Yay, now I need some Osborne boot media!

[Chuck Guzis]

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