Re: PCI floppy controller

On 5/5/22 17:44, Charles Dickman wrote: > On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 10:34 PM Chuck Guzis > wrote: > > On 4/21/22 18:01, Charles Dickman wrote: > > On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 8:02 PM Chuck Guzis via cctal > > I was at that point and looking at DP3T switches to have

Re: PCI floppy controller

On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 10:34 PM Chuck Guzis wrote: You could also bring the floppy cable out to a standard DC-37 connector on a bracket, then use a ABCD switchbox to select whatever external DC-37-cabled floppy drive you wanted. On Thu, 5 May 2022, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: Where

Re: PCI floppy controller

On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 10:34 PM Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 4/21/22 18:01, Charles Dickman wrote: > > On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 8:02 PM Chuck Guzis via cctal > > I was at that point and looking at DP3T switches to have an external > > connection as well. DP3T switches are mess. > > You could also

Re: PCI floppy controller

I'd gotten the impression that there was some angst in its community of users over something. I can't find now where I'd gotten that impression, though. Mine works great, and I've had no issues with it. They've been helpful when I've reported trouble I had using it, but it was pilot error on my

Re: PCI floppy controller

On Sat, 23 Apr 2022, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: Your right about all the available options. Somewhere around here I have a couple of P112 SBC's. I wonder what the floppy controller in that can do? I am pretty sure it claimed compatibility with CP/M 8" disks. If so it can probably

Re: PCI floppy controller

On 4/23/22 07:16, Liam Proven wrote: > On Fri, 22 Apr 2022 at 23:41, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> >> Take a look at the chip (DP8473) datasheet. It boasts direct (no >> buffer needed) support of up to 4 drives. The rest is software; the >> protocol is pretty much write some registers before/after >>

Re: PCI floppy controller

On 4/22/22 21:48, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: On Fri, 22 Apr 2022, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: As another person with a desire to be able to read/write/create disks of different sizes and formats I have found this interesting. So the question, then How hard would it be to make a

Re: PCI floppy controller

nux driver for such a thing? And you don't even need DMA for the FDC if you want to make it cheap. OTOH a small dedicated SRAM and supporting microcontroller on the PCI board would make up a great PCI floppy controller. A feasible solution is a SCSI FDD option, such as the DEC RX23 device (which i

Re: PCI floppy controller

I am curious about your comment about "kryoflux going south". I did not hear about any problems. Could you please elaborate? I got mine about 2 or 3 years ago and it did everything I needed at the time, but haven't used it since. Thanks Tom On Sat, Apr 23, 2022 at 9:19 AM Warner Losh via cctalk

Re: PCI floppy controller

On 4/22/22 18:43, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > I guess I'll find out.  I just ordered one.  Shipping is almost as much > as the device. :-( > > Still think I will look into what it would take to access floppies > from an Arduino.  They're fun to play with, too. As far as I am aware, none

Re: PCI floppy controller

Isn't that what Greaseweasel  and similar do? I have a kyroflux that I use to read floppies on my macbook. It can write as well and understands a ton of formats. Greaseweasel is more available and supported (I got my kyroflux before things went south, so wouldn't recommend others get one these

Re: PCI floppy controller

On Fri, 22 Apr 2022, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: As another person with a desire to be able to read/write/create disks of different sizes and formats I have found this interesting. So the question, then How hard would it be to make a floppy disk interface using an Arduino or even

Re: PCI floppy controller

On 4/22/22 21:19, Warner Losh wrote: On Fri, Apr 22, 2022 at 7:07 PM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk mailto:cctalk@classiccmp.org>> wrote: As another person with a desire to be able to read/write/create disks of different sizes and formats I have found this interesting. So the

Re: PCI floppy controller

On Fri, Apr 22, 2022 at 7:07 PM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > As another person with a desire to be able to read/write/create > disks of different sizes and formats I have found this interesting. > > So the question, then > > How hard would it be to make a

Re: PCI floppy controller

As another person with a desire to be able to read/write/create disks of different sizes and formats I have found this interesting. So the question, then How hard would it be to make a floppy disk interface using an Arduino or even RasberryPi? If you could do that the choices of

Re: PCI floppy controller

On Fri, 22 Apr 2022, Maciej W. Rozycki via cctalk wrote: You can of course build a PCI FDD interface around the NEC uPD765 or an equivalent controller, but you can't make it compatible with existing PC software, because too much PC specifics has been embedded there around the 8237 DMA controller

Re: PCI floppy controller

On 4/22/22 15:47, Maciej W. Rozycki wrote: > On Thu, 21 Apr 2022, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > >> I suppose it might be possible to fashion a legacy floppy controller on >> a PCI card with enough supporting logic to make it compatible with >> existing software, but I'm not aware of such an

Re: PCI floppy controller

On Thu, 21 Apr 2022, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > I suppose it might be possible to fashion a legacy floppy controller on > a PCI card with enough supporting logic to make it compatible with > existing software, but I'm not aware of such an effort. You can of course build a PCI FDD interface

Re: PCI floppy controller

On 4/22/22 1:26 PM, Glen Slick via cctalk wrote: Swearing about it doesn't make it so. Agreed. Though swearing about it does speak to how strongly I /thought/ it was the case. Clearly I was wrong. It's only been about two decades since I would have messed with this. Maybe my grey matter

Re: PCI floppy controller

On Fri, Apr 22, 2022 at 11:25 AM Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: > > I'd swear that I've used a PCI Adaptec card with a floppy controller. > 2942 comes to mind. Swearing about it doesn't make it so. Are there any Adaptec SCSI controllers other than the various flavors of these models which have

Re: PCI floppy controller

On Fri, Apr 22, 2022, 12:25 PM Grant Taylor via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 4/22/22 11:46 AM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: > > By the time there were PCI Adaptec cards, there was no longer a floppy > > controller on them that I ever saw. As others have pointed out, > > though, it

Re: PCI floppy controller

On Fri, 22 Apr 2022 at 19:11, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > > Back in the 90s, we bought these things by the carton, modified them to > work with Japanese DOS 2.0 format (PC98) 3.5" floppies, rewrote the > drivers, added a VxD for Win3.1 compatibility and sold a bunch of them. > Popular with

Re: PCI floppy controller

On 4/22/22 11:46 AM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: By the time there were PCI Adaptec cards, there was no longer a floppy controller on them that I ever saw. As others have pointed out, though, it would need special drivers and/or BIOS support because PCI devices mixed poorly with ISA DMA that

Re: PCI floppy controller

On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 7:54 PM Grant Taylor via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 4/21/22 5:47 PM, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: > > Were there ever any floppy controllers for the (parallel) PCI bus? > > Didn't some of the Adaptec SCSI cards have a floppy controller on them? > >

Re: PCI floppy controller

On 4/22/22 04:44, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote: > The company did a range of parallel-port storage drives: CDs, tape > drives and so on. Most were slow but worked, but the floppy drives > were quite a good option at the time for things like laptops which > couldn't accept another drive or

Re: PCI floppy controller

On Fri, 22 Apr 2022 at 13:44, Liam Proven wrote: > 5¼": > https://www.amazon.com/MICRO-SOLUTION-1-44MB-Backpack-Parallel/dp/B512MS Oops, sorry, badly-chosen link. Both of those are, of course, 3½ drives. The company *did* also offer 5¼" units, though, as did others...

Re: PCI floppy controller

On Fri, 22 Apr 2022 at 01:48, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: > > Were there ever any floppy controllers for the (parallel) PCI bus? Floppy *controllers*, no. Floppy *drives*, yes. The Backpack range were the most well-known, I'd say. e.g. 5¼":

Re: PCI floppy controller

On 4/21/22 18:01, Charles Dickman wrote: > On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 8:02 PM Chuck Guzis via cctalk > I was at that point and looking at DP3T switches to have an external > connection as well. DP3T switches are mess. You could also bring the floppy cable out to a standard DC-37 connector on a

Re: PCI floppy controller

On 4/21/22 5:47 PM, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: Were there ever any floppy controllers for the (parallel) PCI bus? Didn't some of the Adaptec SCSI cards have a floppy controller on them? Could that be made to work? -- Grant. . . . unix || die

Re: PCI floppy controller

On Thu, 21 Apr 2022, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: Were there ever any floppy controllers for the (parallel) PCI bus? I Googled a bunch and haven't found any. I am trying to outfit a computer for the long haul that can run a bunch of older software in virtual machines and do things like

Re: PCI floppy controller

On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 8:30 PM Mike Loewen via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > On Thu, 21 Apr 2022, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: > > I am trying to outfit a computer for the long haul that can run a bunch > of > > older software in virtual machines and do things like duplicate

Re: PCI floppy controller

On Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 8:02 PM Chuck Guzis via cctalk < cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > On 4/21/22 16:47, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: > > Were there ever any floppy controllers for the (parallel) PCI bus? I > > Googled a bunch and haven't found any. > > external one.Works a

Re: PCI floppy controller

On Thu, 21 Apr 2022, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: Were there ever any floppy controllers for the (parallel) PCI bus? I Googled a bunch and haven't found any. I am trying to outfit a computer for the long haul that can run a bunch of older software in virtual machines and do things like

Re: PCI floppy controller

On 4/21/22 16:47, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: > Were there ever any floppy controllers for the (parallel) PCI bus? I > Googled a bunch and haven't found any. > > I am trying to outfit a computer for the long haul that can run a bunch of > older software in virtual machines and do things

Re: PCI floppy controller

> On Apr 21, 2022, at 4:47 PM, Charles Dickman via cctalk > wrote: > > Were there ever any floppy controllers for the (parallel) PCI bus? I > Googled a bunch and haven't found any. > > I am trying to outfit a computer for the long haul that can run a bunch of > older software in virtual

PCI floppy controller

Were there ever any floppy controllers for the (parallel) PCI bus? I Googled a bunch and haven't found any. I am trying to outfit a computer for the long haul that can run a bunch of older software in virtual machines and do things like duplicate floppies in different formats. The motherboard I