Vortex Disc Drives

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

S- and D-Drives (720K)

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).

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


  • Vortex F1-D with CPC 6128 Interface

  • An anonymous box housing the controller board

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

  • Controller with mounted VDOS chip

  • F1-D Interface (CPC 664)

  • F1-D Interface Board (CPC 664)

  • F1-D Interface Board (CPC 664)

  • F1-D Interface Board (CPC 6128)

FD-1 Drive Adapter

This adapter allowed to use an Amstrad FD-1 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 mounted using a RSX command ("|S,1" as drive A, "|S,2" as drive B, "|S,0" to disable the 3" drive).


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

  • Inside the adapter box

  • Inside the adapter box (closeup)

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.

Z-Drives (180K)

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)


X-Drives (720K)

These are the latest drives from Vortex for use on CPC 664/6128 or CPC 464 with DDI-1 (ie. on computers that already have a FDC). 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.

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


  • F1-X

  • F1-X backside

  • F1-X inside view

  • F1-X/M1-X manual and utility disk

  • M1-X

  • M1-X backside

  • M1-X backside, showing IDC connection

  • 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. 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.

  • F1-XRS Interface (CPC 464)

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

  • X-Modul (CPC 6128)

  • X-Modul (CPC 6128) board

RS232 I/O Ports

The RS232-C interface of the -XRS modules are suspected to be at least partially compatible with Amstrad/Pace interfaces.

Address Read Write
0xFADC Channel A data Channel A data
0xFADD Channel A control Channel A control
0xFADE Channel B data Channel B data
0xFADF Channel B control Channel B control
0xFBDC 8253 Load counter 0 8253 Read counter 0
0xFBDD 8253 Load counter 1 8253 Read counter 1
0xFBDE 8253 Load counter 2 8253 Read counter 2
0xFBDF Write mode word -

VDOS

Vortex Disk Format

See VDOS: Vortex Disc Format

Drive Interface I/O Ports

The drives interfacing with their own FDC can be used with the CPC 6128 to use different I/O ports (see below).

Standard addresses (same as used by AMSDOS)

FB7Eh 765 FDC (internal) Status Register (R) FB7Fh 765 FDC (internal) Data Register (R/W) FA7Eh Floppy Motor On/Off Flipflop

Special addresses (secondary FDC)

The special addresses are mentioned in the manual for the Vortex -X drives, but apparently they are referring to other/older Vortex drives, not the -X drives. The special addresses are used only on CPC 664/6128 and only if the Vortex drive includes an FDC chip.

FBF6h 765 FDC (Vortex,ext) Status Register (Read) FBF7h 765 FDC (Vortex,ext) Data Register (R/W) FA7Eh Floppy Motor On/Off Flipflop (nearly same as normal, bit precise)

The X drive has a different PCB than the PCB for the S, the manual describes connecting the DDI-1 interface to the X drive interface and a 'decoder-ROM' which defines the I/O decoding?

  • Note1: The -Z and -X drives do not include FDC chips.

So, not sure if/when the Special addresses are used at all?

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