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  • Re: USB Floppy disk adaptor

    From Jeff Gaines@21:1/5 to All on Sun Apr 14 13:09:30 2024
    On 14/04/2024 in message <uvgiol$3kms1$1@dont-email.me> Abandoned Trolley wrote:



    Has anybody had any experience with any of those USB to floppy drive
    adaptors - like this one on eBay

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/285647621457


    I want to see if I can get a 5 1/4 inch floppy to work.

    On the last motherboard I had which supported floppy drives, it was the
    same 34 way IDC cable to both sizes of drive, and all I had to do was to
    make a change in the BIOS

    Since the latest UEFI BIOS things make no reference to floppy drives I am >wondering if this is going to be possible

    I have a cable like this:

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/111731869728?chn=ps&_ul=GB&_trkparms=ispr%3D1&amdata=enc%3A17nYzne8URGeuHNrlRixSjg55&norover=1&mkrid=710-134428-41853-0&mkscid=101&itemid=111731869728&targetid=1647205088800&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9045705&poi=&campaignid=
    19926849521&mkgroupid=147378848803&rlsatarget=pla-1647205088800&abcId=9311021&merchantid=113588350&gad_source=1

    A lot cheaper!

    --
    Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
    There is absolutely no substitute for a genuine lack of preparation

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Abandoned Trolley@21:1/5 to All on Sun Apr 14 14:13:07 2024

    I have a cable like this:

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/111731869728?chn=ps&_ul=GB&_trkparms=ispr%3D1&amdata=enc%3A17nYzne8URGeuHNrlRixSjg55&norover=1&mkrid=710-134428-41853-0&mkscid=101&itemid=111731869728&targetid=1647205088800&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9045705&poi=&
    campaignid=19926849521&mkgroupid=147378848803&rlsatarget=pla-1647205088800&abcId=9311021&merchantid=113588350&gad_source=1

    A lot cheaper!




    Does it support floppy disk drives ?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Andy Burns@21:1/5 to Jeff Gaines on Sun Apr 14 14:12:49 2024
    Jeff Gaines wrote:

    Abandoned Trolley wrote:

    Has anybody had any experience with any of those USB to floppy drive
    adaptors - like this one on eBay

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/285647621457

    I want to see if I can get a 5 1/4 inch floppy to work.

    I read people saying that type of adapter is only coded to use 1.44 Mb
    3.5" drives

    You could use a greaseweasel

    <https://decromancer.ca/greaseweazle/>

    On the last motherboard I had which supported floppy drives, it was
    the same 34 way IDC cable to both sizes of drive, and all I had to do
    was to make a change in the BIOS

    Since the latest UEFI BIOS things make no reference to floppy drives I
    am wondering if this is going to be possible

    I have a cable like this:

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/111731869728?chn=ps&_ul=GB&_trkparms=ispr%3D1&amdata=enc%3A17nYzne8URGeuHNrlRixSjg55&norover=1&mkrid=710-134428-41853-0&mkscid=101&itemid=111731869728&targetid=1647205088800&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9045705&poi=&
    campaignid=19926849521&mkgroupid=147378848803&rlsatarget=pla-1647205088800&abcId=9311021&merchantid=113588350&gad_source=1

    A lot cheaper!

    But that's for hard drives, not floppies

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Abandoned Trolley@21:1/5 to All on Sun Apr 14 13:38:45 2024
    Has anybody had any experience with any of those USB to floppy drive
    adaptors - like this one on eBay

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/285647621457


    I want to see if I can get a 5 1/4 inch floppy to work.

    On the last motherboard I had which supported floppy drives, it was the
    same 34 way IDC cable to both sizes of drive, and all I had to do was to
    make a change in the BIOS

    Since the latest UEFI BIOS things make no reference to floppy drives I
    am wondering if this is going to be possible

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jeff Gaines@21:1/5 to All on Sun Apr 14 13:17:55 2024
    On 14/04/2024 in message <uvgkp3$3l8ff$1@dont-email.me> Abandoned Trolley wrote:



    I have a cable like this:
    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/111731869728?chn=ps&_ul=GB&_trkparms=ispr%3D1&amdata=enc%3A17nYzne8URGeuHNrlRixSjg55&norover=1&mkrid=710-134428-41853-0&mkscid=101&itemid=111731869728&targetid=1647205088800&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9045705&poi=&
    campaignid=19926849521&mkgroupid=147378848803&rlsatarget=pla-1647205088800&abcId=9311021&merchantid=113588350&gad_source=1

    A lot cheaper!




    Does it support floppy disk drives ?

    You'd need to ask the seller, if not he may know of others? I can't
    remember the exact connector, was one pin blocked on on of them?

    --
    Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
    Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his friends for his
    life.
    (Jeremy Thorpe, 1962)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Abandoned Trolley@21:1/5 to Andy Burns on Sun Apr 14 14:18:28 2024
    On 14/04/2024 14:12, Andy Burns wrote:


    I want to see if I can get a 5 1/4 inch floppy to work.

    I read people saying that type of adapter is only coded to use 1.44 Mb
    3.5" drives

    You could use a greaseweasel

    <https://decromancer.ca/greaseweazle/>



    I have seen them advertised, but for some reason I thought they were
    only for use on Amiga // Atari systems

    Obviously I need to have another look at them

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Theo@21:1/5 to Abandoned Trolley on Sun Apr 14 14:42:31 2024
    Abandoned Trolley <fred@fred-smith.co.uk> wrote:


    Has anybody had any experience with any of those USB to floppy drive
    adaptors - like this one on eBay

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/285647621457

    That appears to be this adapter: https://wiki.foone.org/w/USB_FDD@1306_USB_floppy_adapter

    Seemingly the chip is a knockoff of the NEC/TEAC UF000x (eg UF0001) USB
    floppy controller.

    I want to see if I can get a 5 1/4 inch floppy to work.

    I would be a bit dubious, since 5.25" drives need more current drive. We
    have no idea what the microcontroller on that board can do (they filed off
    the part numbers) but I'd be doubtful it does.

    From that page above it says it doesn't support 720k discs, so suspect it
    won't support 5.25" formats either.

    On the last motherboard I had which supported floppy drives, it was the
    same 34 way IDC cable to both sizes of drive, and all I had to do was to
    make a change in the BIOS

    Since the latest UEFI BIOS things make no reference to floppy drives I
    am wondering if this is going to be possible

    Do you want to access floppies from an OS, eg to boot DOS off them, or do
    you just want to read the data from them (and maybe write them for your BBC Micro or whatever). A Greaseweazle will be able to read/write arbitrary
    disc formats but I don't think it'll pretend to be a USB floppy drive that
    an OS can use natively.

    The USB_FDD@1306 sounds like it shows up to the OS as a USB floppy so it may
    be bootable given a driver in BIOS, but that's its only merit really.

    Theo

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Abandoned Trolley@21:1/5 to Jeff Gaines on Sun Apr 14 14:21:27 2024
    On 14/04/2024 14:17, Jeff Gaines wrote:
    On 14/04/2024 in message <uvgkp3$3l8ff$1@dont-email.me> Abandoned
    Trolley wrote:



    I have a cable like this:

    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/111731869728?chn=ps&_ul=GB&_trkparms=ispr%3D1&amdata=enc%3A17nYzne8URGeuHNrlRixSjg55&norover=1&mkrid=710-134428-41853-0&mkscid=101&itemid=111731869728&targetid=1647205088800&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9045705&poi=&
    campaignid=19926849521&mkgroupid=147378848803&rlsatarget=pla-1647205088800&abcId=9311021&merchantid=113588350&gad_source=1

    A lot cheaper!




    Does it support floppy disk drives ?

    You'd need to ask the seller, if not he may know of others? I can't
    remember the exact connector, was one pin blocked on on of them?



    I might not bother - as it appears to be a 40 way connector :-\

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Abandoned Trolley@21:1/5 to All on Sun Apr 14 18:20:56 2024

    Do you want to access floppies from an OS, eg to boot DOS off them, or do
    you just want to read the data from them (and maybe write them for your BBC Micro or whatever). A Greaseweazle will be able to read/write arbitrary
    disc formats but I don't think it'll pretend to be a USB floppy drive that
    an OS can use natively.

    The USB_FDD@1306 sounds like it shows up to the OS as a USB floppy so it may be bootable given a driver in BIOS, but that's its only merit really.

    Theo


    No booting or any clever stuff like that - I just have a stack of 5 inch floppies which I would like to read (and a physical drive)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)