27 Feb
2023
27 Feb
'23
4:11 a.m.
USB floopies are not general purpose devices. They have a fixed number of
formats that work, and the rest do not.
Warner
On Sun, Feb 26, 2023 at 2:44 PM Wayne S via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
Your troubles with USB floppy drives reinforces my own
experiences. They
seem to work okay in windows using a Microsoft written utility but not too
well in dos or user written programs. It’s hit or miss as to if the program
will see the usb floppy. However, using a builtin floppy always seems to
work.
Sent from my iPhone
On Feb 26, 2023, at 12:17, Chris Zach via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
Hi Henry!
set the A: drive to be the USB a: drive, and it doesn't work. This time it
bombs out with QRST transfer incomplete.
You wanted a SETUP disk for a Deskpro/XE
system, right? Like SP1363
as listed here https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=76542
<https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=76542> ? I was able to do
this in Dosbox-X no problem: mount the local directory with
sp1363.exe as C: or whatever, attach a disk image to A:, and then
let sp1363.exe create the disk image on A: . You can then write the
raw disk image to a 1.44" floppy.
Interesting. I was using DOSBOX, not DOSBOX-X. I tried downloading it,
So I restarted, copied one of the diagnostic floppy images I did have to
a filename of xe.img, mounted it in dosbox-x with the imgmount a (filename)
command, then ran QRST and it seems to have worked.
So if you try to use a USB floppy it can't see it, but if you use an
image file it can. I wonder if Dosbox sees the external floppy as a SCSI
device, but when you do an imgmount it knows to use the real, crappy DMA
based routines to access the image file.
Off to copy the image file to the pi, then to the USB floppy, then maybe
to get the XE running. Fascinating, and thank yoU!
CZ