The Triton Quick Disk Drive is a product that allows 2.8-inch

floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined w ...

s to be read on the

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...

,2 page advert
''Commodore user issue 23, August 1985, p. 42.''

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as t ...

,Triton QD
''CRASH Magazine issue 21, October 1985, p. 104.''

MSX MSX is a standardized home computer architecture, announced by Microsoft and ASCII Corporation on June 16, 1983. It was initially conceived by Microsoft as a product for the Eastern sector, and jointly marketed by Kazuhiko Nishi, then vice-p ...

Mattel Aquarius Aquarius is a home computer designed by Radofin and released by Mattel Electronics in 1983. Based on the Zilog Z80 microprocessor, the system has a rubber chiclet keyboard, 4K of RAM, and a subset of Microsoft BASIC in ROM. It connects to a tel ...

Mattel Aquarius Quick Disk Drive
/ref> and

Dragon 64 The Dragon 32 and Dragon 64 are home computers that were built in the 1980s. The Dragons are very similar to the TRS-80 Color Computer, and were produced for the European market by Dragon Data, Ltd., initially in Swansea, Wales before mo ...

Triton QD
''Dragon User, August 1985.'' home computers. The product was released for sale in the mid-1980s. The disk drive can be used with Hitachi Maxell 2.8-inch double sided floppy disks, with a capacity of 144 kilobytes non-formatted and 100 kilobytes formatted. Each side has 20 sectors of 2.5 kB written in a spiral pattern instead of the more usual circular tracks. A maximum of 20 files can be saved on each side of the floppy disks. The data

transfer rate In telecommunications and computing, bit rate (bitrate or as a variable ''R'') is the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time. The bit rate is expressed in the unit bit per second (symbol: bit/s), often in conjunction w ...

is up to 100 kilobits per second. The disk drive measures 250 x 225 x 65 mm, weighing in at 3.2 kilograms.

Triton and Commodore 64

For use on the

, the controller/interface box contains an

EPROM An EPROM (rarely EROM), or erasable programmable read-only memory, is a type of programmable read-only memory (PROM) chip that retains its data when its power supply is switched off. Computer memory that can retrieve stored data after a power s ...

with an additional operating system, C-64 T-DOS, that when connected to the computer through the memory expansion port can be called by typing "SYS 32768". This activated various new commands; * @Dn * @Format * @Dir * @Save * @ASave * @Write * @Load * @Run * @Aload * @Kill * @Quit * @ACopy * @CassCopy If something goes wrong, 14 different error messages will give indications about what may have happened.

Triton and Spectrum

For use on the Spectrum computer, the controller/interface box contains an EPROM with an additional operating system, Spectrum T-DOS, adding various new commands to the computer: * Format *n * Cat *n * Save *n;b;'file name' * Save *n;m;'file name; startadd; endadd * Load *n; 'file name' * Erase *n; 'file name' * Copy *n1 to n2; 'file name' * Copy These commands can be used in BASIC programs, as long as the controller is connected. If something goes wrong, 11 different error messages will give indications about what may have happened.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Triton Quick Disk for C64
on Commodore64.se
Triton Quick Disc
on World of Spectrum Floppy disk drives Commodore 64 peripheral manufacturers