Subject: Central Point Option Board

From: Charlie Smith <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat May 31 17:26:01 2003

Does anyone remember if the Central Point Deluxe Option Board
can copy 1.4 MB 3.5" floppy disks?

I had one of these boards and gave it to a friend last year.
If it will handle 1.4 MB diskettes, I can probably get it back
and install it on some sort of old 386 motherboard system.

You wouldn't believe the old junk burried in my back bedroom!
Or, given this list ... maybe you would believe it.  When I say
old junk, it includes stuff like some IBM 2321 Data Cell strips
and other things of that vintage.

  :-)

  - Charlie 

 Charlie Smith   [email-masked]  614-271-1418  
 http://elektro.cmhnet.org/~charlie/  Columbus Ohio   USA
 SMS: [email-masked]

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From: Ethan Dicks <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat May 31 23:07:00 2003

> and other things of that vintage.

I can attest to this!  Charlie gave me a "noodle" a while back.  I
had it on display last weekend at the computer history exhibit at
MarCON, one of the local science fiction conventions (along with
a VIP, an Elf, a SYM-1, an SX-64, an Aquarius, an SBC-6120 w/ELT-320,
a VAXBI COMBOARD, an Intel-produced 8086 trainer, and a PDP-8/L w/PC04
and ASR-33).

-ethan

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From: Frank McConnell <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun Jun 1 00:28:00 2003

> can copy 1.4 MB 3.5" floppy disks?

Quoting from the manual:

* To copy high capacity, non-copy-protected disks (1.2 or 1.44 MB)
  you must use the TCM program included on the Deluxe Option Board
  software disk.

* The Deluxe Option Board is not capable of copying copy-protected,
  high density disks.  As these disks become more prevalent in the 
  market, we may include this capability.

-- end quote --

I'm thinking what this means is that you can use TCM to copy 1.44MB
3.5" media, but there's no guarantee that it will reliably copy
media that are copy-protected.

-Frank McConnell

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From: Joe <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun Jun 1 15:50:01 2003

>can copy 1.4 MB 3.5" floppy disks?

   yes, it will. I remember that the manual said that it could even copy
Mac disks using a PC. IIRC the only thing that you had to do was to tell it
the correct number of tracks for the type drive that you were using (80
tracks in this case).

>and install it on some sort of old 386 motherboard system.

   I wish I'd kept mine!

     Joe

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From: "Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun Jun 1 16:09:01 2003

> can copy 1.4 MB 3.5" floppy disks?

"Sometimes"
(not reliably)  It works well at a 250K or 300K data transfer rate, but at
the 500K data transfer rate it screws up occasionally.