IBM 9331-011 8" External Floppy Drive - eBay 183038271095

[Chuck Guzis]

On 02/01/2018 01:44 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote:
> On 02/01/2018 02:08 PM, Paul Berger via cctalk wrote:
>> The drives that where used on the AS/400 are all "industry standard"
>> drives so it should be easy to adapt one to a PC.
> 
> The drives may be standard, but I am curious how standard the format of
> what's on the disk is.  How likely is it that a PC OS from the last ~30
> years will understand how to read what's on the disk?
> 
> Or, I'm guessing it's likely that archival programs don't need to
> understand how to read the disk format for raw disk imaging.

It's pretty likely that the disks follow one of the standard IBM formats
described here:

http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/ibm/floppy/GA21-9182-5_Diskette_General_Information_Manual_Jul80.pdf

Pretty much standard FM/MFM; easy enough if you still have a PC with a
legacy floppy interface.

After that, it's matter of interpreting what you get.  Not a big deal,
really.

--Chuck