Exidy Sorcerer Floppy Disk Subsystem (FDS) in Australia

[johnhalk]

Hi All,

I just found and purchased an Exidy FDS (77 Track 100 TPI) floppy disk unit with a second Micropolis Floppy Drive (also 77 track 100 TPI).

This was an Australian delivered Exidy FDS unit as it has AU after the model number stamped on the silver label. (It's also factory 220V).
It was most likley sold through Dick Smith Electronics when they were the Exidy importer back in the early 1980's.

I will test soon - Exidyboy is helping to create a CP/M FDS boot floppy for me.

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Regards,
John Halk
Melbourne Australia

[johnhalk]

I have been working on the Exidy FDS which I just received. It was well packed and no damage to any of the units.

The Micropolis external disk unit (drive 1) Micropolis 1023 II 315K 5.25" (Single Sided, Double Density 77 Track / 100TPI) powers up and the drive motor spins briefly to center the floppy disk when you insert a floppy. The PSU and the drive mechanism internals visually look fine but the drive will need testing.

The main Exidy FDS on the other hand released the "magic" smoke when powered up. A 33nF 25v tantalum capacitor (C13 on PCB) let go and smoked up.

I have replaced the exploded Tantalum capacitor and also replaced the 2 x old electrolytic capacitors on the PSU unit with new ones as well. Both the power rails show +12 and +5 volts and the Micropolis drive in the FDS unit spins up when you insert a floppy.

I am unable to get my Sorcerer 2 to recognise the 256 byte boot rom code at BF00 in the FDS so more troubleshooting is required.

There is a Exidy technical bulletin that describes some mods to bring a revision C2 motherboard (my Sorcerer Mk2 is a C2 revision) up to C4 specs (Page 5 of PDF).

https://exidysorcerer.net/?r=/download& ... MS5wZGY%3D

I also found a great article in the So Cal Sorcerer Users Group Newsletter that describes the dip switch settings on the FDC PCB (Page 5 of PDF).

https://exidysorcerer.net/?r=/download& ... BkZg%3D%3D

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Regards,
John

[johnhalk]

Some Success. The DIP switch settings for the Exidy FDS boot prom where set to a 56K memory Sorcerer with a 8K RAM PAC.

Lucky I found the Exidy FDS DIP Switch Settings in the SoCal Sorcerers Users Group Newsletter !

After setting the DIP switches back to the standard Exidy FDS factory settings - My Sorcerer recognises the Boot PROM at BF00.

It boots the floppy drive looking for a bootable CP/M Floppy - Which I don't have at the moment

Here is a short demo of the boot process.

https://youtube.com/shorts/y6TOf4PGlv0? ... qt-2GMTIfY

Regards,
John