Vortex Disc Drives

A series of 3.5" and 5.25" floppy disc drives from Vortex providing up to 720K capacity (704K available).

These are the very first generation of floppy disc drives from Vortex. They came in variants having either a single ("S" variant) or two ("D" variant) DS/DD 80-track drives installed (BASF 6138).

• Vortex Floppy Disk Station F1 für den Schneider CPC 464 - Benutzerhandbuch (manual)

Variants

• F1 - S Single 5.25" drive with power supply connected via ribbon cable to interface with NEC765 and VDOS 1.0 or 2.11
• F1 - D Double 5.25" drive with power supply connected via ribbon cable to interface with NEC765 and VDOS 1.0 or 2.11
• M1 - S Single 3.5" drive with power supply connected via ribbon cable to interface with NEC765 and VDOS 1.0 or 2.11
• M1 - D Double 3.5" drive with power supply connected via ribbon cable to interface with NEC765 and VDOS 1.0 or 2.11

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  Vortex F1-D with CPC 6128 Interface

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  An anonymous box housing the controller board

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  Look inside the controller, a NEC 765 chip and VDOS upgraded to v2.0

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  Controller with mounted VDOS chip

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  F1-D Interface (CPC 664)

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  F1-D Interface Board (CPC 664)

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  F1-D Interface Board (CPC 664)

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  F1-D Interface Board (CPC 6128)

Second Drive Upgrade

Vortex offered an upgrade option that allowed an F1/M1-S single drive to be upgraded to an F1/M1-D dual drive. To do this, one simply had to install an additional drive in the free drive slot of the S-drive housing.

FDA-1 3" Drive Adapter

This adapter allowed to use an Amstrad 3" drive on Vortex F1/M1 setups connected to a CPC 464. Since only two drives can be used simultaneously, the 3" drive had to be manually selected first using RSX commands.

• 3" Adapter zur VORTEX-Diskettenstation (manual)

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  Adapter to connect an additional 3" disc drive in between a CPC 464 and a F1/M1

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  Inside the adapter box

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  Inside the adapter box (closeup)

FDC I/O Ports

All types of floppy disk controllers for the F1-S/F1-D/M1-S/M1-D range are based on the NEC 765 chip.

CPC 464:

CPC 664/6128:

These are basic and less expensive low-capacity drives and were meant to be directly connected to a CPC 664/6128 or CPC 464 with DDI-1 (ie. on computers that already provide a floppy controller). Since these drives do not ship with a special controller, they do rely fully on AMSDOS and thus only 40 tracks can be accessed.

Variants

• F1 - Z Single 5.25" drive with power supply with ribbon cable (does not come with interface containing FDC or VDOS)
• M1 - Z Single 3.5" drive with power supply with ribbon cable (does not come with interface containing FDC or VDOS)

These are the latest drives from Vortex for use on CPC 464 with DDI-1 or CPC 664/6128 computers (ie. on computers that already have a FDC), so no own FDC 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). These drives are well designed and strong. They are housed in a metal case with power supply (which has good protection with fuses) and have good quality drive mechanisms. The drive has jumpers on it that can be configured as needed.

• Vortex X-Laufwerke (manual)
• Manual de las Unidades Vortex (manual)
• NEC drive inside Vortex M1-X NEC drive inside Vortex M1-X

Variants

• F1 - X Single 80 track, Double Sided, 5.25" drive with power supply
• M1 - X Single 80 Track, Double Sided, 3.5" drive with power supply
• F1 - XRS same as F1-X, upgraded with RS232-C interface
• M1 - XRS same as M1-X, upgraded with RS232-C interface

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  F1-X

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  F1-X backside

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  F1-X inside view

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  F1-X/M1-X manual and utility disk

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  M1-X

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  M1-X backside

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  M1-X backside, showing IDC connection

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  M1-X underside

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  M1-X inside view, showing the drive and power

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

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  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. To provide VDOS, a "X-Modul" had to be installed. This was a single-ROM board with VDOS 2.0-X and came in two versions, one of which providing an additional RS232-C interface ("XRS-Modul"). The version for the CPC 464 came with a chunky housing in which both the X(RS)-Modul and the DDI-1 had to be installed.

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  F1-XRS Interface (CPC 464)

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  F1-XRS Interface with DDI-1 installed (CPC 464)

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  X-Modul (CPC 6128)

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  X-Modul (CPC 6128) board

RS232 I/O Ports

The RS232-C interface of the -XRS modules were advertised to be compatible with Amstrad/Pace interfaces, but have only one channel (no channel B).

• Vortex RS232-C Manual (pdf)

• Benutzerhandbuch für das Diskettenbetriebssystem VDOS 2.0 (VDOS 2.0 user manual)

Vortex Disk Format

See VDOS: Vortex Disc Format