[cctalk] Re: request for 5.25 floppies

Actually - in the Sharp advertisement, they "name drop" Microsoft explicitly - so perhaps I misspoke in mentioning IBM's PC-DOS (but if we're making disks, I'd just try to have both ready just in case). I've not yet opened the external drive enclosure to investigate specific model/parts (I'm very curious about the controller and how it differs from the standard IBM ISA disk drive controller, but there is some difference since a 37-pin drive that worked in my 5150 wouldn't work with this Sharp). I'm generally clumsy with hardware (in a "oops, dropped that cup of screws all onto the board while it was powered on" kind of way- maybe not that bad, but enough to know to go slow and enjoy what I have for a bit first, before I open it and screw it all up; my biggest regret was on a 1996 ThinkPad - it was running OS/2 just fine on a handsome solid state proxy IDE, but I didn't like the color fade on the bezel of the CD-ROM, and just "had" to going back in and address that - and that system has never booted since). Point being, I'd like to try some disk first before tinkering inside this drive enclosure. The host system is this: < https://voidstar.blog/sharp-pc-5000 > which I hope to finally prepare a broader video about it before the end of this year. And - oh, depending on the controller, we might be able to adapt a 720K drive onto it? I see, that'd be an interesting mod. But not yet - gotta try as-is first. This Sharp is a tad confusing (or it was to me). I had the impression that the DOS was built into the ROM - but no, it's actually copied/placed onto each of the bubble memory cartridges, so it is always "booting" to DOS like a "normal" system. Also in my notes - i may have to revise on if the BASIC is built-in or not. It's "built into" one of the ROM cartridges you place into the bottom of the system. So it's not technically a "boot to BASIC" system either (I'm not sure if that excused them from Microsoft licensing in some way??). Or actually - I'll have to unplug that cartridge and remind myself what all the system can do on its own (as I recall, in doing so, it does "boot" into a self-running demo mode). I hope it's not too much of a lost cause - I think I do recall coming across an article that mentioned that the system could be booted from the external floppy. And if it could miraculously boot to something like DOS 3.2 - well, I can't think of any program of that era that would play nice with an 8 row screen. But that's the goal here, to just see what happens. In the worse case, this will mean I can make a backup of all the content of these bubble memory cartridges content, just in case they start to deteriorate in some way (that said - since it does have a "built in" BASIC, I suppose technically I can do a BASIC that invokes the serial port and I could export every file that way; thumbing through the manual it does have some keywords that might accommodate that -- I'll save that as a last resort). And Thank You Travis, I'll be in contact!! -Steve