Does that 800K rom upgrade only work with certain LOS versions? If so, do incompatible versions only see it as a 400K drive?

[jamesdenton]

Does that 800K rom upgrade only work with certain LOS versions? If so, do incompatible versions only see it as a 400K drive?

Good question. I'll have to defer to @sigma7 on that one.

[sigma7]

Does that 800K rom upgrade only work with certain LOS versions? If so, do incompatible versions only see it as a 400K drive?

Good question. I'll have to defer to @sigma7 on that one.

Sorry --- I don't know anything about using 800K drives/ROMs with LOS (or the Workshop, or *nix)!

I think the "Universal" 400K/800K I/O board ROM might work with all environments when a 400K drive is attached (which means that if an 800K drive is not compatible, you could swap drives without swapping ROMs). However I don't recall if I've tested that.

[AlexTheCat123]

I've tried quite a few different floppy drive configurations over the years and from what I remember, the universal 400K/800K ROM works with all environments regardless of whether you have a 400K or 800K drive installed.

If you have an 800K drive installed in the system and your environment doesn't support double-sided disks, it will just behave like a 400K drive, so it shouldn't ever be necessary to install an actual 400K drive if you don't want to.

I'm not sure if an 800K drive works as a 400K drive with the standard 400K ROM installed, but from what little I now about the floppy interface, I don't see any reason why it wouldn't.

You do need a special driver to get full 800K disk support in LOS, but as I said before, an 800K drive will work just fine without the driver; you'll just only have access to 400K of the disk. I'm not sure if the driver works for all versions of LOS; I think it might only work with LOS 3.

[andrew]

So, it sounds like I can get away with just getting one of those 800K drive brackets and finding an 800K drive from a donor mac. It's definitely a cheaper solution, and later when I find a ROM I can just swap it out and get full functionality. I think I might even have a couple spare drives in a box somewhere. Can I take an 800K drive from any old mac?

[AlexTheCat123]

Can I take an 800K drive from any old mac?

Yep! Any 800K drive should work just fine.

[compu_85]

I can't say I've ever run anything earlier than LOS 3.1 on my my machines. I can say the updated 800k rom works great with LOS 3.1 and UniPlus+.

-J

[andrew]

I guess the only other question I have is where to actually find an 800K ROM. VintageMicros is out of them or at least isn't listing them anymore. I think I'm probably SOL until I can find someone who wants to sell one.

[compu_85]

Check the files section here!

https://lisalist2.com/index.php/topic,163.0.html

The original rom is UV erasable, so if you're not concerned about scratching off the sticker you can wipe it and flash with the updated code.

-J

[andrew]

So, XLSSDSM6. Is there a good tutorial for this process somewhere?

[jamesdenton]

So, XLSSDSM6. Is there a good tutorial for this process somewhere?

You'll need a ROM burner of some kind - I can't recall if these are 2716 or 2732. I have a TopMax II but you might be able to do it with something less expensive. I burned these ROMs for Ray this past summer. I'll look to see if I have any spares.

FWIW - If you have a FloppyEmu, you can connect it in place of the 400k drive and mount 400k and 800k disk images without a ROM change. At least, that's been true for me on my 2/5s and 2/10.

[compu_85]

I have a TL866A "MiniPro" programmer, which I've been very happy with. To wipe the roms, I normally use a keyboard UV sterilizing lamp.

-J