Tandy 1400FD Floppy Drives

The Tandy 1400 FD had two internal 720K floppy disk drives (the left drive being the primary drive, usually Drive A), and supported connection of an external drive via a dedicated floppy disk connector on the rear of the computer.

External Drives

Two external 5¼-inch floppy drives were available from Radio Shack:

• Radio Shack Catlogue # 900-2220 - a Weltec Drive, which connected via the floppy drive connector on the back of the computer (see Tandy 1400FD Pinouts)
• Radio Shack Catlogue # 250-1087 - 1.2 MEG external floppy disk drive, which did not use the floppy drive connector

When using a Weltec drive, drive letter designations were changed by connecting the external drive depending on the position of the switch on the side of the computer near the power switch:

Drive Selector Switch on INT:

• Left Drive: Drive A
• Right Drive: Drive B
• External Drive: Drive C

Drive Selector Switch on EXT:

• Left Drive: Drive C
• Right Drive: Drive B
• External Drive: Drive A

When using the 250-1087 1.2 MEG external drive, the selector switch was not used but a software driver included the drive was needed.

See Also

• Tandy 1400FD
• Tandy 1400 Series Laptops