Changes
/* Beware : HD */
Yet they were far cheaper and are nowadays easier to use.
Especially the 3½" as these disk are still availlable available in some retailers. You can also easily find such drives in any garbage if you properly scavenge old rusty computers.
These Disks couldn't be side switched manually.
The older models used only one side (360 KB)
Double side (DD) or even High Density were available.
[[image:3.5.jpg|200px|thumb|Internal 3.5" drive]]
[[image:5,25_cable.jpg|200px|thumb|advertisement for 5,25" drive cable for CPC in 1990]]
==Formats ==
5"1/4
*er...I don't remember (editors please ?)360KB*1,2 Mo was the maximum...on my old PC...2MB
Nowaday, only HD 3"1/2 disk can be found at good old retailer's.
But or our beloved CPC can't understand easily the concept of High Density Disk with 1,44MB avalaibleavailable...
So you have to cheat : just put some duct-tape (scotch-tape, whatever...) on the HD Hole.
Tada, a proper DD disk with 720 KB (if your OS allows it).Or a common 2x180KB (2x 178KB ?) 2x178KB with [[AMSDOS|AMSDOS]] (stock CPC firmware Loco Basic, ) - if you have a manual side switcher button too of course)to read second side of disk.
PC users used to do the opposite : file a HD hole on DD disk...this worked well sometimes.
You can also modify your HD drive to behave as a DD one (but this would be permanent of course).. Check for appropriate jumpers on your drive!
== A clever choice ==
Many Modern CPC users replace their old 3" with an external 3"1/2, often adding a Disk drive A-B / B-A switcher (allowing the use of an external disk Drive as if it were the internal one = Drive A) and/or a side switcher to allow the use of a 3"1/2 disk like a 3" disk... switching manually the sides as needed by good old 3" disk drives (yet a decent sofware software can do it).
The side switcher and A-B drive's switchers are needed only if you use old software(using [[AMSDOS|AMSDOS]]), as most of them couldn't really figure they were loaded from B driversdrives, or had no such feature as double sided drives.
They were designed for good old 3" drive so the 720KB DD external 3"1/2 is not implemented.
Orion Prime uses the Double side feature, enabling a simple 720KB disk with no manual side switches.
Rick Dangerous 128+ (1.1 addonadd-on) seems to allow the game to be loaded from the B drive.
It is up to the CPC-scene to design their softwares software to include those options, allowing more un-modded drives to be simply used as external B drives with no need to add extra buttons and cable assemblies on the Amstrad.
As modifying all the software library of the good old times seems impractical, yet modern era software have to use this.
== Softwares Software released on 3.5"1/2 disk== * [[Orion Prime]] - This pure awsomeness even uses a full DD disk's 80 tracks with more than 700KB of Data, but you have to have a proper DD disk drive, as some older models may lack this feature...
* [[Data Media]] released several software titles for use with their [[Data Media Disc System]]
== Non 3" CPC disk drives ==
*any scavenged rusty junk may be good enough nowaday, if you have a 664 or 6128...
==GuideGuides ==
[[Guide on how to connect a 3.5]]<br>
[[Guide on how to connect a 3.5" drive to a CPC6128/664]] with photos
[[Amstrad Computer User]] magazine published a two-page guide on how to connect a 5.25" drive to a CPC 464:
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[[Category:Hardware]][[Category:Peripherals]][[Category:DATA Storage]]
