Vortex Disc Drives

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A series of external 3.5" and 5.25" floppy disc drives from Vortex providing up to 720K capacity (704K available). The Vortex drives were most popular in Germany. For more information regarding VDOS and the Vortex Disk Format, see the dedicated VDOS Wiki page.

S- and D-Drives (720K)

These are the first generation of 720K floppy disc drives from Vortex. They came in variants having either a single drive ("S" variant) or two drives ("D" variant). The "S" variant (as well as the less expensive "Z" variant) was delivered with the same double-height casing as the "D" variant, so that a second drive could be retrofitted. The 5,25" drives used were BASF 6138 (81690-001) type drives (double-sided, double density, 80 tracks per side, 96 tpi).

Variants

  • F1-S - single 5.25" drive
  • F1-D - double 5.25" drive
  • M1-S - single 3.5" drive
  • M1-D - double 3.5" drive


  • F1-D

  • F1-D front view

  • F1-D backside

  • F1-S/D manual

  • F1-S/D system disk

  • F1-D interface (CPC 664)

  • F1-D interface board (CPC 664)

  • F1-D interface board (CPC 664)

  • F1-D interface board (CPC 6128)

A1-S Upgrade Kit

Vortex offered an upgrade kit consisting of a single bare drive and an installation manual, allowing to upgrade a single F1/M1-S drive to a dual F1/M1-D drive. To do this, one simply had to install the additional drive in the free slot of the drive case.

FDA-1 3" Drive Adapter

This adapter makes it possible to connect an external FD-1 3" drive on Vortex F1/M1 setups on the CPC 464. Since only two drives can be used at the same time, the external 3" drive first had to be selected manually with RSX commands.

RSX Description
|S,1 Use 3" drive as drive A, upper Vortex drive is disabled
|S,2 Use 3" drive as drive B, lower Vortex drive is disabled
|S,0 Disable the 3" drive (default)

  • FDA-1 Adapter

  • Inside the adapter box

  • Inside the adapter box (closeup)

FDC I/O Ports

All types of floppy disk controllers for the F1-S/D and M1-S/D series are based on the NEC 765 chip. The manual states that on "controllers having an integrated ROM module/eprommer" (probably the later 6128 interfaces?), the port addresses can be freely configured using a decoder ROM.

CPC 464:

Address Description
0xFB7E uPD control
0xFB7F uPD data
0xFA7E motor on/off

CPC 664/6128:

Address Description
0xFBF6 uPD control
0xFBF7 uPD data
0xFA7E motor on/off

Downloads


Z-Drives (180K/side)

These are less expensive drives and were meant to be directly connected as B drive to a CPC 464 with DDI-1 or a CPC 664/6128. Since these drives ship neither with an own controller nor a VDOS ROM, they do rely fully on AMSDOS and thus only 40 tracks on one side can be accessed, resulting in the same capacity (180K/side) as the 3" drives. Technically, the Z-drives are actually only S-drives without Vortex controller and CP/M licence.

The F1-Z drive is based on a later revision of the BASF 6138 (81757-001) drive, which offers more configuration options using jumpers. The drive was shipped with a setting of 40 tracks, and thus the cheaper DS DD floppy disks (48 tpi, 180K/side) could be used.

Variants

  • F1-Z - single 5.25" drive
  • M1-Z - single 3.5" drive

A1-Z Upgrade Kit

Vortex offered an upgrade kit consisting of a controller, manual, CP/M license and an utility disk which upgraded a Z-Drive to a S-Drive.


X-Drives (720K)

These are the latest drives from Vortex for use with a CPC 464 with DDI-1 or a CPC 664/6128 (ie. on systems that already have a floppy disc controller); no additional controller was required anymore. Instead, a ROM module was supplied together with the drive, which provided VDOS 2.0-X. Only single-drive variants were available. The |S command (for accessing a third drive) is no longer used, the new |X command allows to swap drive A and B (same as X-DDOS from Dobbertin).

The F1-X drives are equipped with BASF 6139 drives. These are compatible with the BASF 6138 type drives of the previous 5,25" models, but have a slightly more compact design and a number of design flaws that affected durability were corrected.

Variants

  • F1-X - single 5.25" drive
  • F1-XRS - single 5.25" drive with RS232-C interface
  • M1-X - single 3.5" drive
  • M1-XRS - single 3.5" drive with RS232-C interface


  • F1-X

  • F1-X backside, showing IDC connector (CPC 464)

  • F1-X backside, showing edge connector (CPC 664)

  • F1-X inside view, showing a BASF 6139 drive

  • F1-X/M1-X manual and system utilities disk

  • M1-X

  • M1-X backside

  • M1-X backside, showing IDC connector (CPC 464)

  • M1-X underside

  • M1-X inside view, showing the drive and power

  • M1-X inside view, close-up of the drive from above

  • M1-X inside view, close-up from the backside

X(RS)-Modul

The X-drives for the CPC 664/6128 are connected directly to the floppy port. In order to provide VDOS, the "X-Modul" (sometimes also called "VDOS module") must be connected additionally to the expansion port. This contains a ROM board that provides a VDOS 2.0-X ROM and was also available with an additional RS232-C interface (in this case called "XRS-Modul"). The ROM board supplied for the CPC 464 came together with a chunky housing in which both the "X(RS)-Modul" and the DDI-1 controller were installed.


  • XRS-Modul (CPC 464)

  • XRS-Modul with built-in DDI-1 visible (CPC 464)

  • XRS-Modul board beneath the DDI-1 (CPC 464)

  • XRS-Modul board backside (CPC 464)

  • X-Modul (CPC 6128)

  • X-Modul board (CPC 6128)

RS232 I/O Ports

The RS232-C interface of the "XRS-Modul" was advertised to be compatible with Amstrad/Pace interfaces, but offers only one channel (so no channel B).

Address Description
0xFADC SIO data (R/W)
0xFADD SIO control (R/W)
0xFBDC 8253 counter 0 (R/W)
0xFBDD 8253 counter 1 (R/W)
0xFBDF Mode word (W)

Downloads

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