A series of external 3,5" and 5,25" floppy disc drives from [[Vortex_Computersysteme|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) ==
=== M1-S and M1-D (3,5") ===
The M1-S and M1-D models are based on 3,5" disk drives. Controller and DOS were identical for 5,25" and 3,5" devices.
=== FDA-1 3" Drive Adapter ===
This adapter allows 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 the RSX commandscommand '''|S'''. This RSX command worked also with VDOS 2.11 on CPC6128.
{| class="wikitable"
|-
| 0xFBDD || 8253 counter 1 (R/W)
|-
| 0xFBDE || 8253 counter 2 (R/W)
|-
| 0xFBDF || Mode word (W)
SPARA was either the predecessor or a cut-down version of PARA 3.0 and was supplied with the F1-Z drives, only supporting 40 track formats.
=== FutureOS ===
[[FutureOS]] has support for Vortex drives, it uses the Vortex 704 KB format for 80 Track drives.
=== FileCopy ===
FileCopy 3.0 is a comprehensive tool to copy files with up to 16 different devices (using letters A to P), it supports the Vortex 704 KB format for 80 Track drives.
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