Jules Richardson wrote:
Do you have any kind of estimate for when this will be
finished (to the
point of being releasable - sounds like there might be ongoing firmware
patches?). I'd be interested in buying one I think (even though I try to
avoid USB if I can).
Probably the early-to-middle part of next year. At the moment there are
two problems:
- The software forms part of my final-year university project.
- If I wanted to release the software (MFM Explorer), I'd need to get
a copyright release from the university. Problem is, they don't like
giving these out. AIUI, you need written approval from the Dean of
School, and a few of his underlings. Then the Legal office have to
approve it.
There are, however, a few things that aren't covered by the university
copyright land-grab:
- The hardware design. Finished this just before the start of the
academic year (late September).
- The firmware and microcode for the hardware. See above.
- libfdrw (USB read/write engine).
Their "any file on our server becomes our copyright" policy is moot as
well, I don't use the university file server. Not that it ever works...
We found out a few weeks ago that the UNIX server had gone down and that
everything was lost -- what was supposed to be a backed-up-fortnightly
RAID5 was actually a non-backed-up RAID0. The UNIX admin had been
skipping backups for months, and finally decided to actually do his job
just before the discs failed. When did the discs fail? About half-way
through the backup of '/home/staff'.
Two dead discs, RAID0 striped, no mirroring. Total loss apparently. I'm
surprised it lasted as long as it did.
My experience has been that it's
"reasonably"* easy to get hold of a PC
that'll read FM (at least at 256bps and above) - but difficult to get
one that'll also write.
Like said, all the PCs I've had recently either had no floppy controller
(= my current desktop), or had a Super I/O chip that couldn't/wouldn't
speak FM.
The last time
I wanted an image of a BBC Micro floppy, I ended up
streaming it across the RS423 port at 9600bps. Ugh. Not fun.
I've done exactly that with a 20MB ST506 drive before and a modified
copy of xfer - that on a drive with failing bearings. Something like 7
hours of high-pitched bearing scream later... the drive held together
though, thankfully.
I doubt I'd have been able to put up with seven hours of bearing scream...
--
Phil.
classiccmp at philpem.me.uk
http://www.philpem.me.uk/