Yee-Haa!! 5.25-inch USB floppy!
Barry Watzman
Sorry for the [only slightly] misleading subject line.
The Buslink FDD1 3.5" USB floppy drive ***IS*** a standard 3.5" floppy
drive, with an easily accessible 34-pin ribbon cable, in a case with a
USB to floppy controller. Will it work with a 5.25" drive? I don't
know yet, but it's the first time we have found a 3.5" USB floppy that
isn't "integrated" and that consists of a USB to floppy controller with
a standard 34-pin interface.
Barry Watzman
Wat...@neo.rr.com
s_dub...@yahoo.com
Barry, does the literature say anything about USB 2.0 required? Or,
does it happen to say it supports USB 1.0?
TIA.
Steve
Barry Watzman
Tom Lake
news:46aa1656$0$30678$4c36...@roadrunner.com...
> Got your attention, didn't I?
>
> Sorry for the [only slightly] misleading subject line.
OK, I'll bring my soiled pants over for you to wash
since I lost control when I read your subject line! 8^0
Seriously, though, this IS potentially great news! Thanks
for the update.
Tom Lake
David Given
[...]
> The Buslink FDD1 3.5" USB floppy drive ***IS*** a standard 3.5" floppy
> drive, with an easily accessible 34-pin ribbon cable, in a case with a
> USB to floppy controller.
USB mass storage drives talk, basically, SCSI. The USB device will contain a
microcontroller that will translate high-level 'read/write block n' commands
into low-level FDDC commands. There's a good chance that it's hard-wired for
PC formats and can't be configured for anything else.
I've got a TEAC FD-05PUB, USB ID 0644:0000. It claims to support the following:
(bytes x sectors x cylinders x tracks)
512x18x2x80, 1440kB
512x16x2x80, 1200kB
1024x9x2x77, 1232kB
(Figured out with the amazingly handy ufiformat program:
http://www.geocities.jp/tedi_world/format_usbfdd_e.html)
So it may work with standard 1.2MB 5.25" disks, but you might be out of luck
with any of the more exotic CP/M formats...
--
┌── ｄｇ＠ｃｏｗｌａｒｋ．ｃｏｍ ─── http://www.cowlark.com ───────────────────
│
│ "There does not now, nor will there ever, exist a programming language in
│ which it is the least bit hard to write bad programs." --- Flon's Axiom
B'ichela
> (bytes x sectors x cylinders x tracks)
> 512x18x2x80, 1440kB
> 512x16x2x80, 1200kB
> 1024x9x2x77, 1232kB
>
> (Figured out with the amazingly handy ufiformat program:
> http://www.geocities.jp/tedi_world/format_usbfdd_e.html)
>
> So it may work with standard 1.2MB 5.25" disks, but you might be out of luck
> with any of the more exotic CP/M formats...
>
tracks was the give away.) I have also seen 1024 b/s with 9 sectors on
8" soft sectored media myself. If his hd adaptor board can do similar
he could interface a 8" floppy drive to the board! (oh the
possibilities... :)) My old H47 8" drive btw did that last format now
that I think of it. Sure the remex units made a racket but they were
fun to listen to. I miss the H88 with the H47 I had. Never saw another
one like it anywhere.
Speaking of interfacing. how would someone interface a H47
floppy drive subsystem to a modern PC? Some say it uses SASI. some say
it uses something closer to IDE. which is it?
--
From the Desk of the Sysop of:
Planet Maca's Opus, a Free open BBS system. telnet://pinkrose.dhis.org
Web Site: http://pinkrose.dhis.org, Dialup 860-618-3091 300-33600 bps
The New Cnews maintainer
B'ichela
David Given
>[...]
> The last one looks suspiciously like an 8" disk format (the 77
> tracks was the give away.) I have also seen 1024 b/s with 9 sectors on
> 8" soft sectored media myself. If his hd adaptor board can do similar
> he could interface a 8" floppy drive to the board!
I was really surprised to see it myself... 1.44MB floppies work fine in that
format, but they spin faster (I never even knew that the drive could control
spin speed!). Transfer rate seems to be a little faster --- 31 kB/s rather
than 28-odd --- but some Linux filesystems don't like it because of the
different sector sizes. vfat fails, minix and ext2 work. No great surprise
there. mkfs.cpm ran, but I'm not sure it produced a meaningful result.
I've no idea what's inside it, I don't want to take the lid off...
Barry Watzman
Generally, they can't, with one exception: High density (1.2MB) 5.25"
floppy drives are normally dual speed 300/360 rpm. It's a special case.
Barry Watzman
(CP/M-86, MP/M-86 and CP/M-Plus) for the Heathkit/Zenith Data Systems
Z-100 computers. I was not aware that anyone else was using this
format, however. I also supported 5*1024 on 5.25" 360k drives. [These
formats were supported in addition to, not instead of, other, more
common formats]
Barry Watzman
used and supported (either read only or possibly even read/write) if
they are formatted on another system.
no....@no.uce.bellatlantic.net
<Watzma...@neo.rr.com> wrote:
>I supported 9*1024 sectors on 8" drives in all of my operating systems
>(CP/M-86, MP/M-86 and CP/M-Plus) for the Heathkit/Zenith Data Systems
>Z-100 computers. I was not aware that anyone else was using this
>format, however. I also supported 5*1024 on 5.25" 360k drives. [These
>formats were supported in addition to, not instead of, other, more
>common formats]
Morrow and CSC also did 9x1024 8" DD (both SS and DS).
Allison
Tilmann Reh
> Re: "I never even knew that the drive could control spin speed!"
>
> Generally, they can't, with one exception: High density (1.2MB) 5.25"
> floppy drives are normally dual speed 300/360 rpm. It's a special case.
First generation only. Later, they spun at constant 360 rpm, which made
it necessary to switch to a special clock frequency (9.6 MHz instead of
8 MHz) at the FDC to process FM/MFM disks in these drives.
These 360-rpm-only drives then were the standard drives in PCs.
Tilmann
--
http://www.autometer.de - Elektronik nach Maß.
j...@cimmeri.com
> drive, with an easily accessible 34-pin ribbon cable, in a case with a
> USB to floppy controller. Will it work with a 5.25" drive? I don't
> know yet, but it's the first time we have found a 3.5" USB floppy that
> isn't "integrated" and that consists of a USB to floppy controller with
> a standard 34-pin interface.
>
> Barry Watzman
If I may respectfully opine with my 2 cents... this whole 5.25 USB
thing is a waste of everyone's valuable time. Not only does it seem
from the UFI spec that talking to the 5.25 in all the modes needed
isn't supported, but what good would a USB interface be with drives
that are no longer being manufactured and aren't easily repairable if
at all (unlike some discrete component 8" DS drives which will likely
serviceably outlast all 3.5 and 5.25 drives (I temporarily rule out SS
drives due to felt pad issue)).
Rather, I think those concerned's time would be far more wisely
spent migrating off 5.25" permanently, and going to 3.5" or better,
developing some solid state USB floppy emulator box (with both 34 and
50 pin connectors) that can plug into a PC, receive an image, then be
configurable and functional as ANY kind of floppy for a legacy
system. THAT would be a USEFUL and worthy endeavor.
~ J
R. Steve Walz
For the size of CP/M it would be a lot better to migrate to those
little USB jump-drives, or just SanDisk Memory cards, which are
easily written to and can hold all the programs you'd ever want
from CP/M. Or you could just battery back-up one of those huge RAM
sticks out of a PC. Why anyone is bothering with spinning media
when we can do it all in RAM/ROM/EEPROM/Flash now is beyond me,
especially if you're using USB technology to access that old trash!
You might as well get up to date and stay in the memory/IO map
rather than go out to mechanically fragile spinning (ugh) media.
And let's put our cp/M in EPROM for gosh sakes! Somebody surely
recalls how that overlay process works for bigger programs and
it can be simply replaced or easily subverted. (P.S., I knew at
one time, but forgot, does anybody have that info close at hand?)
-Steve
--
-Steve Walz rst...@armory.com ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew
Electronics Site!! 1000's of Files and Dirs!! With Schematics Galore!!
http://www.armory.com/~rstevew or http://www.armory.com/~rstevew/Public
glen herrmannsfeldt
> Barry Watzman schrieb:
(snip)
>>Generally, they can't, with one exception: High density (1.2MB) 5.25"
>>floppy drives are normally dual speed 300/360 rpm. It's a special case.
> First generation only. Later, they spun at constant 360 rpm, which made
> it necessary to switch to a special clock frequency (9.6 MHz instead of
> 8 MHz) at the FDC to process FM/MFM disks in these drives.
> These 360-rpm-only drives then were the standard drives in PCs.
I had thought that the dual speed drives came later.
I had the data sheet for the TEAC FD55G long before I ever heard of
the IBM PC/AT, maybe even before it was available in the US.
In any case, IBM started using single speed drives with a three
frequency controller. (250, 300, 500) kb/s.
-- glen
Barry Watzman
You are entitled to your opinion; I do not share it, not one bit.
As to drive availability, there are millions and millions of drives
available. Drive availability is absolutely not a problem.
j...@cimmeri.com
> You are entitled to your opinion; I do not share it, not one bit.
>
> As to drive availability, there are millions and millions of drives
> available. Drive availability is absolutely not a problem.
If there are millions, there certainly aren't a representative number
of 5.25" drives -- especially HD -- on ebay. At least, not the good
Teac ones with the right jumpers. But even if there were, one real
issue will be longevity and serviceability as well as media
durability.
I still have to ask WHY, though? I would think most people would want
to get off 5.25" floppies asap, and at the least cost UNLESS they are
trying to maintain vintage equip with original drives ONLY. Thus the
great logic of Allison's suggestion. There's nothing inately
interesting about the 5.25" ... other than that the HD version can
directly replace an 8" DSDD drive. I have a stock of new HD 5.25"
drives here just for that purpose, followed by a stock of dual speed
3.5" drives to replace them when THEY die. But as hedged as I am, I'm
still betting my 8"ers will outlast them all except for possibly the
media.
Except for those of us who really enjoy watching and hearing the
original drives (as I do), why not do as Steve Walz says -- just get
beyond this old stuff.
~ J
j...@cimmeri.com
> For the size of CP/M it would be a lot better to migrate to...>
> -Steve
Steve, functionally, you are of course right on. Yes, it would be
MUCH easier to shove a CF card into my most modern PC, plop files onto
it, and then attach it directly to my IMSAI (I am working on this
option too as a hard drive replacement).
However, for some of us, experiencing all the sights, sounds, and
smells of the original gear is much of the enjoyment. I'm still using
8" drives with my IMSAI and would feel empty and odd if it operated in
complete silence save for fan. One 8" is attached to IMSAI; one to a
PC XT (286 upgraded), and that's how I shuffle files or disk images
back and forth.
~ J
Tom Lake
> thing is a waste of everyone's valuable time.
This is a HOBBY we're talking about. It doesn't need any justification
as far as practicality, feasibility or anything. It just needs to be fun!
I'm funding the contest simply because I want to transfer disks to my PC
without
having to have another computer in my already crowded computer room. I get
my external floppy and the winner gets all hardware costs paid, a Hefty
bonus,
plus all the fame and glory (!?!) of being the first to do what everyone
said couldn't
be done! (Not to mention the non-exclusive rights to sell the device to all
interested
parties!)
Tom Lake
j...@cimmeri.com
> I'm funding the contest simply because I want to transfer disks to my PC
> without
> having to have another computer in my already crowded computer room.
If it can be done easily, it's worth doing.. otherwise, existing
solutions are too ready available, I think, to warrant reinventing a
wheel.. THAT SAID.
What's the format of disks are you desiring to transfer?
I have a USB 3.5" dual speed (300/360rpm) dual datarate 250kbps/
500kbps drive here plugged into my WinXP PC. I just formatted a few
5.25" SSDD and DSDD CPM formats onto it at 300rpm, 250kbps... which
means a 5.25" drive would interface with no problem and do the same.
Let me know your format and I'll see if it's possible.
~ J
Tom Lake
news:1185840664.9...@w3g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
> What's the format of disks are you desiring to transfer?
>
> I have a USB 3.5" dual speed (300/360rpm) dual datarate 250kbps/
> 500kbps drive here plugged into my WinXP PC. I just formatted a few
> 5.25" SSDD and DSDD CPM formats onto it at 300rpm, 250kbps... which
> means a 5.25" drive would interface with no problem and do the same.
>
> Let me know your format and I'll see if it's possible.
I have 180K, SS, 320K DS, 360K DS, 1.2M DS disks.
Some Kaypro, some IBM, some TRS-80.
I'd like to be able to read them all.
Tom Lake
j...@cimmeri.com
> I have 180K, SS, 320K DS, 360K DS, 1.2M DS disks.
> Some Kaypro, some IBM, some TRS-80.
> I'd like to be able to read them all.
The PC ones shouldn't be an issue.
Re Kaypro or TRS80, I'd need to know the exact format specs... eg.
Kaypro SSDD or DSDD, 40 or 80 trk. With the TRS80, the model # and
the same format specs.
~ J
Katzy
>"jsno...@cimmeri.com" <j...@cimmeri.com> wrote in message
>news:1185840664.9...@w3g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
>
>> What's the format of disks are you desiring to transfer?
<snip>
>I have 180K, SS, 320K DS, 360K DS, 1.2M DS disks.
>Some Kaypro, some IBM, some TRS-80.
>I'd like to be able to read them all.
TRS-80:
http://www.trs-80emulators.com/
Maybe ReadDisc is something for you.
Kaypro:
Did you try 22disk?
www.nostalgia8.nl/cpm/util/22dsk144.zip
Greetz. Katzy.
Barry Watzman
controller and a standard 3.5" drive have about a dozen of them. They
are listed on E-Bay, they are going for about $15 + shipping.
Tom Lake
>
> Kaypro:
> Did you try 22disk?
The problem is my PC's BIOS only supports one floppy drive and that has to
be a 3.5" 1.44MB drive.
There is no option for drive B: or for 5.25" disks.
Tom Lake
no....@no.uce.bellatlantic.net
wrote:
Ahem, What the bios supports is only important if your booting off
the drive. Also the drive cable may permit the usual twist
and select option just the bios doesn't care (or use it).
If you are running dos or W98 (NT4, Win2000, and XP don't like this)
and load a program that talks to the floppy hardware directly then
things are far more flexible. All it takes is software that doesn't
do a BIOS call to do floppy IO. An example of that would be FCOPY,
Imagedisk, and likely a few I forgot to mention.
Allison
>
>Tom Lake
>
Barry Watzman
There is no functional drive select capability (AT ALL); if you can't
toggle drive select lines in hardware, you are pretty much screwed. It
pisses me off, but I'm on my 2nd such motherboard. And it's becoming
FAR more common.
s_dub...@yahoo.com
> No, some modern motherboards only support 1 floppy disk drive, period.
> There is no functional drive select capability (AT ALL); if you can't
> toggle drive select lines in hardware, you are pretty much screwed. It
> pisses me off, but I'm on my 2nd such motherboard. And it's becoming
> FAR more common.
>
Is there the setup option on booting [various F1, F2, F6, F12] which
gives access to change physical configurations as well as bootstrap
defaults?
Some bios's require enabling in there before the controller will be
allowed to look for, and recognize, another physically attached
device.
Steve
>
>
> no.s...@no.uce.bellatlantic.net wrote:
> > On Tue, 31 Jul 2007 18:48:23 -0400, "Tom Lake" <tl...@twcny.rr.com>
> > wrote:
>
> >>> Maybe ReadDisc is something for you.
>
> >>> Kaypro:
> >>> Did you try 22disk?
> >> The problem is my PC's BIOS only supports one floppy drive and that has to
> >> be a 3.5" 1.44MB drive.
> >> There is no option for drive B: or for 5.25" disks.
>
> > Ahem, What the bios supports is only important if your booting off
> > the drive. Also the drive cable may permit the usual twist
> > and select option just the bios doesn't care (or use it).
>
> > If you are running dos or W98 (NT4, Win2000, and XP don't like this)
> > and load a program that talks to the floppy hardware directly then
> > things are far more flexible. All it takes is software that doesn't
> > do a BIOS call to do floppy IO. An example of that would be FCOPY,
> > Imagedisk, and likely a few I forgot to mention.
>
> > Allison
>
> >> Tom Lake- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Tom Lake
>>be a 3.5" 1.44MB drive.
>>There is no option for drive B: or for 5.25" disks.
>
> Ahem, What the bios supports is only important if your booting off
> the drive. Also the drive cable may permit the usual twist
> and select option just the bios doesn't care (or use it).
No, the motherboard hardware simply doesn't allow more than one floppy drive
no matter how the cable is twisted. Neither XP nor Vista will see more than
the
one 3.5" drive the mobo allows. There are more and more systems that are
doing
this these days.
Tom Lake
no....@no.uce.bellatlantic.net
<Watzma...@neo.rr.com> wrote:
>No, some modern motherboards only support 1 floppy disk drive, period.
>There is no functional drive select capability (AT ALL); if you can't
>toggle drive select lines in hardware, you are pretty much screwed. It
>pisses me off, but I'm on my 2nd such motherboard. And it's becoming
>FAR more common.
Simple solution, don't upgrade. I keep old machines for that reason
alone.
Allison
no....@no.uce.bellatlantic.net
wrote:
>>>The problem is my PC's BIOS only supports one floppy drive and that has to
I doubt XP or Vista even care about floppies.
I'll repeat myself, fine an old machine and DON'T run NT4, XP or VISTA
so that you can freely acess the hardware. W98se is fine for this and
will network nicely enough for transfers.
Allison
>
>Tom Lake
>
>
Dave Dunfield
>>> be a 3.5" 1.44MB drive.
>>> There is no option for drive B: or for 5.25" disks.
>> Ahem, What the bios supports is only important if your booting off
>> the drive. Also the drive cable may permit the usual twist
>> and select option just the bios doesn't care (or use it).
>No, some modern motherboards only support 1 floppy disk drive, period.
>There is no functional drive select capability (AT ALL); if you can't
>toggle drive select lines in hardware, you are pretty much screwed. It
>pisses me off, but I'm on my 2nd such motherboard. And it's becoming
>FAR more common.
I've seen this too - many (most?) newer machines support only 1 FD,
saves them a pin on the chipset.
But Allisons comment MAY still be valid regarding 5.25" disks - all
the boards I've tried still have a standard disk controller - it's just the
drive B: select is missing. Even if the BIOS does not support it, you
can connect a 5.25" drive and use ImageDisk or any other direct
access program to read/write it. (I leave the BIOS settings at "none"
for the drives in my imaging system).
I have information on my site about connecting an external cable
with adapters for various drives - this is oriented toward putting
the external drive on as B:, however with a slight modification to
the internal cable (remove the internal drive conenctor and have
only one twist) It would work equally well for an external connection
for various drives as A:
I say "MAY" because there's a possibility that to further save money
the makers will dial-out the 300kbps clock required for 5.25" DD, and
may even dial-out the 250kbps clock needed for 3.5"/5.25" DD,
after all - what PC uses DD disks these days? - Of course the entire
FDC will disappear soon enough.
Easiest solution if you want to deal with classic disks/formats is to
find a good older machine with a good FDC and use it. I have a
utility on my site to evaluate the FDC to determine it's capabilities
(many PC FDCs cannot do SD and other formats required for some
classic systems) as well as a small registry of mainboards and
FDCs that have been tested and the results that have been
reported.
Dave
--
dave06a@ Low-cost firmware development tools: www.dunfield.com
dunfield. Classic computer collection: www.classiccmp.org/dunfield
com Stuff I have for sale: www.dunfield.com/sale
Bill
wrote:
.........
>If you are running dos or W98 (NT4, Win2000, and XP don't like this)
>and load a program that talks to the floppy hardware directly then
>things are far more flexible. All it takes is software that doesn't
>do a BIOS call to do floppy IO.
The PC was designed to pick up drivers from firmware (BIOS)
chips, and floppy controllers with EPROM/PROM sockets were
fairly common in the days of the switch from 5'' to 3'' drives.
I never saw a 'collection' of these floppy bioses anywhere, but some
were very capable of almost any kind of drive you could hook onto
them. (including tape, optical, HD's, etc) Also seems to me, Copy II
PC Option Board was really nothing more than a very intelligent
floppy controller. There were others, too.
Another issue had to do with the data separator - there were some
data rates you could only get with an external one, if your board
had a built-in (to the floppy micro controller) it wouldn't work with
some drives. A separate separator was usually a little 8-pin device.
Does this strike any memory chords?
Bill
Tom Lake
> I'll repeat myself, fine an old machine and DON'T run NT4, XP or VISTA
> so that you can freely acess the hardware. W98se is fine for this and
> will network nicely enough for transfers.
>
> Allison
Ya just don't get it! I'm offering to hire someone to build me
a 5.25" floppy to USB interface. I know it is easier in the short
run to keep an old machine around but that's not an option here.
I need to be able to move a floppy drive between many machines
that can't access a 5.25" floppy drive directly. *That* is the limiting
parameter and any scenario which doesn't allow it is no solution.
Tom Lake
MdntTrain
> Ya just don't get it! I'm offering to hire someone to build me
> a 5.25" floppy to USB interface. I know it is easier in the short
> run to keep an old machine around but that's not an option here.
> I need to be able to move a floppy drive between many machines
> that can't access a 5.25" floppy drive directly. *That* is the limiting
> parameter and any scenario which doesn't allow it is no solution.
Tom, I don't think your statement of intent is all that clear. A USB-
>5.25" PC format floppy use is likely within reach, but you appear to
also be expecting some kind of CPM compatibility.. and yet you haven't
even defined EXACTLY what formats (though I have asked). Not all
formats are created equal in this USB controller world. For someone
who wants this so bad, you're not exactly putting in much effort
yet... given the potential tremendous difficulty of the task.
I can tell you right now, you're not going to get FM encoding via
USB.. not unless you spend thousands and thousands of $ developing a
special chip or other hardware... so forget about imaging, and pray
all your disks are MFM encoded.
~ J
Tom Lake
>>5.25" PC format floppy use is likely within reach, but you appear to
> also be expecting some kind of CPM compatibility.. and yet you haven't
> even defined EXACTLY what formats (though I have asked). Not all
> formats are created equal in this USB controller world. For someone
> who wants this so bad, you're not exactly putting in much effort
> yet... given the potential tremendous difficulty of the task.
The reason I asked in this group is because this is one of the last groups
with real hardware specialists in it.
My main objective, is 180K, 320K, 360K and 1.2MB
PC formats. TRS-80 Model I/III or Tandy Model 4 formats,
Kaypro, Xerox, Epson formats are welcome as well, although
the main objective is PC-DOS formats. Applicants will
have plenty of opportunity to get the exact specs during the
interview.
Tom Lake
no....@no.uce.bellatlantic.net
wrote:
>
Actually I do get it, "Translation I want and somebodies gotta do it".
The horrible fact of life is that current PCs FDC and floppy are
being dropped or soon to be. The 1.44mb drive is no longer a
fit with 4GB thumb drives and the like. It's already reached maye
even passed the point where people buy USB or before that parallel
port devices to fill the gap of the PC not having a floppy or at least
not the correct one. When does USB go poof like the floppy?
But I'd not get involved in the folly of designing and building a one
off (you might sell a few) then having to support it on maybe three
OSs two of which or horrid and one that comes in far to many flavors.
There are many here that can do it, I can but, will not as it's a lot
of effort for something that has a simpler less costly solution.
For those that forget the dimensions of the task are.
Box with N many drives, likely two to satisfy the various drive
needs. Thats a mechanical problem mostly. it needs power as
well and most 5.25" drives cannot be powered off the USB bus.
Firmware for the microcontroller with USB and FDC interfaces,
the firmware needs to handle all possible FDC formats.
Software for the host as the standard host driver will not recognize
the special USB devices capability, it will have to be a registered
driver as XP and Vista are likely targets.
Software to talk to that driver to do the capture and organization
of the data retrieved. It would also have to configure and
otherwise monitor/control the USB device.
How much you willing to pay? I figure it's a few weeks work
between the hardware and then the PC based software for first proto.
For a serious moment I'd estimate it as a minimum of 60 billable
hours and I'd think at a bargan rate of say $50/hr it's a $3000 plus,
material and external charges (machine shop, PC board fab,
software development tools, misc materials) are on top of that.
I'm sure most would say I've estimated low.
Myself I'd invest in a used machine and use the remaining cash to
holidy in a nice sunny island.
The cheap way is to get a older PC (they are usually free) with decent
NIC in it or even a USB and use that with the correct cables
as a transfer machine. With available software you're there
in a few minutes to a few hours at most.
Then again I have PDP-11, uVAX,, AmproLb+, KayproII and 4/84,
Visual1050, DEC Vt180, NS* plus a few S100 machines that read
those formats natively. Add a few old 486s with NICs that do ok
for the less esoteric soft sector formats. Sure, I don't do all
(Apple for one) but that covers most of what I consider relevent to
me. The problem of multiple formats and media incompatability has
been familiar one since 1977 which is when I fired up my first floppy.
It was 5..25" hard sector in a world of 8" SSSD, Paper tape, Audio
casette and even Barcode. Since then I've realized that no matther
how I standardized everything I still had to retain foreign format
capability.
Allison
>
no....@no.uce.bellatlantic.net
wrote:
>> Tom, I don't think your statement of intent is all that clear. A USB-
>>>5.25" PC format floppy use is likely within reach, but you appear to
>> also be expecting some kind of CPM compatibility.. and yet you haven't
>> even defined EXACTLY what formats (though I have asked). Not all
>> formats are created equal in this USB controller world. For someone
>> who wants this so bad, you're not exactly putting in much effort
>> yet... given the potential tremendous difficulty of the task.
>
>The reason I asked in this group is because this is one of the last groups
>with real hardware specialists in it.
It's a firmware/software task and two must be complementary.
Allison
>My main objective, is 180K, 320K, 360K and 1.2MB
>PC formats.
Those are easy, you just need a 5.25" drive (two really).
> TRS-80 Model I/III or Tandy Model 4 formats,
>Kaypro, Xerox, Epson formats are welcome as well, although
>the main objective is PC-DOS formats.
Anyone that understand the problem knows the basic task.
> Applicants will have plenty of opportunity to get the exact specs
> during the interview.
Allison
>Tom Lake
>
glen herrmannsfeldt
(snip)
> Actually I do get it, "Translation I want and somebodies gotta do it".
> The horrible fact of life is that current PCs FDC and floppy are
> being dropped or soon to be. The 1.44mb drive is no longer a
> fit with 4GB thumb drives and the like. It's already reached maye
> even passed the point where people buy USB or before that parallel
> port devices to fill the gap of the PC not having a floppy or at least
> not the correct one. When does USB go poof like the floppy?
Apple dropped floppies about 10 years ago. The solution, then,
was to use USB floppy drives! Most laptops dropped floppy for
external USB floppy drives, too.
(snip)
> Software for the host as the standard host driver will not recognize
> the special USB devices capability, it will have to be a registered
> driver as XP and Vista are likely targets.
I would do two separate boxes. I haven't looked at the USB protocols
at all.
> Software to talk to that driver to do the capture and organization
> of the data retrieved. It would also have to configure and
> otherwise monitor/control the USB device.
Hopefully the existing host software works, but I don't know that.
> How much you willing to pay? I figure it's a few weeks work
> between the hardware and then the PC based software for first proto.
> For a serious moment I'd estimate it as a minimum of 60 billable
> hours and I'd think at a bargan rate of say $50/hr it's a $3000 plus,
> material and external charges (machine shop, PC board fab,
> software development tools, misc materials) are on top of that.
> I'm sure most would say I've estimated low.
Sounds about right to me.
(snip)
> Then again I have PDP-11, uVAX,, AmproLb+, KayproII and 4/84,
> Visual1050, DEC Vt180, NS* plus a few S100 machines that read
> those formats natively.
For the ones he is most interested in, I believe they are
256byte/sector. That should be an easy software change if the
source for the USB/floppy software is available. As above, I
don't know if windows knows how to read USB/floppy other than
at 512 bytes/sector. Well, I don't even know if sector length
matters in USB.
The project gets more interesting for 8 inch drives, though I
am sure that they can't be USB powered.
Also, writing is a little harder than reading, and the OP didn't
say which is needed.
My choice would be to find some system to copy all the disks over
to 3.5in and work with them that way.
-- glen
MdntTrain
> My main objective, is 180K, 320K, 360K and 1.2MB
> PC formats. TRS-80 Model I/III or Tandy Model 4 formats,
> Kaypro, Xerox, Epson formats are welcome as well, although
> the main objective is PC-DOS formats.
Ok. As a preliminary test, here's what I was able to do SUCCESSFULLY
with a WinXP box, a SmartDisk VST 3.5" USB Floppy Drive, Sydex's 22
Disk, and a few manually overridden XP command prompt format commands:
TRS Model 4 SSDD CPM 48tpi 5.25" format
all IBM PC DD CPM86 5.25" formats
all IBM PC DD DOS 5.25" formats incl. 1.2mb HD at 360rpm.
I only tried a handful, but quite a few other attempted 5.25" formats
would NOT work.
It may be a leap, but I'm ASSUMING that a Buslink 3.5" assembly
connected to a dualspeed 5.25" HD drive would produce as good results.
I tried to find the Buslink for $15 but never could. Offer $22 for
another, never heard back, so I'm out for now unless Tom you want to
buy one for me then I'll try interfacing one of my dual speed 5.25" to
it. But even so, remember, the number of successful formats will be
narrow.
~ J
MdntTrain
>
> The project gets more interesting for 8 inch drives, though I
> am sure that they can't be USB powered.
What do you mean 8" drives can't be USB powered?!?? I was really
hoping for a single cord 8" floppy drive (including AC power)!!
Allison, tell me it CAN be done!
~ J
no....@no.uce.bellatlantic.net
I use the S100 crate for NS* and 8" and I've only found a few 5.25"
(128byte/sector SD) that the PC [Dell 486] will not do and those disks
hold nothing of any value or interest due to their extreme lack of
space (80k formatted).
The only time I need cross platform floppies these days is when
I need a blank PDP-11 (RX01) formatted 8" and the occasional boot
disk. Most of the systems that need boot disks are soft sector
formats the PC does just fine, the exceptions have been those boxes
that need hard sector (NS* horizon or Advantage). File transfer is
via PCplus to a xmodem program on the CP/M machine. Since
I use the S100 and AmproLB+ this is not inconvenient.
The nice thing about the 486 is it's a nice utility box (dell Pizza
box) with good video and a nice 4.3gb disk, 3.5 and 5.25" floppies,
a NIC and my logic analyser. The 4.3 GB is a nice size for local
archive and the NIC transfers nicely to the bigger faster machines
where I can burn CDs. I like having my archives in several places, on
several machines and multiple medias for backup.
I try not to let market driven PCs limit what I can do by not
embracing them when not needed.
Allison
>
>-- glen
no....@no.uce.bellatlantic.net
>On Aug 1, 9:23 pm, "Tom Lake" <tl...@twcny.rr.com> wrote:
>> My main objective, is 180K, 320K, 360K and 1.2MB
>> PC formats. TRS-80 Model I/III or Tandy Model 4 formats,
>> Kaypro, Xerox, Epson formats are welcome as well, although
>> the main objective is PC-DOS formats.
>
>Ok. As a preliminary test, here's what I was able to do SUCCESSFULLY
>with a WinXP box, a SmartDisk VST 3.5" USB Floppy Drive, Sydex's 22
>Disk, and a few manually overridden XP command prompt format commands:
>
>TRS Model 4 SSDD CPM 48tpi 5.25" format
>all IBM PC DD CPM86 5.25" formats
>all IBM PC DD DOS 5.25" formats incl. 1.2mb HD at 360rpm.
>
>I only tried a handful, but quite a few other attempted 5.25" formats
>would NOT work.
Using my PIII/500 with a 3.5" floppy and a FD55GFR running 98lite
I can read :
VT180
Ampro 5.25 48tpi
Ampro 5.25 96tpi
Ampro 3.5" (both 720k and 780k formats)
DEC RX33 (5.25 96tpi DS DD
DEC RX50 (5.25 48tpi SS DD)
Kaypro (all 5.25 formats)
SB180 (all 5.25 or 3.5" formats, 9266 is a 765)
Visual 1050 (5.25 SSDD 96tpi)
Compupro DISK1A (any 5.25" or 3.5" as its 765 based)
99/4a floppies (5.25" 48tpi SSSD)
PC, all formats supported under dos for floppies (5.25 and 3.5")
other than 2.88 and I have a controller for that format if I
ever see a drive and media for that one.
That covers all the major softsector formats in the CP/M realm other
than those on 8" media.
That doesn't mean they are file compatable only that the FDC
reads and can write them. To handle file level stuff other
layerd software is required. Supporting software includes
Rawwrite and Rawread (sector level transfers), FCOPY, Imagedisk,
Teledisk and a few I may have but forgot.
Allison
no....@no.uce.bellatlantic.net
Yep, if you can suck 60W out of the USB cable it can be done. :)
All you need is 110V at 60hz for the motor, 24V, 5V and -5V at
respectable power for all those assuming your running a SA800.
Most PC cases would be hard pressed for place to grab the AC
power line!
Even a 5.25 floppy wants +12 and +5 and around 12W peak power.
Allison
>~ J
Barry Watzman
drives, but only one drive ... whatever it is.
Barry Watzman
There is a market for those, if you have one designed & built. Not sure
how big, or what price it will bear, but definitely a market.
Barry Watzman
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150147855861
and
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290132985861
The Dealexpress guys have about a dozen of them
Barry Watzman
Wat...@neo.rr.com
glen herrmannsfeldt
(snip)
> All you need is 110V at 60hz for the motor, 24V, 5V and -5V at
> respectable power for all those assuming your running a SA800.
> Most PC cases would be hard pressed for place to grab the AC
> power line!
The later drives use 24V for the motor, likely at pretty
high current. The tradition for 8 inch, unlike that for
5.25 inch, was to keep the motor on all the time, and use
a head load solenoid so that the head wasn't in contact with
the disk until needed. Some 5.25 inch still had the head load
solenoid, but would switch the motors on when needed. The
standard has one line for motor on, and four for drive select.
It seems that the early IBM power supplies couldn't run two
floppy motors, so they came up with the cable twist system to
allow separate control over the motor on lines, and only two
drive select lines. I still have a Teac FD55F with the head
load solenoid.
I also have one 8 inch drive, I believe with 24 volt motor,
but I have never tried using it.
-- glen
glen herrmannsfeldt
(snip)
> The only time I need cross platform floppies these days is when
> I need a blank PDP-11 (RX01) formatted 8" and the occasional boot
> disk. Most of the systems that need boot disks are soft sector
> formats the PC does just fine, the exceptions have been those boxes
> that need hard sector (NS* horizon or Advantage). File transfer is
> via PCplus to a xmodem program on the CP/M machine. Since
> I use the S100 and AmproLB+ this is not inconvenient.
I thought RX-01 was IBM standard. It is the RX-02 that is the strange
DEC standard with single density headers on double density data blocks.
I do have a Q-bus controller that will read/write/format RX-02.
(The DEC standard ones won't format them.)
-- glen
glen herrmannsfeldt
(snip)
> I tried to find the Buslink for $15 but never could. Offer $22 for
> another, never heard back, so I'm out for now unless Tom you want to
> buy one for me then I'll try interfacing one of my dual speed 5.25" to
> it. But even so, remember, the number of successful formats will be
> narrow.
Does the buslink use the previously mentioned USB/floppy controller chip?
-- glen
Tom Lake
"Barry Watzman" <Watzma...@neo.rr.com> wrote in message
news:46b23eec$0$8919$4c36...@roadrunner.com...
>I think that the motherboards still support both 360k and 1.2M 5.25"
>drives, but only one drive ... whatever it is.
The BIOS on our mobos (Intel 965 and 975-based boards) only supports
1.44 MB and 2.88 MB formats.
Tom Lake
Fred J. Scipione
group?
What about a USB to RS232 converter, a small +12V/+5V (surplus) power
supply, and a P112 board? The result should meet the requirement of
being portable from PC to PC, and the rest is just cabling and software
(custom BIOS, CP/M sector editor, Kermit, etc).
"Tom Lake" <tl...@twcny.rr.com> wrote in message
news:46ae613d$0$8913$4c36...@roadrunner.com...
>> If I may respectfully opine with my 2 cents... this whole 5.25 USB
>> thing is a waste of everyone's valuable time.
>
> This is a HOBBY we're talking about. It doesn't need any
> justification
> as far as practicality, feasibility or anything. It just needs to be
> fun!
>
> I'm funding the contest simply because I want to transfer disks to my
> PC without
> having to have another computer in my already crowded computer room.
> I get
> my external floppy and the winner gets all hardware costs paid, a
> Hefty bonus,
> plus all the fame and glory (!?!) of being the first to do what
> everyone said couldn't
> be done! (Not to mention the non-exclusive rights to sell the device
> to all interested
> parties!)
>
> Tom Lake
>
>
>
>
Thomas "Todd" Fischer
"Fred J. Scipione" <fredjs...@alum.rpi.edu> wrote in message
news:VMWdncwhfPy65C_b...@comcast.com...
By all means, do it Fred, and let us know how it turns out!
glen herrmannsfeldt
That tells it what type of drive it is. Traditionally, it can write
720K format on a 1.44M drive, which would be 360K at 40 tracks.
I believe there is a signal line telling the controller which type
of disk is inserted, otherwise it would have to find out by reading
the data.
-- glen
no....@no.uce.bellatlantic.net
It is. and I ahve an RX02 for the PDP11. The RX02 will not format so
I need formatted media which can be single density (RX01) and the
RX02 will reformat the data areas to M2FM from those SD disks.
I'd love to ahve the SDS-880 as it also had a hard disk. Instead I
ahve RL02, RX02, RD52 and RX50/33.
Allison
no....@no.uce.bellatlantic.net
<fredjs...@alum.rpi.edu> wrote:
>Might I steer this thread in a direction which should be unique to this
>group?
>
>What about a USB to RS232 converter, a small +12V/+5V (surplus) power
>supply, and a P112 board? The result should meet the requirement of
>being portable from PC to PC, and the rest is just cabling and software
>(custom BIOS, CP/M sector editor, Kermit, etc).
Or AmproLB, or Sb180 or SB180FX or big board and I can go on.
P112 is smallest but any existing CP/M crate would do.
Essentailly I have that with some of my systems. The only difference
is my PC has a serial port and doesnt need USB to create one.
Allison
no....@no.uce.bellatlantic.net
wrote:
>
Thats only a BIOS limitation and any drive can be intefaced within
reasonable limits. The only problem is you may not beable to Boot
off that drive. Once the system is running The OS does NOT have to
rely on BIOS to setup and use other modes in the FDC.
The one drive only is a minor limitation. However if the MOBO
has a BIOS setup to disable the on board FDC and a PCI or ISA bus
to plug a replacement FDC into most of the limitations like only one
drive can be dispensed with. Then it's a matter of space for the two
drives.
Allison
>
>Tom Lake
>
glen herrmannsfeldt
(snip)
> It is. and I ahve an RX02 for the PDP11. The RX02 will not format so
> I need formatted media which can be single density (RX01) and the
> RX02 will reformat the data areas to M2FM from those SD disks.
> I'd love to ahve the SDS-880 as it also had a hard disk. Instead I
> ahve RL02, RX02, RD52 and RX50/33.
I have the MXV21 floppy controller, which is DEC compatible
except that it does know how to format. I did once have it
connected to a 5.25in HD drive. The first time I tried to
format a disk in the HD drive it stopped on track 43.
It took me a few seconds to realize that the drive believed
the reduce write current signal. A quick rewiring to ground
pin 2 fixed that problem. Someday I should see if that one
still works.
Otherwise, all the 8 inch floppies I ever saw came formatted
in the box. Usually IBM standard.
-- glen
Jeff Jonas
>Or AmproLB, or Sb180 or SB180FX or big board and I can go on.
>P112 is smallest but any existing CP/M crate would do.
>Essentailly I have that with some of my systems. The only difference
>is my PC has a serial port and doesnt need USB to create one.
Indeed: many single board Z80 systems piggyback nicely to a 5.25" floppy drive
and even use the same power connector.
When my main home system migrated from the Servo 8 single-board Z80 CP/M system
running only floppy disks to a PC-AT, I used a serial cable between them
to transfer all the files via batch transfer: DOS/Procomm on the PC,
some terminal/file-transfer program on the CP/M system.
It /really sounds easiest/ to use a native CP/M system
to handle the disk formats and then serial-transfer the files.
No hardware or firmware needed, and it's reasonable to set up.
--
-- mejeep deMeep ferret!
Jeff Jonas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CatWeasel
The CatWeasel is a family of enhanced floppy drive controllers
from German company Individual Computers. These controllers
are designed to allow newer computers, such as PCs,
to access a wide variety of older disk formats using standard floppy drives.
I wonder if they'd consider a USB version with Linux VFS support
to just "mount" the drive directly.
Barry Watzman
if you were thinking of a specific controller or not.
Barry Watzman
or ISA bus to plug a replacement FDC ...."
Let me know when you find a PCI floppy controller. I've been looking
without success.
Dave Griffith
> Re: "if the MOBO has a BIOS setup to disable the on board FDC and a PCI
> or ISA bus to plug a replacement FDC ...."
> Let me know when you find a PCI floppy controller. I've been looking
> without success.
Catweasel?
--
David Griffith
dgr...@cs.csbuak.edu <-- Switch the 'b' and 'u'
glen herrmannsfeldt
> It uses "a" USB/floppy controller and a standard 3.5" drive. Not sure
> if you were thinking of a specific controller or not.
Yes, the SMSC USB97CFDC2
-- glen
no....@no.uce.bellatlantic.net
<Watzma...@neo.rr.com> wrote:
>Re: "if the MOBO has a BIOS setup to disable the on board FDC and a PCI
>or ISA bus to plug a replacement FDC ...."
>
>Let me know when you find a PCI floppy controller. I've been looking
>without success.
Likely since even PCI is almost dead boards for it are getting scarce.
I bought a few for a project around 5 years ago.
Allison
David Given
[...]
> I wonder if they'd consider a USB version with Linux VFS support
> to just "mount" the drive directly.
There are numerous Catweasel drivers around for Linux, in various degrees of
workingness:
--
┌── ｄｇ＠ｃｏｗｌａｒｋ．ｃｏｍ ─── http://www.cowlark.com ───────────────────
│
│ "There does not now, nor will there ever, exist a programming language in
│ which it is the least bit hard to write bad programs." --- Flon's Axiom
Bill
>Tom, I don't think your statement of intent is all that clear. A USB-
>>5.25" PC format floppy use is likely within reach, but you appear to
>also be expecting some kind of CPM compatibility.. and yet you haven't
>even defined EXACTLY what formats (though I have asked). Not all
>formats are created equal in this USB controller world. For someone
>who wants this so bad, you're not exactly putting in much effort
>yet... given the potential tremendous difficulty of the task.
>
>I can tell you right now, you're not going to get FM encoding via
>USB.. not unless you spend thousands and thousands of $ developing a
>special chip or other hardware...
Well now wait a minute... How about he gets one of those PAL
programming devices and makes his ''special chip'' himself?
A lot of S-100 (and CP/M, and early IBM compatible) manufacturers
did exactly that. PAL chips are available pretty cheap, so he can even
waste a dozen or two 'getting it right'. For that matter, if the fuse
links aren't blown, they can be recycled out of 'period' machines
for re-use.
Bill
Bill
wrote:
But Allison, wait a minute. He wants a drive he can take around to
many machines to read FLOPPIES. They aren't (usually) built-in, are
they? The disks, not the drives.
Wouldn't it be easier to bring floppies, format unknown, to a place
with the ability to read MANY formats?
Why would it even be necessary to connect such a thing to MANY
computers? What's wrong with just ONE machine, able to read
everything?
This request doesn't make any sense at all.
Bill
glen herrmannsfeldt
> On Wed, 01 Aug 2007 18:26:19 -0700, MdntTrain <j...@cimmeri.com> wrote:
(snip)
>>I can tell you right now, you're not going to get FM encoding via
>>USB.. not unless you spend thousands and thousands of $ developing a
>>special chip or other hardware...
> Well now wait a minute... How about he gets one of those PAL
> programming devices and makes his ''special chip'' himself?
The SMSC USB97CFDC2 chip is documented to support FM.
Well, it is documented to support the SMSC floppy controller,
which is documented in the 37C669 data sheet to support FM.
The on-chip ROM may not have software support, but it is
documented to work with external ROM.
The hardware is there, the only question is software.
I asked if the buslink USB floppy drive uses that chip,
but haven't seen a reply yet.
-- glen
-- glen
Barry Watzman
controller).
no....@no.uce.bellatlantic.net
wrote:
Likely because most new machines do not have floppy or it's only
1.44mb 3.5" and the user needs to read OLD media they have in their
archive.
Allison
glen herrmannsfeldt
(snip)
> Likely because most new machines do not have floppy or it's only
> 1.44mb 3.5" and the user needs to read OLD media they have in their
> archive.
Yes, but it should be read once and copied to newer media.
-- glen
Bill
<fredjs...@alum.rpi.edu> wrote:
>Might I steer this thread in a direction which should be unique to this
>group?
>
>What about a USB to RS232 converter,
Belkin makes/made them - cost maybe $25-$50 when 'new' but
you see them from time to time on ebay for maybe $5-$10
Bill
Bill
wrote:
>On Fri, 03 Aug 2007 08:08:38 -0500, Bill <bi...@sunsouthwest.com>
>wrote:
>
>>On Thu, 02 Aug 2007 16:37:02 GMT, no....@no.uce.bellatlantic.net
>>wrote:
>>Why would it even be necessary to connect such a thing to MANY
>>computers? What's wrong with just ONE machine, able to read
>>everything?
>
>Likely because most new machines do not have floppy or it's only
>1.44mb 3.5" and the user needs to read OLD media they have in their
>archive.
Yeah, I got that part...wants to read old floppies...
But into how many different machines, and why not use USB Flash
to transport into newer machines from one 'reader' machine?
What kind of an organization has old unreadable media in the hands
of multiple peoples, and why do they have to maintain such absolute
control that they can't just hand the disks to somebody to read/copy
for them?
If they're not in the same building, you have the added problem of
transporting the drive you've built, and probably installing special
software or drivers to use it.
Not allowed by any responsible system admin I ever heard of.
This request is weird.
Bill
Barry Watzman
don't.
I have no desire ... WHATSOEVER ... for a boat. Any boat. Any kind of
boat. Any size of boat. None. Period.
That doesn't change the fact that lots of people still want boats, and
that there is an entire boat industry.
Tom Lake
> Those of us who do want it don't really care why those of you who don't,
> don't.
It seems as though those who DON'T want it have an inordinate interest
in why those of us who do want it DO! To those people: There doesn't
have to be a reason why! We just want what we want. It's like any hobby
it doesn't have to have any practical application at all. It just has to be
FUN! It was those people to whom I was appealing. If you're the
kind of person who spends hours tinkering with hardware even though
you may not be building anything commercially viable; if you just do it for
the sheer enjoyment of learning how something works (we used to call
those people hackers - before the negative connotation became
prevalent) then you're the kind of person I'm looking for. True, you won't
get rich on my little project but, hey, you spend the time doing this type
of
thing anyway so ANY amount you can make is gravy. I'm not looking to
sell these things, although if enough people express interest in having one
I think we should sell them for not much more than the cost to make them.
BTW, Barry, did you get your unit yet to analyze it?
Tom Lake
Barry Watzman
tested it on a PC as a standard 3.5" drive (it works) and I took it
apart and looked inside (but stupidly didn't note the markings on the
chip or take any photos). Busy with other things right now.
Barry
MdntTrain
> It seems as though those who DON'T want it have an inordinate interest
> in why those of us who do want it DO! To those people: There doesn't
Tom, question: which is your end goal? A 5" USB drive, or to have
access to your floppies?
Do you intend to get the data off your floppies then never use them
again? Because I wouldn't see the point in staying 5" floppy
based... the media just won't last.
If your main intent is just to convert everything, why not just make a
pile of the floppies you absolutely need stuff off of, then hire
someone to do the conversion for you and be done with the 5" world
forever?
~ J
Tom Lake
Good question! My ultimate goal is to have a system that can read/write
every format that ever was on ANY medium! Right now, I can read/punch
paper tape, read/write 9-track tapes (those big reel to reels seen in old
movies that show computers), read punched cards, read most
cassette formats (Altair, Kansas City, Standard, Tarbell, TRS-80, etc.)
My biggest problem is with diskettes!
Tom Lake
Tom Lake
> My biggest problem is with diskettes!
Just an addendum to this: The company I work for has far-flung offices
with no computer-literate employees on-site and many 5.25" floppies to
convert. Setting up an old computer at these sites is out of the question
for these employees as is having them send us all their diskettes. A USB
solution would be easy. Plug it in, maybe load a software drive from
our server and you're good to go.
Tom Lake
Jeff Jonas
>Belkin makes/made them - cost maybe $25-$50 when 'new' but
>you see them from time to time on ebay for maybe $5-$10
I'm afraid I'll start sounding like a Kermit advocate
but *some* RS232 serial to USB adapters are NOT 8 bit safe.
I found that out when some failed to flash a PIC microprocessor
whereas native serial ports work fine.
Once I have repeatable data, I'll post what adapters do and don't work.
I'm afraid the Belkin one I have is NOT acceptable.
Barry Watzman
to WRITE 5.25" floppies (e.g. at least potentially create new ones) as
well as read them.
Tom Lake
> BOTH. A project can have multiple goals. I, for one, want to be able to
> WRITE 5.25" floppies (e.g. at least potentially create new ones) as well
> as read them.
Yes. Me too. I think of it as a frivolous necessity.
Tom Lake
Holger Petersen
>The SMSC USB97CFDC2 chip is documented to support FM.
But it is documented to have a data-seperator for only 250 KBit up.
Therefore it won't do Single density on 5.25 inch Drives...
just commenting, Holger
Jonathan Graham Harston
So I can plug a USB device into my serial port? Yes, I'd pay for
one of them. I've recently been looking for a USB to IDE convertor
- so I can plug a USB device into an IDE port - but all I can find
are IDE to USB convertors, fraudulantly claiming that they are
really USB to IDE convertors.
--
J.G.Harston - j...@arcade.demon.co.uk - mdfs.net/User/JGH
The most perfect world is an imperfect world as the imperfections
give people a reason to strive to change it.
Barry Watzman
(typically one of my Z-100's). So I want to create a disk on the PC, or
at least be able to copy files to it. It's definitely not just a matter
of being able to get things OFF OF a 5.25" diskette.
Dave Griffith
> Sometimes I want to take a file from my PC to another computer
> (typically one of my Z-100's). So I want to create a disk on the PC, or
> at least be able to copy files to it. It's definitely not just a matter
> of being able to get things OFF OF a 5.25" diskette.
This makes me think of a Catweasel-like device with a USB interface.
David Given
[...]
> So I can plug a USB device into my serial port? Yes, I'd pay for
> one of them. I've recently been looking for a USB to IDE convertor
> - so I can plug a USB device into an IDE port - but all I can find
> are IDE to USB convertors, fraudulantly claiming that they are
> really USB to IDE convertors.
Well, strictly they *are* --- it takes USB mass storage commands in one end,
and turns them into IDE/ATAPI commands at the other. Hence, USB to IDE.
I think you're going to be completely out of luck finding something that
allows you to plug a USB device into an IDE port. USB is a general-purpose
protocol, IDE/ATAPI is specifically for mass storage devices. While no doubt
it would be possible to abuse the protocol to use it for other things (didn't
they make IDE tape drives at one point?), I doubt anyone would be interested
enough to put together such a thing...
I assume you're trying to connect a USB device to a computer that doesn't have
any conventional ports. What is it? Do you want general-purpose USB
capabilities, or do you just want to make one particular device work?
Axel Berger
>Setting up an old computer at these sites is out of the question for
>these employees as is having them send us all their diskettes.
Are those computer illiterate people able to do it, or do you need a
travelling specialist to go round? If the latter a 486 laptop or a
pizza-box computer of the same vintage are easy to carry along.
Axel Berger
>I assume you're trying to connect a USB device to a computer that
>doesn't have any conventional ports.
You are totally out of luck here. I have been looking for a USV 1 card
for PCMCIA for quite some time, no chance. The only ones you can find
are USB 2 and either cardbus or PCI.
Bill Marcum
<g...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
>
>
> Apple dropped floppies about 10 years ago. The solution, then,
> was to use USB floppy drives! Most laptops dropped floppy for
> external USB floppy drives, too.
>
Are there USB drives that read the Apple GCR format (II or early Mac)?
--
Power, like a desolating pestilence,
Pollutes whate'er it touches...
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley
MdntTrain
> Ok. As a preliminary test, here's what I was able to do SUCCESSFULLY
> with a WinXP box, a SmartDisk VST 3.5" USB Floppy Drive, Sydex's 22
> Disk, and a few manually overridden XP command prompt format commands:
>
> TRS Model 4 SSDD CPM 48tpi 5.25" format
> all IBM PC DD CPM86 5.25" formats
> all IBM PC DD DOS 5.25" formats incl. 1.2mb HD at 360rpm.
>
> I only tried a handful, but quite a few other attempted 5.25" formats
> would NOT work.
>
> It may be a leap, but I'm ASSUMING that a Buslink 3.5" assembly
> connected to a dualspeed 5.25" HD drive would produce as good results.
>
> I tried to find the Buslink for $15 but never could. Offer $22 for
> another, never heard back, so I'm out for now unless Tom you want to
> buy one for me then I'll try interfacing one of my dual speed 5.25" to
> it. But even so, remember, the number of successful formats will be
> narrow.
>
> ~ J
I obtained a Buslink FDD1 as I wanted a USB 3.5" spare anyway. I
retried with it the tests I did above. It FAILED to format to any
specification other than DOS 720k or 1.44mb. That's it. The USB
controller on it is not set up to handle ANY OTHER REQUEST TYPE.
End of story.
~ J
David Given
Actually, it was GP who wanted it, not me... I want one, too. (Lots of exotic
PCMCIA-only hardware, including a very nice Psion Netbook with not enough ports.)
If one absolutely needed such a thing, and had sufficient electronics
knowledge, it ought to be relatively easy to put together a system using a PIC
or an AVR microcontroller or something that bridged USB to some other
protocol. Both microcontrollers support USB, and it shouldn't be too hard to
come up with some software for it that allowed the USB bus to be controlled
remotely via, say, a bidirectional parallel port. You'd then need a custom USB
driver for the host computer that talked to the parallel port. From the
perspective of the host, it'd just have a really slow USB driver.
Hell, if someone came up with the software, I'd use one...
Barry Watzman
connect it to a 5.25" disk and insert an already formatted disk, could I
read/write it? The inability to format does not necessarily imply the
inability to access an already formatted disk (a Microsoft OS will read
the media type byte and from that know what kind of media it is dealing
with. And at least as long as the sector size is 512 bytes, it may well
work).
David Given
> I don't care whether it formats the disk or not. The question is, if I
> connect it to a 5.25" disk and insert an already formatted disk, could I
> read/write it? The inability to format does not necessarily imply the
> inability to access an already formatted disk (a Microsoft OS will read
> the media type byte and from that know what kind of media it is dealing
> with. And at least as long as the sector size is 512 bytes, it may well
> work).
Except that the Microsoft OS has nothing to do with the reading the floppy.
The OS doesn't even know it *is* a floppy; it thinks it's a generic USB mass
storage device, which (IIRC) is block-addressed rather than CHS. Figuring out
which sector a given block is on is entirely up to the feeble little
microcontroller on the device. If the device doesn't understand the format...
well... you're out of luck.
That's not saying it might not understand more formats than it's letting on,
mind. But you are entirely at the mercy of the microcontroller's own
programming. No amount of clever software on the host computer will help here.
Barry Watzman
that it's a 5.25" drive vs. a 3.5" drive won't matter. The drive will
deliver "track 9, side 0, sector 4".
Roger Ivie
> So what? The OS will request "track 9, side 0, sector 4". And the fact
> that it's a 5.25" drive vs. a 3.5" drive won't matter. The drive will
> deliver "track 9, side 0, sector 4".
Except that the OS will request "block 57" and the controller will
calculate the track, side, and sector based on its assumption of the
disk format. Since a HD 3.5" drive has more sectors per track than a HD
5.25" drive, it will calculate incorrectly.
--
roger ivie
ri...@ridgenet.net
glen herrmannsfeldt
You tell the OS that it is a 5.25in drive, and it will do the
calculation based on that. In some cases you can tell the OS the
number of sectors/track or tracks/cyl (sides) separate from the
disk size.
-- glen
David Given
[...]
> You tell the OS that it is a 5.25in drive, and it will do the
> calculation based on that. In some cases you can tell the OS the
> number of sectors/track or tracks/cyl (sides) separate from the
> disk size.
Yes, but it's *not* the OS that needs to know this! It's the microcontroller
on the USB chipset that's responsible for turning block numbers into geometry.
There's not a lot of point telling the OS that you've got a 5.25" drive with
12 sectors per track if the microcontroller attached to the FDC is convinced
you've got a 3.5" drive with 18 sectors per track...
glen herrmannsfeldt
(snip)
> Yes, but it's *not* the OS that needs to know this! It's the microcontroller
> on the USB chipset that's responsible for turning block numbers into geometry.
> There's not a lot of point telling the OS that you've got a 5.25" drive with
> 12 sectors per track if the microcontroller attached to the FDC is convinced
> you've got a 3.5" drive with 18 sectors per track...
That is true. There is a different question, though. One might copy
5.25in disks to 3.5in for archival purposes. In that case, the 3.5in
disk would have the 5.25in geometry.
Also, even with the USB one could write a program that would give
the appropriate offsets (such as fseek) to get to the desired sector
given that the USB device has the wrong S/T.
-- glen