ScuzzBlog: Diaries March 2019
Entry 13th March 2019: Post 01: Power Computing - XL Drive
Power Computing - XL Drive
Ok so I spent a load of dosh on my Amiga, monitor, memory expansion
card etc etc plus my Vidi Amiga software and I was about ready to
start mucking around with animations and picture grabs. Having
created my first animation I was keen to save it to floppy so I
didn't lose my work. ' What-a-mistaka-to-make '. You gotta be
kidding me. With the expanded memory I never once thought about the
actual file sizes. Wouldn't fit on the floppy.
So I hot footed next day to my computer shop and they did have a
giggle at my request for a bigger floppy so I could save my files.
I was so dismayed that day. Later on I was reading my favourite
Amiga magazine and happened across the advert from Power Computing
and their very wonderful XL Drive. Cost me close on £100 in the
day.
From that moment on I rarely ever used the internal floppy and DD
disks, favouring instead my HD disks. It got better cus I was then
able to interrogate PC based floppy disks.
Interestingly you would never be able to distinguish the XL floppy
drive with the bigger capacity with a normal floppy drive cus
Power Computing never put any markings on the drive. This has lead
me to check every floppy drive that I have ever acquired to see
if it supported the HD disks. In all the drives I have got over
the years only one drive was the bigger capacity. I have four of
the XL drives plus the HD drives on the A4000s so I have quite a
few options.
The HD drives lasted for quite a while before they were replaced
with ZIP drives. Once I could store stuff on ZIP I kinda lost my
interest in the floppy as a form of storage. It really never was
very successful... even though I have over 13000 DD disks.
As for HD disks I do have a healthy catalogue of my own files from
the era still stored on HD disks, though I really never refer to
them as I have everything on CD. Capacity for storage just kinda
evaporated in the early 2000s when CD writers became more common.
To run the HD XL Drive you have to patch the start-up by calling
the HDPatch from the C folder on boot. Once done you can set up a
PC1 drive with a specific tool in your DOSDrivers drawer in DEVS
so the Amiga can recognise PC based disks. This can be further
enhanced by customising DOpus to read the varying drives. Just
remember to have CrossDOS in the L drawer and refer to this from
the PC1 tool type.
Power Computing were my favourite one stop shop for everything
Amiga in the day. If I needed anything it would be the first place I
would look. I believe they are still in business.
Anyway some images of my HD world. Disk failure with HD disks was
always higher than with DD disks. Not sure why, but maybe poor
quality products can be the reason. Really don't know.
Interestingly I still have my last pack of DD disks I ever bought
unopened... Kinda says a lot about the plight of the floppy disk.
Power Computing - XL Drive
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