On 07/13/2018 02:50 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: http://torlus.com/floppy/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1683 In the as-provided form, it's just a bunch of sector-by-sector data written to a predefined set of addresses on the flash drive. No file system at all. --Chuck

On 07/13/2018 07:57 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: -- --Chuck Sent from my digital computer

On 07/13/2018 09:44 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: Possibly. I would want to likely use mount the discrete images as file systems directly. So if they were considered partitions and had /dev entries for them, I could just mount them directly. In fact, one of the tricks I found was to use a special mount command that did that with parameters. mount -o loop,offset=$[15*1536]k,sizelimit=1440k /dev/sdb1 /mnt/tmp I've got to say that I really like the idea / knowledge that loopback devices can be constrained to a part of a file / device. IMHO that could come in handy accessing partitions within a whole drive image (via dd). }:-) There are more details in a comment on the following page: Link - Review: GoTek System SFR1M44-U100K USB 1000 Floppy Disk Emulator - http://goughlui.com/2013/05/19/review-gotek-system-sfr1m44-u100k-usb-1000-f… I am planing on trying the FlashFloppy firmware. I also ordered the OLED display. ;-) -- Grant. . . . unix || die

On 07/14/2018 02:43 PM, Adrian Graham via cctalk wrote: *nod* I really like that FlashFloppy will allow the same single device to support both 1.44 MB and 720 kB floppies. Aside: I've got to say, I've never really messed with the various numbers associated with floppy drives, but the 1536 really surprised me. I apparently have a lot of history to learn at some point. Yay. I'm messing with a machine that I can likely get the floppy drive to work (it's only 25 years old). But I have exactly one other floppy drive and no floppy disks that I trust. So I figured that I might as well convert to emulation and catch up with all the images that I'm using in virtualization. -- Grant. . . . unix || die

On 07/14/2018 04:40 PM, Adrian Graham via cctalk wrote: Yep. I expect that I will be learning things too. In fact, I'm planing on ~> counting on exactly that. Thankfully I've had some exposure through friends and various mailing lists; cctalk, TUHS, COFF, and various newsgroups; comp.os.vms being predominant. I had a vague sense that different OSs had different types of floppy drives. I've also heard of hard vs soft sector drives, but I have no idea what the difference is. *nod* It's my understanding that MS-DOS was one of the earlier OSs to standardize file systems used across disks for various computer manufacturers. There were still some physical differences though. :-D -- Grant. . . . unix || die

. . . and Apple and Commodore used soft-sectored, but do not use the index hole, so the track can begin at any rotational position. Stringy Floppy is best forgotten.

I've got one of those. Fun, when it works (there's always a moment of panic to see if it feels like working). -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Life is too short to remove USB safely. ------------------------------------

On 7/14/2018 6:29 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: I always liked the 8 track tape idea for a home brew system. Never got around to it however. Ben.

On 07/14/2018 05:54 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: Wow. I had no idea that there was a 5?" disk that held more than 1.2 MB. So much history that I'm sure is being lost to time. -- Grant. . . . unix || die

On Sat, Jul 14, 2018 at 10:22 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk < cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: I have a Victor 9000, so I've been meaning to add support to fluxtoimd to be able to extract Victor 9000 data from flux transition images (DiscFerret and KyroFlux stream file) into ImageDisk images, which are then easily manipulated. Which reminds me, I'm way behind in merging some contributed bug fixes. Eric

On Sun, 15 Jul 2018 at 06:40, Fred Cisin via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: I did that on occasion. So did some OS distributions, just to keep the number of boot diskettes down to just 3 and still be able to boot a bloated 1990s OS off floppy, plus enough drivers and storage subsystem to access a CD drive. I always thought the WinNT installer bootstrap process was a clever way to get around this. Boot into DOS, run WINNT.EXE and you're off. It was much easier to get a CD working under DOS than under, say, OS/2 (swearing at the painful memories) or Linux in the early kernel-1.0 days. I tried to explain this to an OS/2 evangelist friend of mine. He thought I was deranged. Still, I think it would have done OS/2 a lot of good. Once I learned this, I switched to calling them 1.4 MB floppies. This has an added bonus: as well as feeling smugly pedantic, I infrequently but regularly got to correct people trying to out-pedanticize me. I wish they'd caught on, if only as a bridge to... I mostly saw IDE (well, ATAPI, I suspect) ones. But they didn't stop at 20MB, of course... there were Sony HiFD and SuperDisks. 100 MB, 120, 150, 200, 240. If the floppy diskette industry had just kept it together, it could have kept the rewritable CD-ROM at bay for another decade or more. https://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/49563.html TBH I never saw much point in the (even) smaller ones. -- Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

On Mon, 16 Jul 2018, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: In addition to the race to the bottom declining quality, the reliability may also have been slightly affected by change in linear density (physical length of track), 48tpi V 135tpi, reduced write current (with 300 Oersted V 600 V 750) Or maybe it's the need for fingerprint oils on the media! 3.5" keeps fingers away more than 5.25 or 8". On the Lisa "Twiggy" diskettes, they made special provision to get more thumb prints. If it were only still in the public consciousness, I can imagine CSI dialog, "They cleaned up the crime scene, but I know one place where we can get a thumbprint of the computer operator!" -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

On Mon, 16 Jul 2018, Eric Smith wrote: I'm NOT sure. I speculate: 1) for users who put it in the wrong way. In which case, they should have had FOUR cutouts, AND a reversing motor and/or full track read and extraction to include upside down. (there are EIGHT ways that a 5.25 will fit into the drive). (cf. reasons for SINGLE button on Apple mouse) 2) To have two sets of heads. Either performance, or simply two single sided heads, to have felt pad instead of head to head pressure I am reminded of an episode of "Computer Bowl" (TV game show). Nobody on Bill Gates' team could answer WHERE the write protect notch is on an 8 inch diskette!

On Mon, 16 Jul 2018, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: Their team couldn't have come up with that, either. And, they DID have an opportunity to give an adequately detailed answer to such things. On 8", notch is write protect; no notch is write enabled. on 5.25", notch is write enabled; no notch is write protected. I think that that justifies calling the 8" a "write protect notch", and calling the 5.25" a "write enable notch". Used 8" drives that I got sometimes had write-enable tabs in them that had fallen off. Once out of the enclosure, you did not need tiny fingers to work on 8" drives. I learned the hard way to distribute 5.25" software on no-notch disks, after somebody peeled off the write protect tab in order to infect one with "STONED", and then claimed that we had sent it that way. The serial numbers before and after were local, so I was able to confirm that it was ONLY that one disk. When I switched to no-notch disks, I jumpered an SA455 for writing to non-notch disks. I sure hope that I remember to jumper it back before I give that drive away. I never had enough volume to justify a dedicated duplicator.) A lot. I'm ambivalent about which way is better, but that is not a good kind of thing to change.

I still don't know for sure which way to do 8 inch compared to 5.25. I usually try to write both ways but soon forget which is which. It won't do any good to tell me as I'll still forget. I just remember the 8 inch drives were different. Another good quiz question is where the index hole was on a 8 inch disk for the various flavors of 8 inch disk. Dwight ________________________________ From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> on behalf of Chuck Guzis via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Monday, July 16, 2018 7:28:19 PM To: Fred Cisin via cctalk Subject: Re: GoTEK SFR1M44-U100... On 07/16/2018 06:40 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: Well, it's a matter of half-full/half-empty. The 5.25" notch was always called write-protect, so go figure. I've got a few old 5.25" DSDD floppies with a very clover adaptation--they use a little aluminum slider in the jacket so that one doesn't have deal with finding sticky things for protection. The placement of the 5.25" notch, under whatever terminology--on the jacket *side* was very convenient. It was possible to poll the sensor to detect disk insertion/removal without the need for powering the spindle motor. I coded some stuff up in the late 70s for a "Put that back!" alarm when the disk contained files open for writing. I've got some 3M-branded 8" notched floppies that came with a strip of transparent *red* stick-ons. The result was that even when applied, the disk to some drives was still write-protected. Very frustrating the first time encountered. --Chuck

On Mon, Jul 16, 2018 at 4:58 PM, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote: The latter, two single single-sided heads, each opposed by a pressure pad. Aside from the provision for extra fingerprints, a problem with this scheme was that they varied the rotation rate depending on the position of the head in use. Unfortunately since there was only a single actuator, when the top head was near the inside, the bottom was near the outside, and vice versa. Except for the middle few tracks, it was never fast to switch from one head to the other without seeking. The logical disk organization was all of side zero followed by all of side one, rather than by cylinder.

On Tue, 17 Jul 2018 at 00:17, Fred Cisin via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: *Chuckle* Even if I never saw them, IKWYM. I am slowly staggering towards having my ZX Spectrum machines up and running again -- and I hope my QL, too. They both have 5?" drives. When I kitted out my Spectrum with an MGT DISCiPLE and a single DS/DD 80t drive, circa 1986 or so, 5?" drives were ~? the price of 3?" ones, and the media were much less -- maybe 1/10th of the price. Due to acute media shortage, if my old disks can still be read, now I'm looking at moving over to 3?" drives and media. I do have a ?SD card interface too, but it doesn't feel the same... -- Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

Not sure the IBM 2.44/2.88 format has been forgotten, but I would like to see a GoTek emulator for it..

On Sun, 15 Jul 2018 at 05:55, Grant Taylor via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: Me neither -- and I thought I knew a fair bit about floppies. I sometimes misstate things just in order to wind up Fred, mind you. :-) -- Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

On 07/13/2018 06:51 PM, Torfinn Ingolfsen via cctalk wrote: Can this be used on the device labeled SMUFDDV4 at 1104. bill

On 07/17/2018 10:49 AM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: Why not put a scope on the INDEX pin output and see if it's nice and regular or it skips revs when the firmware has to ge fetch a track's worth of data? Just a suggestion... --Chuck

Just a question, you?re not expecting the Gotek to whizz files onto the Compaq are you? It may be something modern emulating a floppy drive but it also has to emulate the floppy drive rotational speed so it should be the same speed as a real drive. One thing that sometimes makes it seem slow to me is that I don?t have the little piezo speaker for mine so you?re getting no audible feedback, and with no OLED either you have no idea about which tracks its reading, etc. Bit like watching a kettle boil :) -- adrian/witchy Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection? t: @binarydinosaurs f: facebook.com/binarydinosaurs w: www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk

On Tue, 17 Jul 2018, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: <Pedantic> <Over-simplified> <!-- Chuck, Tony, Liam, and others can list errors and "lies to children" --> The MS-DOS VERIFY command meant that every time that a sector was written, the computer would then check the CRC, and confirm that it was a valid sector. Contrary to popular ASSUMPTION, it absolutely did NOT compare the content of the sector with what it should be. (re-read sector and compare? Nope, just confirm that it is readable) A drive with dead write electronics can "write" and VERIFY, simply because the unaltered previous content does VERIFY as valid sectors). Some people would turn VERIFY OFF, and disable PARITY, in a performance attempt because they assumed that it wasn't actually doing anything. Q: Do you want to know whether there are errors? A FORMAT VERIFY that formats all tracks, and THEN verifies them is slower, but more reliable than format and verify of each track, since it is a recheck that each track is written on the correct cylinder. A Format and verify before changing track, on a drive with broken stepper, could format and verify every track all on the same cylinder. Floppy interface (SA800/SA400 and derivatives) was long before the IDE ("Integrated Device Electronics") hard disk interface, so the derivation is mostly the other direction. The disk spins at 360 (8", 1.2M, NEC) or 300 (5.25", 3.5") RPM. (180RPM for Weltec 1.2M kludge to get 1.2M on XT; 600RPM for one of the Sony 3.5") The data transfer rate was 125,000 bits per second (5.25" SD) 250,000 bits per second (8" SD, 5.25" DD, 3.5" DD, Weltec 1.2M) 300,000 bits per second (360K disk in 1.2M drive) 500,000 bits per second (8" DD, 1.2M, 3.5" HD) 1,000,000 bits per second (2.8M) Each controller only supported some of those. 5150 was 250,000. 5170 (AT) was 250,000, 300,000, 500,000. Spinning the disk at 300RPM, and transferring at 250,000 bps controlled the positioning of the bits on the track. Spinning faster, even if only virtual, can't change that data transfer rate. Well ALMOST not. Weltec had a slower than normal drive to permit 1.2M on slower controllers, and Sony had a 3.5" drive that sun at 600RPM requiring controller with faster data transfer rate). To over-simplify, you can think of the rotational speed as being solely to match the controller data transfer rate; and therefore, not helped by this. So, those preset data transfer rates in the controller are the sole determining factor of the speed that you will get. On the other hand, SEEK could be improved. You could probably get some minor speed improvement by tampering with the seek time parameters! The computer waits after a "STEP" command to give the drive time to step and settle. When IBM used the Qumetrak 142 drives (PCJr), they had to release a new version of PD-DOS (2.10) to slow down that time for the SLOW-ASS drives. Check out INT 1Eh (pointer to where those vaariables are stored) So, other than the possibility of a faster virtual SEEK/STEP time, this will be exactly the same speed as a real floppy. It also might be possible to create new firmware AND drivers on PC, that would fake being at 600RPM, to let the FDC use its 500,000 bps data transfer rate. Or use the 1,000,000 bps rate on 2.8M capable controllers. yep. that would also does away with the FDC data transfer rate bottleneck. </Over-simplified> </Pedantic> That will be a sweet add-on Or grass growing. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

On Tue, 17 Jul 2018, Eric Smith via cctalk wrote: I think that it is worth adding in the amusing anecdote of the name "Seagate". Alan Shugart as "Shugart Associates" changed 8" drives to what became the industry standard form. And then created the SA400 5.25" drive. There is some dispute over the creation of 5.25". One story goes that Adkisson (of Shugart Associates) was talking with Wang, who wanted a smaller drive and diskette. When asked what size did they want, Wang picked up the bar napkin. That bar napkin became the model for the 5.25" diskette. Massaro denies the story. Shugart sold "Shugart Associates" to Xerox. Later, Shugart formed "Shugart Technology", to develop small hard drives. Xerox lawyers objected to the name, and Shugart had to change it to "Seagate Technology". Which goes to show you, do not name your company after yourself, or selling the company could cost you your name.

On Tue, 17 Jul 2018, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: I interpreted Eric's comment as meaning that the 3.5" hard drives used same interface as the 5.25. inch hard drives (34 pin and 20 pin), and the 3.5" floppy would be same as 5.25" floppy 34 pin. Could the Gotek firmware, and some drivers on PC's with "HD" or "ED" controllers, be kludged together to get faster data transfers? ALthough the early 3.5" were 600 RPM and 26 pin, they soon changed over to 34 pin. (some MS-DOS 2.11 laptops) I'm assuming to make them a drop-in replacement for 5.25". But, yes, when first introduced, they were not yet 34 pin. And, of course there were a few 5.25" drives that were not the standard 34 pin interface, such as Apple. (SA390 (SA400 without the "logic" board")) My first "1.2M" 5.25" drive (Mitsubishi EARLY 4854?) had a 50 pin connector! That made me think that they were targetting 8" replacement, rather than 5.25" storage increase. Unsubstantiated story from a Microsoft person was that during the initial stages of AT-BIOS and DOS 3.00 programming, they thought that there was an 8" machine coming. 3" and 3.25" were also almost completely compatible with the "standard" 34 pin interface. Although I remember one drive that had 5V and 12V swapped in its 4 pin power connector! And my 8" drives did not standardize power connector and requirements.

On 18 Jul 2018, at 03:22, Fred Cisin via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: Could the Gotek firmware, and some drivers on PC's with "HD" or "ED" controllers, be kludged together to get faster data transfers? Replying to myself here but these are the current config file parameters, I think either setting ibmpc-hdout or one of the pin2 settings will enable faster transfers. Drive Emulation: - *interface* = shugart | ibmpc | ibmpc-hdout | akai-s950 | amiga | jc* - Pin assignments of the floppy-drive interface - *shugart*: Shugart interface (Amiga, Atari ST, many others) - *ibmpc*: IBM PC interface, no output on pin 2 - *ibmpc-hdout*: IBM PC, high-density-select output on pin 2 - *akai-s950*: Akai S950 - *amiga*: Drive ID hack on pin 34. Use *shugart* instead when possible. - See Amiga-specific hints <https://github.com/keirf/FlashFloppy/wiki/Host-Platforms#commodore-amiga> for advice on this setting. - *jc*: Specified by jumper JC (closed = IBM PC, open = Shugart) - *host* = unspecified* | acorn | akai | ... - Host platform: Improves image-format detection for generic types such as IMG - *acorn*: Acorn ADFS - *akai*: Akai synths (S01, S20, S950) - *dec*: DEC (RX33, RX50) - *ensoniq*: Ensoniq synths (ASR/TS series, and others) - *gem*: General Music (S2, S3, S2R) - *memotech*: Memotech - *msx*: MSX - *pc98*: NEC PC-98 - *pc-dos*: PC DOS Format (geometry determined from Bios Parameter Block) - *ti99*: TI-99/4A - *uknc*: UKNC, DVK (Soviet PDP-11) - *unspecified*: Detection based on image-name suffix only - *pin02* = auto* | nc | low | high | rdy | nrdy | dens | ndens | chg | nchg - Manually assign a signal to floppy interface pin 2 - *auto*: Automatically determined from *interface =* setting - *nc*: Unused / No Connection - *low*, *high*: Constant low (0v) or high (5v) voltage - *rdy*, *nrdy*: Drive ready, or logical complement - *dens*, *ndens*: Density mode (HD = 0v), or logical complement - *chg*, *nchg*: Disk changed, or logical complement - *pin34* = auto* | nc | low | high | rdy | nrdy | dens | ndens | chg | nchg - Manually assign a signal to floppy interface pin 34 - *write-protect* = yes | no* - Are images write protected when initially mounted? - Protection can be toggled by holding eject for 2 seconds - *yes*: Forcibly write-protect images - *no*: Respect the FAT read-only attribute - *side-select-glitch-filter* = 0-255 (0*) - Filter glitches in the SIDE-select signal shorter than N microseconds - Useful on some old hardware (eg. CP/M systems) - *track-change* = instant* | realtime - Rotational offset of data after a track change - *instant*: No rotation during track change - *realtime*: Emulate rotation of disk while track is changing - *index-suppression* = yes* | no - Are index pulses suppressed when RDATA and WDATA inactive? - Older systems may depend on constant index pulses (eg. BBC Micro) -- adrian/witchy Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection? t: @binarydinosaurs f: facebook.com/binarydinosaurs w: www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk On 18 July 2018 at 08:37, Adrian Graham <binarydinosaurs at gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, 18 Jul 2018 at 01:11, Eric Smith via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: On that note... Does anyone know how NV-memory-to-floppy emulators worked? E.g. these Smartmedia to floppy adaptors: https://www.ebay.com/p/Olympus-Floppy-Disk-Adapter-for-Smart-Media-Flash-Pa… or https://www.amazon.com/SmartDisk-FlashPath-Floppy-Adapter-SmartMedia/dp/B00… -- Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

On Wed, 18 Jul 2018 at 17:53, Chuck Guzis via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote: Aha! Interesting. So it's not actually able to be read as if it were a diskette? It's sort of hijacking the drive as an alternative I/O medium, pulsing data at a stationary drive head, ignoring rotation and track positioning? -- Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven at cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lproven at gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 - ?R (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053

On 7/18/18 11:15 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: where the pulses jitter, and interfere with each other if too close in the real world. The only place this shows up in an emulator is knowing there may be write precompensation occuring from the host side.