24 Nov
2014
24 Nov
'14
5:43 p.m.
On 11/24/2014 03:28 PM, Jules Richardson wrote:
How obtainable is DD 3.5" media these days?
I've seen precisely *one*
disk in the last seven years, which suggests that it's rather rare, at
least locally. I've not searched online with an intention of buying any,
though; I'm just surprised that it's not still relatively common in
thruft* stores etc. in the form of used disks (after all, there were
plenty of machines such as the Amiga using them which were still around
into the '90s)
I just shipped about 300 Sony DSDDs today. Free for shipping. Sorry, I
don't have another batch ready to go, but if you want to *buy* NEW DSDD
3.5 media, I"m willing to talk. I've also got oodles of used DSDD 5.25"
media; some used, some new.
More modern early-Pentium PCs which have a
"full" floppy cable - even if
they only have a 3.5" drive fitted - seem to be around still, albeit in
small numbers; I've grabbed a few from local Freecycle lists, Facebook
groups etc. OP may get lucky and find a suitable power adapter that way,
too.
..or, depending on what he's using for a floppy controller, some
manufacturers routed the extra motor-control and drive-select to unused
positions on the cable so that three drives could be run on the same
cable.
DTC even had a board with a jumper enabling running the standard
"Shugart" configuration with 4 drives on the same cable. Of course,
when one drive spindle motor comes on, they *all* start spinning. Not
such a good thing for a 5150 with the wimpy PSU.
--Chuck