Thank you very much for the replies, guys! 😀
I'm a bit torn between doing a replacement and keeping the machine in an authentic state.
(On the other hand : What use has authencity, if the machine is in an unusable state ? I'm no owner of a museum. 😉 )
The idea of using used Amiga floppies is tempting, though I'm a bit scared also,
since I haven't had the best experience with used disk in the past so far and
don't want to ruin my drives (cleaning itself is no problem, but constantly disassembling drives is annoying.
And as clumsy as I am sometimes, I'll sure end up damaging these oldies somewhen in that process).
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Speaking of diskette drives, file transfer with the PC/XT is a bit complicated at the moment. 😅
The 720KB drive is the only way to transfer data with other machines.
I'm using a 286 with another 720KB drive for that purpose at the moment.
Using a 1.44MB drive and a 1.44MB disk (in 720KB) on a modern PC also works for me,
but only for a brief moment: Doing that "tape the hole" method is less reliable here,
since I get "setor not found" errors and "read errors" on the PC/XT quite quickly.
(During approximately a few days, the floppies become steadily more difficult to read.)
The 720KB drive in the 286 however, is more forgiving, but it won't format 1.44MB disks in 720KB.
Interestingly, down-formatting 1.44MB disks works fine with an older USB floppy on a Win7 PC.
Using format a: /f:720 on the command line works. But even here, I still get read errors from time to time
when using these re-formatted HD disks in the 286's 720KB drive.
On other 1.44MB drives or in the USB drive it was formatted with,
I usually get no errors.
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Alternatively, I also thought about using a LapLink or null-modem cable for file transfer..
While the machine has both a Centronics parallel port and a serial port, they are useless for now.
The Centronics port is a real Centronics port (no DB25) and the serial port has an inverted 25pin
connector which I can find no pinout for.
As for the GOTEK, I've found a blog post in concjuction with an Atari ST.
Apparently, the floppy controller of the Atari has to run at a higher speed to be compatible with the SFR1M44 model.
Does anybody know if this issue also happens when connecting it to the XT's PC floppy controller ?
As far as I remember, the high-speed floppy controllers were introduced with the PC/AT architecture
and weren't available to PC/XT machines without retro-fitting them with new floppy controller cards.
http://www.tonmann.com/2014/08/gotek-floppy-e … e-the-atari-st/
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