Mike_Z
Veteran Member
Last week, I purchased a Virtual Sector Generator from Mike Douglas. Since I only have a dozen or so 10 sector hard sector floppy disks for my newly revived SOL-20 and no one seems to be making them, I thought I'd give this a try. The unit arrived yesterday. First thing I had to do was find a 34 pin ribbon cable. This unit plugs in between the floppy controller and the drive units. As luck would have it, I didn't have a cable like that. So, I made one from a couple of spare floppy cables I had. But to make it work, I had to grind off the header tab, because the old header plug doesn't have this index tab. AND, there were plugs in two of the socket holes. These had to be removed. Fortunately, the pin connectors are still in the header. I just drilled the plug and then pried the plug out as well as I could. Next the cables were installed, the 9 volt battery connected and the SOL-20 powered up. I had hard sectored floppies in drives A: and B: and an unformatted soft sectored floppy in C:. The SOL booted up and I could start CP/M on A:. Then I formatted the floppy in C: and copied B: to C:. Everything worked well. The entire process is transparent and I don't have to worry about turning anything on or off, or where, or what kind of floppies are used. Well worth the money.
The next project will be to install the VSG into my drive enclosure. There is a small spot in the back where the ribbon connector is. I'll devise some kind of CB holder and some connectors. Then the battery will be removed and I'll power the CB with +12 volts from the drive unit. Hopefully, all will work and there will not be anything more hanging off the back of my SOL-20. Thanks Mike for a really neat part. Mike
The next project will be to install the VSG into my drive enclosure. There is a small spot in the back where the ribbon connector is. I'll devise some kind of CB holder and some connectors. Then the battery will be removed and I'll power the CB with +12 volts from the drive unit. Hopefully, all will work and there will not be anything more hanging off the back of my SOL-20. Thanks Mike for a really neat part. Mike