The SATA to USB cables are starting to fail.
So, don't buy these cables. I picked up some one from StarTech, which is usually a very good company. We'll see what happens.
The good news is that I simply need to see what drive isn't working and unplug it. Then plug in the new cable. Then reboot the Pi and I'm done.
So the new floppy controller chips arrived. No go.
But this time it got worse. I reseated and cleaned all the socketed chips and now it doesn't even self-test.
I did try a test where I replaced the Z80 in it with the Z80 from one of my RC2014, and put the Osborne Z80 into an RC2014. Nothing.
What I believe happened is this: The Osborne was stored for many years in a poor environment and the chips have gone bad. My reseating them was sort of the last straw and they gave up.
So the plan is to reassemble it just to keep it together. Then I'll research what it would take to interface the display in it to my RC2014Pro and maybe install the RC2014Pro into the Osborne case. That would be cool and still be fairly true to the system.
Well, that took a bad turn.
I pulled the floppy controller chip. It was pretty tarnished. According to people, the pins are silver plated and, therefore, tarnish.
So I pulled the chip and used a soft wire brush and removed the tarnish.
But still no boot.
Someone else said that I needed to replace the socket. Another use for the Hakko desoldering tool I got for my birthday!
The socket replacement went smooth. No problems. I had an extra socket that fit the floppy controller chip perfectly.
But I got it assembled enough to test and now it doesn't pass the self-test.
I checked everything over. No solder bridges. No bad solder points that I can see.
Perhaps the floppy controller chip is really bad and now the system can see it. Cross my fingers. I get the replacement chips later this week.
A few weeks ago, I picked up an Osborne Executive.
If you don't know the term The Osborne Effect, check out the link. This is the computer that was involved in that mess.
At first, it looked good. It booted to a "Insert disk into A: and press Enter", but none of the boot media that I picked up with it worked. So on eBay I got some.
In the mean time, I dismantled it and cleaned it. I knew it was going to be dirty, but I didn't realize that the guy who owned it decided to keep it in his "man barn". A sealed, but not heated/cooled "garage" in the back yard. I'm surprised that it still even powered up without blowing something.
So my boot media arrived and still no go. I keep getting the Boot Error (meaning that something's wrong reading the floppy drive).
So it's back in many pieces again.
I tried switching the floppy drives. No go.
I checked the cable for damage. Nope.
I had already cleaned the drive and the heads, but I put my head cleaner in and did that. Still nothing.
Now focusing on the floppy controller.
More in part 2 later.
Sorry for the ramble, but I did a lot of driving yesterday and had time time to think. I got to wondering what the point of all this lockdown BS is from Whit-less.
It's unsupported by the science and very unpopular.
Now, we all know that Whit-less is egotistical tyrant, but even tyrants usually don't do something just to feed their egos. There's always some point behind it. So I got to wondering what the point is.
She's not getting re-elected in 2020. That's almost a certain at this point. The fact that the crazies are going after her demonstrate that the pressure she's putting on the population is getting too high. She's put too many people out of work and caused too many businesses to close.
Could she be trying to suppress the vote? Most people voting Republican don't trust the USPS to do their job (rightly so) and deliver the ballots on time (if at all). So those people will be voting in person. If anything, she's suppressing the Democrat vote. That leads to the question: Is she trying to de-legitimize the election? Claiming that due to problems, that the Republican candidates really didn't win.
But the Democrats have been playing the long game for a long time now. They've taken over the Media and the schools and have been indoctrinating generations of people. I think that everything that they are doing isn't for the next few years, but to set things up for the next few decades.
(Side note: the theory that Pelosi's 25th Amendment tactic really isn't against Trump but against Biden. She sets it up now that people aren't thinking along those lines to make it more plausible when they use it.)
Right now:
1. I think the purpose of the masks is to keep people in fear. Fearful people tend to not think before doing, making them easier to control.
2. I think the purpose of the lockdowns is to kill businesses and the economy. That may seem strange, but the fewer jobs, the more people on the gov't dole and dependent on the Democrats for that hand out. Keep that up for long enough, and people lose their will to get off the dole.
Sadly, that means that the lockdowns won't end after the election. It will be harder for her to keep it up now that the Legislature is back in the picture. But the longer she can keep people down, the less apt they will be able to get work after the lockdowns and the more dependent on the Democrat hand outs.
So all the parts finally arrived and I attempted to replace the sticky B: drive with a Gotek.
Short update: Failure. I will have to create my own 26-34 pin adaptor.
Long update:
The goal was to replace the B: drive with a Gotek. If I got that to work, I'd replace the A: drive as well. I got a 26-to-34 pin adaptor from eBay.
I have both a standard Gotek + FlashFloppy and an OpenFlops and I tried them both.
So, partial disassembly and unplugged the B: drive. I plugged the 26-to-34 pin adaptor into the Gotek and hooked the B: drive into the cable.
First issue: The Gotek must be set to the S0. Otherwise, the A: drive won't read at all. Simple fix of moving the jumper and tried again.
This time A: booted up fine, but B: would not do anything. I tried the OpenFlops with the same results.
Next attempt, I hooked up just the Gotek. No other floppies. That worked. So I know that everything works. Why doesn't it work with another floppy?
The answer is in the Tandy 1400LT Service Manual. Go to the Appendix C - 3.5 inch FDD Specification, Physical Interface.
The problem is Pin 6. For the Tandy 1400LT, that pin is Drive Select 1. But in the 26 pin floppy specification, that pin is Disk Change. So a general 26-to-34 pin adaptor won't work. I would have to build my own specific for the 1400LT. That's a project for another time.
But the day wasn't a complete loss. I had purchased yet another 1400LT on eBay that was non-working and was able to recover many parts - including the floppy drives. So while I had the computer apart, I replaced the sticky B: drive with one from the parts system. So the sticky B: drive is fixed.
I'll see if it's worth my time to build my own 26--to-34 adaptor.
