31–40 of 80 posts
I think I encountered 5¼" floppies only near the beginning of my computing life so I only had a couple at the school lab but this is the first I've heard of flippy disks. What a clever name! If most PC drives couldn't read these, which manufacturer drives did people use?
If you want to reminisce about old floppy drives, and the other floppy formats that never made it, the 8-bit guy did a good video on old storage mediums: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvXXkB2jic0
I'm currently using a Floppy Emu on my Apple IIe- it maps disk files on an SD card to the Apple controller's wire protocol. My main complaint was that it doesn't sound like a disk drive (Apple drives had a very distinctive sound), but the creator also has a device that makes that sound if you want. My second complaint was that it's slightly slower than an actual disk drive (however, since my disk drives keep breaking…
I'm really impressed w/ the FloppyEmu. The creator added WOZ disk image support fairly recently and I threw him some extra cash when I downloaded the new firmware, to show my appreciation for his continued development on the device.
I'm currently using a Floppy Emu on my Apple IIe- it maps disk files on an SD card to the Apple controller's wire protocol. My main complaint was that it doesn't sound like a disk drive (Apple drives had a very distinctive sound), but the creator also has a device that makes that sound if you want. My second complaint was that it's slightly slower than an actual disk drive (however, since my disk drives keep breaking…
I'm using a FloppyEmu model B on a IIgs. I haven't used it extensively for writing, but I did find that Bank Street Writer II will not format or write to a DSK image properly. I'm really impressed w/ the FloppyEmu. The creator added WOZ disk image support fairly recently and I threw him some extra cash when I downloaded the new firmware, to show my appreciation for his continued development on the device.
I would prefer a device that supported network storage, so I could just point it at my server which has thousands of disk images.
I've looked for a VHS-to-digital converter, but couldn't find any. The only seeming solution is getting a TV tuner card, plugging an old VHS player to it, and actually playing the VHS on it, and using TV Tuner software to record it.
As far as I know the state of the art is reading and writing the raw magnetic flux to/from a disk with something like this: http://softpres.org/glossary:kryoflux This method supports more or less any platform, and images can be made with copy protection in place (for emulators that support it), or copies to new disk media preserving the original copy protection.
Kryoflux was the state of the art in 2013 (and is pretty capable for non C64 disks) but their shady legal practices asserting copyright of ripped images[1] makes their images blacklisted by the Internet Archive. In 2019 a lot of people migrated to FluxEngine [2]. Though there are plenty of alternatives [3]. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/comments/buyj9f/co... [2] http://cowlark.com/fluxengine/index.htm…
I don't think there would be a legal basis here. If I sell a pen, I can't claim ownership of the things people write with it, no matter what EULA I make people sign. The same holds for a Xerox machine. And similarly it holds for a tool to copy bits or flux transitions.
If you want to reminisce about old floppy drives, and the other floppy formats that never made it, the 8-bit guy did a good video on old storage mediums: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvXXkB2jic0
...and destroyed some perfectly good floppy media while he was at it! Grrr
The sleeves are usually contact welded shut on the sides, so if one wants to keep the discs working, one of the edges can be undone and the disc can be removed like a letter from an envelope. "Transplants" are also possible.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm using a FloppyEmu model B on a IIgs. I haven't used it extensively for writing, but I did find that Bank Street Writer II will not format or write to a DSK image properly. I'm really impressed w/ the FloppyEmu. The creator added WOZ disk image support fairly recently and I threw him some extra cash when I downloaded the new firmware, to show my appreciation for his continued development on the device.
It's really quite amazing what a hobbyist can make these days (and sell on the internet). I would prefer a device that supported network storage, so I could just point it at my server which has thousands of disk images.
You may be able to do this using a Wi-Fi enabled SD card with a floppy emulator.
I always wondered why PCs maintained support for 3.5" disks, but not for 5.25". Fortunately, beforehand I had presciently copied my hundreds of floppies to CD-ROMs. But I still keep finding more :-)