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The Syquest SparQ drive is an external hard drive with a 1 Gigabyte removable disc. It connects to the computer via the parallel printer port. It's completely separate from the computer and, unlike most other external devices such as USB, SCSI or network drives, requires absolutely no additional hardware to be fitted and draws no power from the computer's supply. We supply the complete package including our own RISC OS driver software which can be used on up to five machines.
All you need is a computer with a bi-directional printer port and an ARM250 or later processor. For RISC OS computer users this means the drivers works with:
- RiscPC
- A7000 or A7000+
- A3010, A3020, A4000 or A5000
- Microdigital Mico or Omega
- RiscStation
The following machines do not have a bi-directional parallel port and won't work with the Sparq driver:
- Archimedes A305 and A310
- A410, A420 and A440
- A3000
- R260, A540
- Any other machine originally fitted with an ARM 2 processor
How it works
The drive just plugs in to the computer's printer port using the cable provided and has a 'through connector' for your printer. If the SparQ drive isn't switched on your printer will still work perfectly. In use it behaves just like any other RISC OS hard drive with a 'normal' drive icon on the iconbar. Because of the limitations of the printer port it's not as fast as a normal hard drive but it's a lot quicker than a ZIP drive, with which many RISC OS computer users will be familiar. Discs can simply be dismounted and changed at any time.
1GB might not sound very large but RISC OS is very economical on drive space. Even if you do have many Gigabytes of material on your hard drive, with its reliable 1GB discs the SparQ is a good means of quickly and easily backing up volatile data, which will often only be a small part of the total content of your hard drive. As it's transportable between machines it's also an ideal way of moving data between machines which aren't connected by a network or which may be in different locations.
Use with A7000 and A7000+
Although the RiscPC is capable of having additional drives and expansion cards fitted internally many other models aren't. For example, the A7000 and A7000+ can't easily be fitted with a conventional backup device. However, as the SparQ connects to the printer port and draws no power from the computer's power supply it's an ideal backup device for these models.
Use with older models
The RISC OS driver software provided allows discs to be partitioned so although the discs are 1GB they can be divided into two partitions of less than 512MB for use on machines running operating systems before RISC OS 3.6. As these are often the models where it's difficult or expensive to fit conventional backup drives the SparQ is an ideal solution.
Use as a hard drive
The A3010 and A3020 machines were not normally fitted with a hard drive. If you have one of these models then the SparQ is a quick, easy means of attaching a 1GB drive at very low cost. It won't be quite as fast as a conventional hard drive but it's more than adequate for most purposes. Plus if you do acquire another RISC OS machine later, such as a RiscPC, you can just plug your SparQ drive into it and transfer all your data.
RISC OS SparQ driver software
The download below is for the latest version of the Sparq driver. Although designed for the SparQ it will also work with the Syquest EZ 230. It may also work with other Syquest parallel port drives but it has only been tested with the SparQ and EZ 230.
Problem with some RISC OS 3.00 and 3.1x machines
The driver will work with the vast majority of first generation RISC OS computers but there can be problems with a very small number of A3010, A3020, A4000 or A5000 machines. The problem seems to be timing related but currently there is no fix. If the driver won't detect a drive and everything else checks out (and you've performed sensible tests such as changing cables, checking they are firmly attached) then your machine is probably effected.
Use with a Windows PC
Software is included with the drive for DOS and Windows 95, 98 and NT. A driver for Windows 2000 is available (below) which I have found works with Windows XP and I'm told is OK with Vista. You can download a copy of the Windows driver using this link.
Reading DOS formatted Sparq discs
If your RiscPC/A7000 is using RISC OS 4.02 or better it will be able to read DOS formatted SparQ discs so you can use it to transfer data between a RISC OS and Windows computer quickly and easily. This means it's a simple and low cost solution if you have installed VirtualAcorn on a PC and want to transfer your data from your old RISC OS machine.
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