Scor­pio News

disks, or even find them! Programs with overlays are no longer a pain to ran, since the overlays load quickly, and you’ll never have the wrong disk in drive A: again:

“there must be some disadvantages”

Apart from having to buy and install the winnie system, there is a down side to running them. The drive motor in the winnie runs all the time and at 3600rpm, so there is a certain amount of noise, but the more modern the drive (say 1984 on) the less noise, it may even be less than the fan already in your system. In addition they do take a lot of power, which could mean a different PSU is needed.

“so what bits will I need”

This depends very much on what you have already in your system. Assuming a minimal CP/M disk based system, the CPU card should be fine, be it Nascom II, Gemini or MAP-80. 64K of RAM is probably not essential, but preferable. Shown below is a shopping list of items you will/​may need:

• SASI Interface – GM829/​GM849 Floppy Controller or MAP-80 MPI card
• Controller Card – Xebec S1410 Winchester Controller
• Winchester – almost any ST506 type interface drive.
• PSU – must have the AMPs’on +5v & +12v
• Cables – 3 ribbon, two power & connectors
• Software – Gemini CP/M 2.2, upgrade required. MAP80 CP/M 2.2 or 3.0 can be re-assembled

The problems may start with the Floppy Controller card, since one with a ‘SASI’ interface is required. The GM809 will be no good (no an GM805 won’t do either), but a GM829 or GM849 will be fine, also a MAP-80 MPI card will do well.

The next item is the Hard disk controller, which connects to the SASI interface from the floppy card and operates the winchester drive. Typically the card to choose is the Xebec S1410, as used by Gemini. These are available Second-hand, but you may have to scan the adds for a while. There are alternatives such as the Konan ‘David Junior’ model, but Gemini & MAP-80 CP/M software does not support it. I believe there is a version of SYS which supports the Konan running with a Nascom II.

Now to a winchester, the Xebec card (& Konan) is designed to connect to Winchester’s using the Seagate ST506 interface which is very popular. This means there is a wide assortment of winchesters of all capacities to choose from. Your CP/M software may however limit your choice of winnie for reasons I shall explain shortly.