Disk & floppy systems (Larken, AERCO, Oliger)
Floppy/disk systems and interfaces — Larken, AERCO, Oliger, Zebra FDD, disk drives and their DOSes.
140 threads · 1025 messages · 2002-11-01 → 2026-06-02
Across both eras the list has mapped out a surprisingly crowded T/S 2068 disk-system landscape: Larken, AERCO, John Oliger (JLO), and the Timex Portugal FDD3000 (also sold as the Zebra disk drive and cloned in Poland as the Unipolbrit FDD/FDD6000). Yahoo-era threads from 2008-2012 nailed down the basic taxonomy — that Larken's DOS shipped as a cartridge in four matching versions (L3 for Larken, R3 for Ramex, O3 for Oliger, A3 for AERCO), that the FDD3000 was really a complete Z80 computer in its own right with two RS-232 ports and a paged ROM in the tiny `TI' interface, and that CP/M for the 2068 ran on the FDD3000 drive itself rather than the host. Members like Don Dindang, Al Hartman, and zniedzwiedz were the ones who first sorted the silver/three-box → FDD3000 → Unipolbrit lineage out, mostly in response to eBay finds and listserv hardware questions.
The Yahoo years also produced the first preservation and reverse-engineering pushes. Luke Perry's 2008 giveaway of 60+ 5.25" JLO disks kicked off a thread where zxbruno walked through using cpdread' plus John Elliot's purpose-builtTimex2Pl3' to convert FDD3000 disks to ZX Spectrum +3 format. In 2011-12 pxx1_2000_32724 (Neil) and Rod H worked through populating a bare Larken 256K RAMdisk board out of Eric Johnson's leftover stock, and Eduardo Fuentes began redrawing the JLO printer/cartridge/bus-expander PCBs in EagleCAD — pausing to try to track John Oliger down for permission before publishing. A lot of that early documentation also arrived as PDFs uploaded by hatulzabad to the Yahoo Files area (the Larken Disk Menu article, the Zeus 2068 manual, Misc. Hardware scans) — much of which now lives on archive.org under timexsinclair.com's curation.
In the groups.io era (2020-present) those threads were picked up and largely finished. Willie Jones successfully cloned the full JLO disk system — A board, B board, expansion, and printer interface — and started selling sets to members like Carl Miles and RichJ; Neil C. and ChazzMan separately reverse-engineered the Larken 256K RAMdisk to the point of laying out a new double-sided PCB, with David Anderson explaining the no-order' A0-A14 schematic convention. Adam Trionfo's 2023 "how do I even start with Larken?" thread pulled together the modern starter answer: there is no Larken emulation, DOS comes on a cartridge, and Larken DOS will drive a Larken, Oliger, or AERCO controller. David and Eduardo Fuentes then reverse-engineered the Oliger DOS directory structure (cylinder = C*2+offset, side flag where 0xFF is a buggy 1) well enough to identify the mysteryPD6.IMG' as Oliger Disk Manager.
For the FDD3000/Zebra line, Claudius (2021) identified three TI ROM variants — black-button TC2048, silver-button TC2068, and all-silver TS2068 — noting that every TS2068 ROM image floating around is corrupted, so a fresh dump is still wanted. In 2022 David Anderson and Joe Vandezande used a Greaseweazle plus CPCDiskXP to image the Zebra/FDD3000 3" disks and uploaded both DSK images and raw track files to archive.org, with Joao Encarnado's TOMATO' utility used to round-trip TOS disks into .TAP. And the most recent thread (Oct-Nov 2025) has Carl Miles fabricating an Interface 1 clone PCB that combines a real IF1 ULA/ROM with Wes Brzozowski'sInterface Zero' circuitry from SINCUS v3 n5 and David's Spectrum-ROM switcher — the first serious attempt to actually get ZX Microdrives running off a 2068, which had been a recurring wish since the Yahoo days.
Key threads
- Timex Drives (archive.org) — 2010 thread where Don Dindang, Al Hartman, and zniedzwiedz first work out the FDD3000 lineage — Timex Portugal three-box silver original → FDD3000 metal-case 64K controller → Zebra (US import) → Unipolbrit FDD/FDD6000 (Poland) — and explain that a TS2068 needs both the TI interface and a twister board to use these drives.
- Oliger Public Domain disks (archive.org) — 2008 rescue of Luke Perry's 60+ 5.25" JLO disks — the thread where zxbruno walks through the canonical Yahoo-era imaging chain:
cpdread' to pull disk images on a PC, then John Elliot's custom-builtTimex2Pl3' utility to convert Timex FDD3000 disks to ZX Spectrum +3 format. - Larken Ramdisk (archive.org) — 2011-12 thread where Neil and Rod H reconstruct how to populate a bare Larken 256K RAMdisk PCB from Eric Johnson's leftover parts — including the resistor-pack pinout, which 32Kx8 SRAMs interchange, and which Larken DOS cartridge (L3) to boot it from. Sets up the reverse-engineering Neil finally completes a decade later.
- JLO Disk System (archive.org) — 2012 thread where Eduardo Fuentes starts redrawing the JLO printer, user-cartridge, bus-expander, and Disk A/B boards in EagleCAD from bare PCBs, explicitly waiting on contact with John Oliger before publishing — the start of the JLO-clone project that Willie Jones eventually delivers in the groups.io era.
- Mystery Interface - Unable to Identify (#379 on groups.io) — Identifies a silver Timex `TI' interface as the FDD3000 controller (Timex M-397) and lays out the three ROM variants Claudius documented: black-button for TC2048, silver-button for TC2068, all-silver for TS2068 — with the note that every circulating TS2068 ROM image is corrupted, so a clean dump is still wanted.
- Larken 256K RamDisk (#576 on groups.io) — Modern continuation of the Yahoo-era RAMdisk reverse-engineering: Neil C. shares scanned articles, ChazzMan lays out a new double-sided PCB, and David Anderson explains the unconventional `no-order' A0-A14 mapping on the original schematic — recommending straight-through addressing for buildability.
- Zebra FDD 3" disk images (#2274 on groups.io) — David Anderson and Joe Vandezande image the surviving Zebra/FDD3000 3" disks with a Greaseweazle + CPCDiskXP, upload both DSK and raw track files to archive.org, and the thread becomes the practical guide for round-tripping TOS disks (including Joao Encarnado's `TOMATO' to convert to .TAP and run on Fuse / real hardware).
- First steps in getting Microdrives running on a TS2068... (#8607 on groups.io) — 2025 thread where Carl Miles fabricates an Interface 1 clone PCB combining a real IF1 ULA/ROM, Wes Brzozowski's `Interface Zero' circuitry from SINCUS v3 n5, and David Anderson's Spectrum-ROM switcher — the first serious modern attempt at running ZX Microdrives on a TS2068, addressing the IF1/TS system-variable conflict Jeff Burrell flagged.
All threads (140)
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