A:...

On 7/25/2020 0:52, bitrex wrote:
On 7/24/2020 4:45 PM, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
fredag den 24. juli 2020 kl. 22.40.48 UTC+2 skrev Robert Baer:
Started in Win7.1...

    Why is it impossible to access a floppy drive, much less COPY a file
from it?

    At least, in WinXP i _seems_ easier/possible.

    You get only ONE chance to do a DIR A: or equivalent (windows
explorer); \"drive not ready\" or \"please insert disk\" IF there is any
access to the drive at all.
    The drive light will go on ONLY ONCE and the drive will never go on
again until power off then power on.
     Maybe you will be lucky and get a contents listing (most likely in
WinXP) but you will never be able to COPY from A: to elsewhere.

    Damn good thing i still had a Win2K drive to boot from.
    There,one can do an A: or equivalent and the FD will continually do
an access until \"fed\" a floppy.

    So...how in the HECK can one work with floppies in Win7.1?

you also use punchcards?  :)


A lot of cheap USB floppy drives say \"plug and play\" but they mean \"plug
and pray.\"

A real MAN would get a 50 pin internal SCSI floppy drive and SCSI
controller card I believe a number of adaptec SCSI-1 cards are still
supported thru win 10. it is also great for your Nakamichi SCSI
CD-changer: <https://i.imgur.com/1Q8LlMr.jpg
Click to expand...

Used to have a SCSI 3.5\" floppy from Teac, bought around 1993.
The *only* floppy drive which I could make read the floppies from my
old 6809 system, 256 bytes/sector, without me having written its
controller.... (the one on the 6809 system was mine but it was a
normal floppy accessed via a upd765).
I still feel like crying when I think of it, fried it 15 or 20
years ago using a bad SCSI cable I had made...

Dimiter

======================================================
Dimiter Popoff, TGI http://www.tgi-sci.com
======================================================
http://www.flickr.com/photos/didi_tgi/
 
Am 25.07.20 um 19:52 schrieb Dimiter_Popoff:


Used to have a SCSI 3.5\" floppy from Teac, bought around 1993.
The *only* floppy drive which I could make read the floppies from my
old 6809 system, 256 bytes/sector, without me having written its
controller.... (the one on the 6809 system was mine but it was a
normal floppy accessed via a upd765).
I still feel like crying when I think of it, fried it 15 or 20
years ago using a bad SCSI cable I had made...
Click to expand...

I have a USB floppy drive sold by Hama, the usual computer store
stuff here. It works reliably only on a USB3 port because USB2
does not deliver enough power for the motor / head.

Works without issues, also with the old spectrum analyzers,
scopes, the Anritsu pulse pattern generator, and with the
16702B logic analyzer that runs HP-UX.

cheers, Gerhard
 
JJ wrote:
On Fri, 24 Jul 2020 19:44:11 -0400, Paul wrote:
I use a Mitsumi USB floppy, and it will assume the
letter A: if the motherboard has no floppy on the SuperI/O.

I\'m curious since I haven\'t tried a USB based floppy drive, and considering
that AFAIK, USB based storage devices are mass-storage driven.

Can it be used to create a custom format floppy such as 2MF, XDF, 3M, etc.?
i.e. custom number of sectors per track, interleaved sectors, gap length,
etc.
Click to expand...

VID 03EE PID 6901 (Rev 0100)

03ee Mitsumi
6901 SmartDisk FDD

The box for mine shows 1.44MB only.

But the company seemed to make complete drive products themselves.

https://web.archive.org/web/20040205144409if_/http://www.mitsumi.co.jp:80/Catalog/pc/fdd/d/353fue/text01.pdf

The web page with the English version of the catalog is missing,
which adds to the fun. I was trying to find that chip.

Paul
 
On Sat, 25 Jul 2020 20:32:54 +0200, Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de>
wrote:

Am 25.07.20 um 19:52 schrieb Dimiter_Popoff:


Used to have a SCSI 3.5\" floppy from Teac, bought around 1993.
The *only* floppy drive which I could make read the floppies from my
old 6809 system, 256 bytes/sector, without me having written its
controller.... (the one on the 6809 system was mine but it was a
normal floppy accessed via a upd765).
I still feel like crying when I think of it, fried it 15 or 20
years ago using a bad SCSI cable I had made...

I have a USB floppy drive sold by Hama, the usual computer store
stuff here. It works reliably only on a USB3 port because USB2
does not deliver enough power for the motor / head.

Works without issues, also with the old spectrum analyzers,
scopes, the Anritsu pulse pattern generator, and with the
16702B logic analyzer that runs HP-UX.

cheers, Gerhard
Click to expand...

I\'ve got an older IBM external floppy drive that only works if
you turn it upside down . . . . but it runs happily on USB2
power levels.

RL
 
On 7/25/2020 21:32, Gerhard Hoffmann wrote:
Am 25.07.20 um 19:52 schrieb Dimiter_Popoff:


Used to have a SCSI 3.5\" floppy from Teac, bought around 1993.
The *only* floppy drive which I could make read the floppies from my
old 6809 system, 256 bytes/sector, without me having written its
controller.... (the one on the 6809 system was mine but it was a
normal floppy accessed via a upd765).
I still feel like crying when I think of it, fried it 15 or 20
years ago using a bad SCSI cable I had made...

I have a USB floppy drive sold by Hama, the usual computer store
stuff here. It works reliably only on a USB3 port because USB2
does not deliver enough power for the motor / head.

Works without issues, also with the old spectrum analyzers,
scopes, the Anritsu pulse pattern generator, and with the
16702B logic analyzer that runs HP-UX.

cheers, Gerhard
Click to expand...

I am pretty sure these all do 512 byte sectors, not sure if many
people but me ever did 256 byte sectors for a long time.
My 256 bytes per sector came because I wanted to run MDOS09 (the one
which came on Motorola Exorsisers) which is implicitly 128 bytes per
sector, a maximum of 4096 sectors per drive. So the floppy controller
had to do read-modify-write when the OS asked it to update in the middle
of a 256 byte sector; while doing the same with 512 bytes is basically
doable it was impractical back then (the floppy controller had to
fit into 2k ROM, RAM was scarce etc.).
And that TEAC SCSI drive could be configured via a SCSI command
such that it would do 256 byte sectors, I could set gaps etc., lowest
level controller stuff and it worked.... Did a great job copying
my floppies into files back in the day. Well it did cost $300 if not
more of course.

BTW I can *still* run MDOS09 just like I used to, emulated in a DPS
window... The floppies it addresses now are just allocated pieces
of RAM which come from/go to files of course.

Dimiter

======================================================
Dimiter Popoff, TGI http://www.tgi-sci.com
======================================================
http://www.flickr.com/photos/didi_tgi/
 
Am 25.07.20 um 22:29 schrieb Dimiter_Popoff:
On 7/25/2020 21:32, Gerhard Hoffmann wrote:
Am 25.07.20 um 19:52 schrieb Dimiter_Popoff:


Used to have a SCSI 3.5\" floppy from Teac, bought around 1993.
The *only* floppy drive which I could make read the floppies from my
old 6809 system, 256 bytes/sector, without me having written its
controller.... (the one on the 6809 system was mine but it was a
normal floppy accessed via a upd765).
Click to expand...

IIRC, the WD1793 / 2793 floppy controllers could do a lot of
formats that nobody else could do. I still have a Z80, a 80186
and a 386 I designed at this time that use them.
The 186 & 386 have also a WD SCSI interface and a transputer
link adaptor.

Somewhere in a box under my roof.

:) Gerhard
 
Paul wrote:
JJ wrote:
On Fri, 24 Jul 2020 19:44:11 -0400, Paul wrote:
I use a Mitsumi USB floppy, and it will assume the
letter A: if the motherboard has no floppy on the SuperI/O.

I\'m curious since I haven\'t tried a USB based floppy drive, and
considering
that AFAIK, USB based storage devices are mass-storage driven.

Can it be used to create a custom format floppy such as 2MF, XDF, 3M,
etc.?
i.e. custom number of sectors per track, interleaved sectors, gap length,
etc.

VID 03EE   PID 6901   (Rev 0100)

03ee  Mitsumi
    6901  SmartDisk FDD

The box for mine shows 1.44MB only.

But the company seemed to make complete drive products themselves.

https://web.archive.org/web/20040205144409if_/http://www.mitsumi.co.jp:80/Catalog/pc/fdd/d/353fue/text01.pdf


The web page with the English version of the catalog is missing,
which adds to the fun. I was trying to find that chip.

   Paul
Click to expand...
Well, https://www.mitsumi.co.jp/index_e.html does not seem to list
anything like that:
ICs

POWER SUPPLY ICs
Lithium-Ion Battery ICs
RESET ICs
SENSOR ICs

I could bust one of my USB FDs apart for look-see, but a bit leery of
doing so..
 
On 7/25/2020 4:29 PM, Dimiter_Popoff wrote:
On 7/25/2020 21:32, Gerhard Hoffmann wrote:
Am 25.07.20 um 19:52 schrieb Dimiter_Popoff:


Used to have a SCSI 3.5\" floppy from Teac, bought around 1993.
The *only* floppy drive which I could make read the floppies from my
old 6809 system, 256 bytes/sector, without me having written its
controller.... (the one on the 6809 system was mine but it was a
normal floppy accessed via a upd765).
I still feel like crying when I think of it, fried it 15 or 20
years ago using a bad SCSI cable I had made...

I have a USB floppy drive sold by Hama, the usual computer store
stuff here. It works reliably only on a USB3 port because USB2
does not deliver enough power for the motor / head.

Works without issues, also with the old spectrum analyzers,
scopes, the Anritsu pulse pattern generator, and with the
16702B logic analyzer that runs HP-UX.

cheers, Gerhard


I am pretty sure these all do 512 byte sectors, not sure if many
people but me ever did 256 byte sectors for a long time.
My 256 bytes per sector came because I wanted to run MDOS09 (the one
which came on Motorola Exorsisers) which is implicitly 128 bytes per
sector, a maximum of 4096 sectors per drive. So the floppy controller
had to do read-modify-write when the OS asked it to update in the middle
of a 256 byte sector; while doing the same with 512 bytes is basically
doable it was impractical back then (the floppy controller had to
fit into 2k ROM, RAM was scarce etc.).
And that TEAC SCSI drive could be configured via a SCSI command
such that it would do 256 byte sectors, I could set gaps etc., lowest
level controller stuff and it worked.... Did a great job copying
my floppies into files back in the day. Well it did cost $300 if not
more of course.

BTW I can *still* run MDOS09 just like I used to, emulated in a DPS
window... The floppies it addresses now are just allocated pieces
of RAM which come from/go to files of course.

Dimiter

======================================================
Dimiter Popoff, TGI             http://www.tgi-sci.com
======================================================
http://www.flickr.com/photos/didi_tgi/
Click to expand...

For the curious here\'s how you can use the old Adaptec SCSI-1 PCI cards
on a 64 bit Win 10 system:

<https://www.savagetaylor.com/2018/02/11/scsi-on-windows-10-adaptec-aha-2940-adaptec-29xx-ultra-or-aic-7870-adaptec-78xx/>
 
On Fri, 24 Jul 2020 13:40:34 -0700, Robert Baer
<robertbaer@localnet.com> wrote:

[....]
> So...how in the HECK can one work with floppies in Win7.1?

Just get Linux. Life gets a HECK of a lot better.
 
On Fri, 24 Jul 2020 13:40:34 -0700, Robert Baer
<robertbaer@localnet.com> wrote:

You get only ONE chance to do a DIR A: or equivalent (windows
explorer); \"drive not ready\" or \"please insert disk\" IF there is any
access to the drive at all.
The drive light will go on ONLY ONCE and the drive will never go on
again until power off then power on.
Maybe you will be lucky and get a contents listing (most likely in
WinXP) but you will never be able to COPY from A: to elsewhere.
Click to expand...

The machine I\'m using is running Windoze 7.1 and does not have a built
in floppy disk drive. I just plug in a USB external floppy drive, and
tried reproducing the problem as you describe it, but couldn\'t do it.
I could always regain control, even when I inserted a floppy disk that
I randomly trashed with a magnet. There might be a difference in the
way an external USB drive and your internal floppy drive is handled by
the BIOS.

Are you having problems with a 3.5\" 1.44MByte floppy drive, or a 5.25\"
1.2MB floppy drive? There\'s usually a setting for 3.5\" in the BIOS
settings, but the 5.25\" setting is often missing. This video
demonstrates that it can be done with Windoze 7, but my luck with
5.25\" drives on modern machines has been dismal:
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44hN9UkxNLA> (2:34)

Suggestions:

1. Hit <ctr>C to reset the floppy drive if it\'s stuck in a loop. I
suspect this will only work if you\'re working from an MSDOS (CMD)
window.

2. <Alt><Tab> to switch between other open windows and the desktop.
If you get the desktop, use the Task Manager to kill the stuck floppy
read process.

3. <Alt><Tab> again to the desktop. Right click on the A: icon and
try various escape routes. With a USB floppy drive, \"Eject\" might
work.

4. I\'ve had problems with virus scanners wanting to removable media
before allowing user access. You might try temporarily disabling your
auntie-virus program or configuring it to not scan the floppies on
insertion.

5. There are programs that create image files of floppies that are
used mostly by retro-gamers to run old games without the hassle and
slow speed of a floppy drive. I\'m too lazy to offer and example.

6. Post your computer questions to some kind of old hardware or
ancient PC tech forum. You\'ll get better solutions and answers than
in S.E.D.

--
Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
 
Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Fri, 24 Jul 2020 13:40:34 -0700, Robert Baer
robertbaer@localnet.com> wrote:

You get only ONE chance to do a DIR A: or equivalent (windows
explorer); \"drive not ready\" or \"please insert disk\" IF there is any
access to the drive at all.
The drive light will go on ONLY ONCE and the drive will never go on
again until power off then power on.
Maybe you will be lucky and get a contents listing (most likely in
WinXP) but you will never be able to COPY from A: to elsewhere.

The machine I\'m using is running Windoze 7.1 and does not have a built
in floppy disk drive. I just plug in a USB external floppy drive, and
tried reproducing the problem as you describe it, but couldn\'t do it.
I could always regain control, even when I inserted a floppy disk that
I randomly trashed with a magnet. There might be a difference in the
way an external USB drive and your internal floppy drive is handled by
the BIOS.

Are you having problems with a 3.5\" 1.44MByte floppy drive, or a 5.25\"
1.2MB floppy drive? There\'s usually a setting for 3.5\" in the BIOS
settings, but the 5.25\" setting is often missing. This video
demonstrates that it can be done with Windoze 7, but my luck with
5.25\" drives on modern machines has been dismal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44hN9UkxNLA> (2:34)

Suggestions:

1. Hit <ctr>C to reset the floppy drive if it\'s stuck in a loop. I
suspect this will only work if you\'re working from an MSDOS (CMD)
window.

2. <Alt><Tab> to switch between other open windows and the desktop.
If you get the desktop, use the Task Manager to kill the stuck floppy
read process.

3. <Alt><Tab> again to the desktop. Right click on the A: icon and
try various escape routes. With a USB floppy drive, \"Eject\" might
work.

4. I\'ve had problems with virus scanners wanting to removable media
before allowing user access. You might try temporarily disabling your
auntie-virus program or configuring it to not scan the floppies on
insertion.

5. There are programs that create image files of floppies that are
used mostly by retro-gamers to run old games without the hassle and
slow speed of a floppy drive. I\'m too lazy to offer and example.

6. Post your computer questions to some kind of old hardware or
ancient PC tech forum. You\'ll get better solutions and answers than
in S.E.D.

I dug out an USB FD, and that works like a charm.
Click to expand...

Thanks.
 
On 7/25/2020 9:01 AM, JJ wrote:
On Fri, 24 Jul 2020 19:44:11 -0400, Paul wrote:

I use a Mitsui USB floppy, and it will assume the
letter A: if the motherboard has no floppy on the SuperI/O.

I\'m curious since I haven\'t tried a USB based floppy drive, and considering
that AFAIK, USB based storage devices are mass-storage driven.

Can it be used to create a custom format floppy such as 2MF, XDF, 3M, etc.?
i.e. custom number of sectors per track, interleaved sectors, gap length,
etc.
Click to expand...

You can use ufiformat on Linux to do a lot of stuff with a USB floppy
drive so long as the custom format is at the raw bit level and doesn\'t
require some \"physical layer\" difference between the media like
different track widths, see:

<https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/219533/how-to-format-720k-fat-ie-ms-dos-floppy-on-linux-using-usb-floppy-drive>
 
On Tue, 28 Jul 2020 03:31:22 -0400, bitrex wrote:
On 7/25/2020 9:01 AM, JJ wrote:
On Fri, 24 Jul 2020 19:44:11 -0400, Paul wrote:

I use a Mitsui USB floppy, and it will assume the
letter A: if the motherboard has no floppy on the SuperI/O.

I\'m curious since I haven\'t tried a USB based floppy drive, and considering
that AFAIK, USB based storage devices are mass-storage driven.

Can it be used to create a custom format floppy such as 2MF, XDF, 3M, etc.?
i.e. custom number of sectors per track, interleaved sectors, gap length,
etc.


You can use ufiformat on Linux to do a lot of stuff with a USB floppy
drive so long as the custom format is at the raw bit level and doesn\'t
require some \"physical layer\" difference between the media like
different track widths, see:
Click to expand...

I don\'t think you know what I was actually referring to.
 
On 7/28/2020 5:11 AM, JJ wrote:
On Tue, 28 Jul 2020 03:31:22 -0400, bitrex wrote:
On 7/25/2020 9:01 AM, JJ wrote:
On Fri, 24 Jul 2020 19:44:11 -0400, Paul wrote:

I use a Mitsui USB floppy, and it will assume the
letter A: if the motherboard has no floppy on the SuperI/O.

I\'m curious since I haven\'t tried a USB based floppy drive, and considering
that AFAIK, USB based storage devices are mass-storage driven.

Can it be used to create a custom format floppy such as 2MF, XDF, 3M, etc.?
i.e. custom number of sectors per track, interleaved sectors, gap length,
etc.


You can use ufiformat on Linux to do a lot of stuff with a USB floppy
drive so long as the custom format is at the raw bit level and doesn\'t
require some \"physical layer\" difference between the media like
different track widths, see:

I don\'t think you know what I was actually referring to.
Click to expand...

You can create a bit-for-bit copy of an empty but formatted disk image
on the USB floppy if you can specify the number of sectors per track,
heads, and cylinders.

If that won\'t do whatever it is you want to do I guess you\'re OOL
 
On 7/28/2020 5:11 AM, JJ wrote:
On Tue, 28 Jul 2020 03:31:22 -0400, bitrex wrote:
On 7/25/2020 9:01 AM, JJ wrote:
On Fri, 24 Jul 2020 19:44:11 -0400, Paul wrote:

I use a Mitsui USB floppy, and it will assume the
letter A: if the motherboard has no floppy on the SuperI/O.

I\'m curious since I haven\'t tried a USB based floppy drive, and considering
that AFAIK, USB based storage devices are mass-storage driven.

Can it be used to create a custom format floppy such as 2MF, XDF, 3M, etc.?
i.e. custom number of sectors per track, interleaved sectors, gap length,
etc.


You can use ufiformat on Linux to do a lot of stuff with a USB floppy
drive so long as the custom format is at the raw bit level and doesn\'t
require some \"physical layer\" difference between the media like
different track widths, see:

I don\'t think you know what I was actually referring to.
Click to expand...

\"Raw level format is to write gap,index,sectors to the unformatted disk
using special commands specific to the disk controller, to make the
plain magneto-sensitive film into sector-addressable medium.\"

If you can\'t accomplish the format you need by directly commanding the
USB floppy disk controller at the lowest level accessible to the PC-side
software then couldn\'t tell you what you\'re hoping for
 
On Friday, July 24, 2020 at 1:40:48 PM UTC-7, Robert Baer wrote:
Started in Win7.1...

Why is it impossible to access a floppy drive, much less COPY a file
from it?

At least, in WinXP i _seems_ easier/possible.

You get only ONE chance to do a DIR A: or equivalent (windows
explorer); \"drive not ready\" or \"please insert disk\" IF there is any
access to the drive at all.
The drive light will go on ONLY ONCE and the drive will never go on
again until power off then power on.
Maybe you will be lucky and get a contents listing (most likely in
WinXP) but you will never be able to COPY from A: to elsewhere.

Damn good thing i still had a Win2K drive to boot from.
There,one can do an A: or equivalent and the FD will continually do
an access until \"fed\" a floppy.

So...how in the HECK can one work with floppies in Win7.1?
Click to expand...

Win7/10 Explorer don\'t seem to recognize it. Basically, you have to open a command shell and use the DOS-like commands. That worked fine.

I did this recently because I have a Imation Superdisk 120 USB drive. It reads the superdisks and regular floppies.
 
On Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 3:43:40 PM UTC-7, Simon S Aysdie wrote:
On Friday, July 24, 2020 at 1:40:48 PM UTC-7, Robert Baer wrote:
Started in Win7.1...

Why is it impossible to access a floppy drive, much less COPY a file
from it?

At least, in WinXP i _seems_ easier/possible.

You get only ONE chance to do a DIR A: or equivalent (windows
explorer); \"drive not ready\" or \"please insert disk\" IF there is any
access to the drive at all.
The drive light will go on ONLY ONCE and the drive will never go on
again until power off then power on.
Maybe you will be lucky and get a contents listing (most likely in
WinXP) but you will never be able to COPY from A: to elsewhere.

Damn good thing i still had a Win2K drive to boot from.
There,one can do an A: or equivalent and the FD will continually do
an access until \"fed\" a floppy.

So...how in the HECK can one work with floppies in Win7.1?

Win7/10 Explorer don\'t seem to recognize it. Basically, you have to open a command shell and use the DOS-like commands. That worked fine.

I did this recently because I have a Imation Superdisk 120 USB drive. It reads the superdisks and regular floppies.
Click to expand...

on an somewhat related note, I assigned one of my hard drives to the B drive, because \"B\" will never be used for anything else. I reserve A for the occasional USB Superdisk access.
 
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