Finally, Death of the 3.5 inch floppy disk

[larwe]

On Apr 28, 1:59 pm, George Neuner <gneun...@comcast.net> wrote:

And unlike hard disks, diskette R/W heads actually touch the recording
surface and gradually wear away the media.

Well... sorta. The magnetic layer is covered with a low-friction
protective layer.

So strictly speaking the heads do not touch the recording per se,
merely a coating over it But yes they are not flying heads.

 

[SG1]

"George Neuner" <gneuner2@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:srsgt5tea5ma1drvf35dd6jvid1sqljss0@4ax.com...

On Wed, 28 Apr 2010 05:13:11 +1000, "SG1" <lostitall@the.races> wrote:

I have some disks from 1993 that are still readable. I have some from
later
that are gibberish, reformat did not help them come back to life. Guess it
depends on the manufacturer.

You can *sometimes* revive old diskettes with media level tools like
SpinRite ... but diskettes gradually lose their magnetic media (the
head touches them) so it depends on how much has been lost. Even if
the diskette appears unreadable to the OS, IME you can usually recover
most of the data from it.

George

Spinrite a name not heard in years. My copy with an eye patch dissappeared
many moons ago in a land far away.

 

[Joerg]

Spehro Pefhany wrote:

On Wed, 28 Apr 2010 11:49:10 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:


Yes, and that wear is clearly visible. However, the typical disk is used
as file storage and only once in a while read back, and then only small
parts of it.

I have an old HP logic analyzer that boots off of a floppy.

AFAIK there's also plenty of scopes from Tek and others where that's the
only way to get screen shots over to your PC. Unless you bought the now
pretty much unobtanium GPIB interface for beaucoup $$$. But mostly I see
that with production machines. One floppy slot and absolutely zilch in
terms of other interfaces. CNC gear become almost useless without being
able to feed data into it.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

On Wed, 28 Apr 2010 13:15:21 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

Spehro Pefhany wrote:
On Wed, 28 Apr 2010 11:49:10 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:


Yes, and that wear is clearly visible. However, the typical disk is used
as file storage and only once in a while read back, and then only small
parts of it.

I have an old HP logic analyzer that boots off of a floppy.


AFAIK there's also plenty of scopes from Tek and others where that's the
only way to get screen shots over to your PC. Unless you bought the now
pretty much unobtanium GPIB interface for beaucoup $$$. But mostly I see
that with production machines. One floppy slot and absolutely zilch in
terms of other interfaces. CNC gear become almost useless without being
able to feed data into it.

Many, maybe most, of them have an old-fashioned serial interface too,
for which people have cobbed together interfaces so that they can be
controlled from a central point. There are half a dozen, from several
different suppliers, in a college machine shop that I'm familiar with-
used for teaching CNC machining.

 

[Mark Borgerson]

In article <OOednZWhLLmMEkXWnZ2dnUVZ8nCdnZ2d@lyse.net>,
david.brown@hesbynett.removethisbit.no says...

Doug McIntyre wrote:
John Tserkezis <jt@techniciansyndrome.org.invalid> writes:
Spehro Pefhany wrote:
The only way to load device drivers (drive interfaces, SCSI drivers
etc) when installing windows is via the drive at A:. And that's your
only option.

My latest machine lacks floppy support on the motherboard (Asus P6T
WS). They suggest using a USB flash drive or USB floppy for RAID
drivers.

That's nice, but USB flash drives won't ever map to A: or B:. This is
done intentionally, and it makes perfect sense. But it doesn't help the
fact that Windows will not look at *any* other drive than A:.


I have a Flash Drive that mimics part of its space as a USB Floppy
that *does* map to drive A: or B:. Unfortunately it doesn't work very
well with most systems.


So, that leaves USB interfaced FDDs, or, as already suggested, creating
an alternative boot disk with the drivers included.

Of course this is all only just for WinXP (ie. that Windows release
from 8 years ago), or Server 2003 from 7 years ago..


Unfortunately, XP is still the best version of windows for many uses.
Lots of companies feel they don't have time to waste testing for
compatibility with Win 7, or finding drivers for it, or re-training
staff, or handling the support. It's better with the devil they know.
Besides, Win 7 has no advantages over XP if you are actually /using/ the
computer, rather than admiring the pretty clock on the desktop.

That's not exactly true if you're running the 64-bit version of Win 7.
It does allow you to use more memory effectively. The downside is
that it does require signed drivers---some of which weren't immediately
available. About the only application I use that needs that much memory
is Matlab.

Vista & Win7/Server 2008 either release have methods to read in
RAID/HBA drivers off flash or USB devices during installation while
booted into WinPE. And its easy to make a new WinPE boot environment
with said drivers if needed.

I had to install windows (XP and Win 7) on a couple of computers
recently - it is often faster to install Windows from scratch than to
start using a typical "pre-installed" system (after it takes ages to
install windows from a hidden partition, you then have to waste more
time removing all traces of the "demo" and time-limited junk that comes
with system). While Win 7 installation is mildly improved over XP, it's
still seriously inefficient. And once you have the basic system
installed, you then have to find and install the drivers - which are
often totally absurd (I had to download a 100 MB file for an Ethernet
driver, including it's useless utilities - and it wouldn't even install
until I'd added dotnet runtimes!).

I'd like to give the originator of .net a piece of my mind----for about
as much time and memory as it has cost me!

The Windows developers really should get hold of a few Linux
distributions to see how OS installers /should/ be made - they have a
decade or so catching up to do.

Good point. I've installed Ubuntu several times---and it has always

been pretty straightforward.


Mark Borgerson

 

[keithr]

John Tserkezis wrote:

Don McKenzie wrote:

Sony announced on April 23rd that they will be discontinuing sales of
the classic 3.5 inch floppy disk in Japan in 2011. The news marks a
major end to a nearly three decade history of the disk type that the
company helped to pioneer.

Someone forgot to tell microsoft.

The only way to load device drivers (drive interfaces, SCSI drivers
etc) when installing windows is via the drive at A:. And that's your
only option.

Short of creating a magical alternate boot install CD/DVD for every new
model of box we get. Not looking forward to it.

Thats why I keep a USB floppy drive, it gets used once in blue moon
when I upgrade hardware, but it pays for itself every time.

 

[Joerg]

Spehro Pefhany wrote:

On Wed, 28 Apr 2010 13:15:21 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

Spehro Pefhany wrote:
On Wed, 28 Apr 2010 11:49:10 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:


Yes, and that wear is clearly visible. However, the typical disk is used
as file storage and only once in a while read back, and then only small
parts of it.
I have an old HP logic analyzer that boots off of a floppy.

AFAIK there's also plenty of scopes from Tek and others where that's the
only way to get screen shots over to your PC. Unless you bought the now
pretty much unobtanium GPIB interface for beaucoup $$$. But mostly I see
that with production machines. One floppy slot and absolutely zilch in
terms of other interfaces. CNC gear become almost useless without being
able to feed data into it.

Many, maybe most, of them have an old-fashioned serial interface too,
for which people have cobbed together interfaces so that they can be
controlled from a central point. There are half a dozen, from several
different suppliers, in a college machine shop that I'm familiar with-
used for teaching CNC machining.

Occacionally I have been asked to take a look at a machine shop. Mainly
because it gets messy in there and they'd rather not carry disks around
and worst case get a splotch of gunk or metal chafings into a drive
(happened to me once). But usually there was only one or two of the
machines that had RS232, sometimes none.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

 

[Mr.T]

"larwe" <zwsdotcom@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:308e956b-c044-4155-aa23-f31a8eb505ad@12g2000yqi.googlegroups.com...

I explicitly did not include digital downloads for obvious reasons.
Yes you appeared to be making an invalid point.
No, you just seem to be unwilling to think about what I was saying.

And that was what exactly??? That vinyl sales have increased from next to
nothing to slightly more than nothing. So what? Compared to their sales 30
years ago many would claim they are still effectively dead.

BTW, I refuse to believe the music DVD one - I've never even SEEN a
music DVD. It's like SACD; it's an acronym, there were/are devices

Now that's *really* silly. I have about a hundred, and there are *many*
thousands currently available.

LOL. I could say the same thing about my collection of 78rpm records.

What, that you've never seen one, or they don't exist?

SACD and audio DVD are primarily an attempt by the music industry to
get rid of CDs because CDs have no DRM.

No argument there. However I said music DVD's, not DVDA or SACD.

MrT.

 

[Andy Peters]

On Apr 27, 4:43 am, Didi <d...@tgi-sci.com> wrote:

On Apr 27, 2:07 pm, John Tserkezis

j...@techniciansyndrome.org.invalid> wrote:
....
But yes, you make a valid point ... and I shall make a note to stock
up on 3.5" floppy disks while they're easily available, as some of the
ones I have at home are slowly decaying with age.

 Indeed.  I've never had much luck with the longevity of 3.5" disks..
They simply do not last. ....

Stocking a lot is unlikely to help. Not so long ago I did a final
transfer
of data I had on floppies from the early 90-s. They were all readable
and
in good health (some were even from the late 80-s), I moved them to
images on newer media (HDD, which I currently backup on DVDs) all
right.

But when I tried to write to some of them they all failed miserably,
even the newest ones. Non-formattable, complete scrap. And some of
them had been written just once or twice, so my guess is that even
unused new disks will age and become unusable within max. 10 years.
As if the brownish magnetic stuff they are covered with dries and
hardens
over the years and the tiny magnets inside remain stuck forever .

Dimiter

------------------------------------------------------
Dimiter Popoff               Transgalactic Instruments

http://www.tgi-sci.com
------------------------------------------------------http://www.flickr.com/photos/didi_tgi/sets/72157600228621276/

Original message:http://groups.google.com/group/comp.arch.embedded/msg/13a4b9c40be4c51...

The audio recording guys deal with this on a regular basis. Old tapes
come in for remix/remaster and the oxide layer is in danger of
shedding. So the tapes are baked at a moderate temperature to allow
the binders to hold the oxide on the tape for one last pass through a
tape deck.

-a

 

[David Brown]

Mark Borgerson wrote:

In article <OOednZWhLLmMEkXWnZ2dnUVZ8nCdnZ2d@lyse.net>,
david.brown@hesbynett.removethisbit.no says...
Doug McIntyre wrote:
John Tserkezis <jt@techniciansyndrome.org.invalid> writes:
Spehro Pefhany wrote:
The only way to load device drivers (drive interfaces, SCSI drivers
etc) when installing windows is via the drive at A:. And that's your
only option.
My latest machine lacks floppy support on the motherboard (Asus P6T
WS). They suggest using a USB flash drive or USB floppy for RAID
drivers.
That's nice, but USB flash drives won't ever map to A: or B:. This is
done intentionally, and it makes perfect sense. But it doesn't help the
fact that Windows will not look at *any* other drive than A:.

I have a Flash Drive that mimics part of its space as a USB Floppy
that *does* map to drive A: or B:. Unfortunately it doesn't work very
well with most systems.


So, that leaves USB interfaced FDDs, or, as already suggested, creating
an alternative boot disk with the drivers included.
Of course this is all only just for WinXP (ie. that Windows release
from 8 years ago), or Server 2003 from 7 years ago..

Unfortunately, XP is still the best version of windows for many uses.
Lots of companies feel they don't have time to waste testing for
compatibility with Win 7, or finding drivers for it, or re-training
staff, or handling the support. It's better with the devil they know.
Besides, Win 7 has no advantages over XP if you are actually /using/ the
computer, rather than admiring the pretty clock on the desktop.

That's not exactly true if you're running the 64-bit version of Win 7.
It does allow you to use more memory effectively. The downside is
that it does require signed drivers---some of which weren't immediately
available. About the only application I use that needs that much memory
is Matlab.

There's a 64-bit version of XP - I'm running it now. But to be fair,
64-bit XP is an oddity that few people have and few developers test for,
while the 64-bit support for Win7 is much more mature (it's now almost
as well supported as 64-bit in Linux ten years ago).

The application I see that needs lots of memory is for virtual machines
- it's good to have a 64-bit host and lots of GB's if you want to run
several VMs at the same time.

Requiring signed drivers, however, makes a system pretty much useless
for embedded development work - you don't get signed drivers for the
dozens of hardware debuggers, cards, and other bits and pieces that you
need. I seem to remember there being ways around the driver signing
requirements, however.

Vista & Win7/Server 2008 either release have methods to read in
RAID/HBA drivers off flash or USB devices during installation while
booted into WinPE. And its easy to make a new WinPE boot environment
with said drivers if needed.
I had to install windows (XP and Win 7) on a couple of computers
recently - it is often faster to install Windows from scratch than to
start using a typical "pre-installed" system (after it takes ages to
install windows from a hidden partition, you then have to waste more
time removing all traces of the "demo" and time-limited junk that comes
with system). While Win 7 installation is mildly improved over XP, it's
still seriously inefficient. And once you have the basic system
installed, you then have to find and install the drivers - which are
often totally absurd (I had to download a 100 MB file for an Ethernet
driver, including it's useless utilities - and it wouldn't even install
until I'd added dotnet runtimes!).

I'd like to give the originator of .net a piece of my mind----for about
as much time and memory as it has cost me!
The Windows developers really should get hold of a few Linux
distributions to see how OS installers /should/ be made - they have a
decade or so catching up to do.

Good point. I've installed Ubuntu several times---and it has always
been pretty straightforward.

Linux distros have worked hard to learn from the best aspects of Windows
- it would be good if MS tried to emulate some of the best /important/
features of Linux (they copied a lot of KDE's appearance when making
Aero - but that is only skin-deep and totally irrelevant when you are
actually using the machine).

 

[Paul Carpenter]

In article <83rugtFvq4U1@mid.individual.net>, invalid@invalid.invalid
says...

Spehro Pefhany wrote:
On Wed, 28 Apr 2010 13:15:21 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

Spehro Pefhany wrote:
On Wed, 28 Apr 2010 11:49:10 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:


Yes, and that wear is clearly visible. However, the typical disk is used
as file storage and only once in a while read back, and then only small
parts of it.
I have an old HP logic analyzer that boots off of a floppy.

AFAIK there's also plenty of scopes from Tek and others where that's the
only way to get screen shots over to your PC. Unless you bought the now
pretty much unobtanium GPIB interface for beaucoup $$$. But mostly I see
that with production machines. One floppy slot and absolutely zilch in
terms of other interfaces. CNC gear become almost useless without being
able to feed data into it.

Many, maybe most, of them have an old-fashioned serial interface too,
for which people have cobbed together interfaces so that they can be
controlled from a central point. There are half a dozen, from several
different suppliers, in a college machine shop that I'm familiar with-
used for teaching CNC machining.


Occacionally I have been asked to take a look at a machine shop. Mainly
because it gets messy in there and they'd rather not carry disks around
and worst case get a splotch of gunk or metal chafings into a drive
(happened to me once). But usually there was only one or two of the
machines that had RS232, sometimes none.

Some machine shops have very old CNC equipment, last year I had an
enquiry to find a spare PDP 11/73 card for one, that MIGHT have had
a serial but I dread to think what format of media it might have had.


--
Paul Carpenter | paul@pcserviceselectronics.co.uk
<http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/> PC Services
<http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/fonts/> Timing Diagram Font
<http://www.gnuh8.org.uk/> GNU H8 - compiler & Renesas H8/H8S/H8 Tiny
<http://www.badweb.org.uk/> For those web sites you hate

 

[Albert van der Horst]

In article <7dtgt5d4gen2icp8qql138b9mmf6t81m0k@4ax.com>,
George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> wrote:

On Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:55:51 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

Stuart Longland wrote:
some of the [diskettes] I have at home are slowly decaying with age.

Interesting. What's decaying about them? I've got Fuji MF2HD from the
90's and they still work fine.

The media does not have high enough coercivity to retain magnetic
alignment indefinitely - given enough time it loses orientation and
your data simply fades away.
And unlike hard disks, diskette R/W heads actually touch the recording
surface and gradually wear away the media.

This doesn't explain why virtually pristine disks (written only once
and a visibly impeccable surface) have difficulties reading and
are almost impossible to reformat. I go with those saying that the
plastic in the surface deteriorates. And it seems to me that
double density, and especially single density disk are more
reliable. I managed to recover most from Osborne CP/M disks
with visibly damaged surfaces, and used very intensively.
(Remember those CP/M machines had no hard disk. Floppies
were even used for -- small -- databases. )

George

Groetjes Albert

--
--
Albert van der Horst, UTRECHT,THE NETHERLANDS
Economic growth -- being exponential -- ultimately falters.
albert@spe&ar&c.xs4all.nl &=n http://home.hccnet.nl/a.w.m.van.der.horst

 

[GregS]

In article <83re9eFvhoU1@mid.individual.net>, news@analogconsultants.com wrote:

George Neuner wrote:
On Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:55:51 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

Stuart Longland wrote:
some of the [diskettes] I have at home are slowly decaying with age.

Interesting. What's decaying about them? I've got Fuji MF2HD from the
90's and they still work fine.

The media does not have high enough coercivity to retain magnetic
alignment indefinitely - given enough time it loses orientation and
your data simply fades away.


Hmm, I have disks dating back to 1990 and none of them has ever lost
data or caused read errors. But some posters said that they still can
have lost writeability. No idea why.

I did always make sure to never buy disks from dubious sources but
always the good stuff, name brands.


And unlike hard disks, diskette R/W heads actually touch the recording
surface and gradually wear away the media.


Yes, and that wear is clearly visible. However, the typical disk is used
as file storage and only once in a while read back, and then only small
parts of it.

I have tried using some old 3.5's and had some pretty bad luck. I still
have people that want to read the larger floppies, and try finding
adaptors for that. Speaking of machine shops, one CF card got currupt,
and to fix that, required replacing everything.

greg

 

[Joerg]

Paul Carpenter wrote:

In article <83rugtFvq4U1@mid.individual.net>, invalid@invalid.invalid
says...
Spehro Pefhany wrote:
On Wed, 28 Apr 2010 13:15:21 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

Spehro Pefhany wrote:
On Wed, 28 Apr 2010 11:49:10 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:


Yes, and that wear is clearly visible. However, the typical disk is used
as file storage and only once in a while read back, and then only small
parts of it.
I have an old HP logic analyzer that boots off of a floppy.

AFAIK there's also plenty of scopes from Tek and others where that's the
only way to get screen shots over to your PC. Unless you bought the now
pretty much unobtanium GPIB interface for beaucoup $$$. But mostly I see
that with production machines. One floppy slot and absolutely zilch in
terms of other interfaces. CNC gear become almost useless without being
able to feed data into it.
Many, maybe most, of them have an old-fashioned serial interface too,
for which people have cobbed together interfaces so that they can be
controlled from a central point. There are half a dozen, from several
different suppliers, in a college machine shop that I'm familiar with-
used for teaching CNC machining.

Occacionally I have been asked to take a look at a machine shop. Mainly
because it gets messy in there and they'd rather not carry disks around
and worst case get a splotch of gunk or metal chafings into a drive
(happened to me once). But usually there was only one or two of the
machines that had RS232, sometimes none.

Some machine shops have very old CNC equipment, last year I had an
enquiry to find a spare PDP 11/73 card for one, that MIGHT have had
a serial but I dread to think what format of media it might have had.

I had to coach someone through repair and calibration of a circuit board
test bed from the 80's. All nicely DOS-based so it worked right off the
bat

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

 

[George Neuner]

On 29 Apr 2010 10:40:08 GMT, Albert van der Horst
<albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl> wrote:

In article <7dtgt5d4gen2icp8qql138b9mmf6t81m0k@4ax.com>,
George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> wrote:
On Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:55:51 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

Stuart Longland wrote:
some of the [diskettes] I have at home are slowly decaying with age.

Interesting. What's decaying about them? I've got Fuji MF2HD from the
90's and they still work fine.

The media does not have high enough coercivity to retain magnetic
alignment indefinitely - given enough time it loses orientation and
your data simply fades away.
And unlike hard disks, diskette R/W heads actually touch the recording
surface and gradually wear away the media.

This doesn't explain why virtually pristine disks (written only once
and a visibly impeccable surface) have difficulties reading and
are almost impossible to reformat.

Problems with new disks are primarily head alignment issues with the
drive. Computer manufacturers, after all, try to use the lowest cost
components and there are now quite a few low(er) quality component
vendors. Although all the drives might be technically within spec,
differences in drift can make them incompatible.

Many high quality preformatted diskettes are made with an embedded
high(er) coercivity track lead (similar to hard drives). These
diskettes *can't* be reformatted (your drive doesn't have enough
power) but can only be erased ... and if head drift prevents your
drives from accurately following the lead track then you have a
problem.

IME, since about 1995 it's become common to have machines which can't
recognize factory formatted disks or to write with one machine and not
be able to read it elsewhere.

George

 

[Rod Speed]

George Neuner wrote:

On 29 Apr 2010 10:40:08 GMT, Albert van der Horst
albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl> wrote:

In article <7dtgt5d4gen2icp8qql138b9mmf6t81m0k@4ax.com>,
George Neuner <gneuner2@comcast.net> wrote:
On Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:55:51 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

Stuart Longland wrote:
some of the [diskettes] I have at home are slowly decaying with
age.

Interesting. What's decaying about them? I've got Fuji MF2HD from
the 90's and they still work fine.

The media does not have high enough coercivity to retain magnetic
alignment indefinitely - given enough time it loses orientation and
your data simply fades away.
And unlike hard disks, diskette R/W heads actually touch the
recording surface and gradually wear away the media.

This doesn't explain why virtually pristine disks (written only once
and a visibly impeccable surface) have difficulties reading and
are almost impossible to reformat.

Problems with new disks are primarily head alignment issues with the drive.

Nope, that is in fact a problem with old disks that
may well have been written in a different drive.

Computer manufacturers, after all, try to use the lowest cost
components and there are now quite a few low(er) quality component
vendors. Although all the drives might be technically within spec,
differences in drift can make them incompatible.

Yes, but that effect wont be seen with new disks, just with reading old ones.

Many high quality preformatted diskettes are made with an embedded
high(er) coercivity track lead (similar to hard drives). These
diskettes *can't* be reformatted (your drive doesn't have enough
power) but can only be erased ... and if head drift prevents your
drives from accurately following the lead track then you have a problem.

IME, since about 1995 it's become common to have machines which can't
recognize factory formatted disks or to write with one machine and not
be able to read it elsewhere.

 

[Stuart Longland]

On Apr 30, 2:07 am, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:

Paul Carpenter wrote:
In article <83rugtFvq...@mid.individual.net>, inva...@invalid.invalid
says...
Spehro Pefhany wrote:
On Wed, 28 Apr 2010 13:15:21 -0700, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid
wrote:

Spehro Pefhany wrote:
On Wed, 28 Apr 2010 11:49:10 -0700, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid
wrote:

Yes, and that wear is clearly visible. However, the typical disk is used
as file storage and only once in a while read back, and then only small
parts of it.
I have an old HP logic analyzer that boots off of a floppy.

AFAIK there's also plenty of scopes from Tek and others where that's the
only way to get screen shots over to your PC. Unless you bought the now
pretty much unobtanium GPIB interface for beaucoup $$$. But mostly I see
that with production machines. One floppy slot and absolutely zilch in
terms of other interfaces. CNC gear become almost useless without being
able to feed data into it.
Many, maybe most, of them have an old-fashioned serial interface too,
for which people have cobbed together interfaces so that they can be
controlled from a central point. There are half a dozen, from several
different suppliers, in a college machine shop that I'm familiar with-
used for teaching CNC machining.

Occacionally I have been asked to take a look at a machine shop. Mainly
because it gets messy in there and they'd rather not carry disks around
and worst case get a splotch of gunk or metal chafings into a drive
(happened to me once). But usually there was only one or two of the
machines that had RS232, sometimes none.

Some machine shops have very old CNC equipment, last year I had an
enquiry to find a spare PDP 11/73 card for one, that MIGHT have had
a serial but I dread to think what format of media it might have had.

I had to coach someone through repair and calibration of a circuit board
test bed from the 80's. All nicely DOS-based so it worked right off the
bat

The AUTOEXEC.BAT no less?

 

[Stuart Longland]

On Apr 27, 9:07 pm, John Tserkezis
<j...@techniciansyndrome.org.invalid> wrote:

Stuart Longland wrote:
 The only way to load device drivers (drive interfaces, SCSI drivers
etc) when installing windows is via the drive at A:.  And that's your
only option.
 Short of creating a magical alternate boot install CD/DVD for every new
model of box we get.  Not looking forward to it.
Actually, rumour has it, this is not the case in the two latest
revisions of their OS.  I say rumour as I have not ever tried
installing one of these latest creations -- the one Windows Vista
machine I used had it preloaded, and I've never touched Windows 7.

 No idea about Vista, but have installed Win7 several times so far, and
yes, your only option is F6 to look at drive A:.

Good grief, and here I was thinking Microsoft _finally_ got around to
fixing that. (I mean, cripes... at least look at a flaming CD
fellas?!)

I think USB could be difficult due to the fact that the initial loader
(in the case of Windows XP and earlier) started in DOS, loaded the
drivers into RAM then kickstarted the NT kernel from there, but one
would have thought that on modern systems, the BIOS should still at
least allow some access to USB drives. And clearly CD-ROMs are
accessible as it loads the rest of the drivers that way.

Never the less, this is just one of many countless examples where
floppies are still needed. I guess the general public never have to
face the dilemma of getting drivers into a new computer, and thus the
floppy drive is seen as a needless relic of the past.

 

[Joerg]

Stuart Longland wrote:

On Apr 30, 2:07 am, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Paul Carpenter wrote:
In article <83rugtFvq...@mid.individual.net>, inva...@invalid.invalid
says...
Spehro Pefhany wrote:
On Wed, 28 Apr 2010 13:15:21 -0700, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid
wrote:
Spehro Pefhany wrote:
On Wed, 28 Apr 2010 11:49:10 -0700, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid
wrote:
Yes, and that wear is clearly visible. However, the typical disk is used
as file storage and only once in a while read back, and then only small
parts of it.
I have an old HP logic analyzer that boots off of a floppy.
AFAIK there's also plenty of scopes from Tek and others where that's the
only way to get screen shots over to your PC. Unless you bought the now
pretty much unobtanium GPIB interface for beaucoup $$$. But mostly I see
that with production machines. One floppy slot and absolutely zilch in
terms of other interfaces. CNC gear become almost useless without being
able to feed data into it.
Many, maybe most, of them have an old-fashioned serial interface too,
for which people have cobbed together interfaces so that they can be
controlled from a central point. There are half a dozen, from several
different suppliers, in a college machine shop that I'm familiar with-
used for teaching CNC machining.
Occacionally I have been asked to take a look at a machine shop. Mainly
because it gets messy in there and they'd rather not carry disks around
and worst case get a splotch of gunk or metal chafings into a drive
(happened to me once). But usually there was only one or two of the
machines that had RS232, sometimes none.
Some machine shops have very old CNC equipment, last year I had an
enquiry to find a spare PDP 11/73 card for one, that MIGHT have had
a serial but I dread to think what format of media it might have had.
I had to coach someone through repair and calibration of a circuit board
test bed from the 80's. All nicely DOS-based so it worked right off the
bat

The AUTOEXEC.BAT no less?

Yup, pretty much, a batch file

DOS is so remarkably fast. No grding on hard drives, no wait, it's instant.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

 

[Andrew Smallshaw]

On 2010-05-05, Stuart Longland <redhatter@gentoo.org> wrote:

On Apr 27, 9:07?pm, John Tserkezis
j...@techniciansyndrome.org.invalid> wrote:

?No idea about Vista, but have installed Win7 several times so far, and
yes, your only option is F6 to look at drive A:.

Good grief, and here I was thinking Microsoft _finally_ got around to
fixing that. (I mean, cripes... at least look at a flaming CD
fellas?!)

That can create problems in the truly general case. Think about
it: you are loading drivers for an HBA and want to get them from
a CD-ROM, potentially attached to that very same HBA...

I think USB could be difficult due to the fact that the initial loader
(in the case of Windows XP and earlier) started in DOS, loaded the
drivers into RAM then kickstarted the NT kernel from there, but one
would have thought that on modern systems, the BIOS should still at
least allow some access to USB drives. And clearly CD-ROMs are
accessible as it loads the rest of the drivers that way.

That would seem the most natural PC way of doing things. I'm not
really familiar with the Windows boot process anymore but there
has to be _some_ point early on where the BIOS is still readily
accessible and kernel modules can easily be loaded.

Of course the most elegant way would be to place basic get-you-home
drivers on the device itself. Sun managed this twenty years ago
with their OpenPROM system, and that didn't even depend on the CPU
since they were written in architecture-independent Forth. However
that probably requires the kind of centralised planning and
authoritative "this is the way it is going to be done" assertion
that is difficult to enforce for commodity x86 hardware. The only
time I can see you doing it is with a new bus standard: if e.g.
PCIe had demanded it manufacturers would have little wriggle room.

--
Andrew Smallshaw
andrews@sdf.lonestar.org