Re: floppy.ko

[Gene Heskett <gene.heskett@gmail.com>]

On Wednesday 18 April 2007, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>Gene Heskett wrote:
>> On Tuesday 17 April 2007, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>>> Gene Heskett wrote:
>>>> I have the usual fd0, a 3.5" 1.44 drive, and fd1, a 5.25" 720k drive in
>>>> this machine, both are enabled in the bios with the correct types being
>>>> set there.
>>>
>>> A 5.25" 720k drive?!  That's not a PC standard drive -- 5.25" came in
>>> 180K, 360K and 1200K varieties, whereas 3.5" came in 720K, 1440K and
>>> 2880K varieties (not including superfloppies.)
>>>
>>> 	-hpa
>>
>> It sure is a std drive, Peter, although many of the later ones that were
>> set up as 1.2 megger's by the pc crowd who have access to a 500 kilobaud
>> controller, could have the 360 rpm spindle jumper'd back to 300 rpm, and
>> when fed with a 250 kilobaud controller (WD177x/277x/279x family, which
>> includes the Fujitsu MB8877), they are perfect 720k devices and are
>> spec'ed that way by the makers.  Many of the older full height Tandon
>> 100-4's could also step quite a few tracks closer to the spindle & I ran
>> them as 765k drives by using 84 tracks.  I even have a chinon that will
>> make 86 tracks most of the time.
>>
>> These were all quite common in the middle '80's.  Before your time I
>> suspect.
>
>I know they were quite common, but they were not a standard *PC*
>accessory.  (FWIW, 1200K PC drives could also read/write 720K, which
>allowed you to use non-HD-rated media.)
>
Chuckle, see how you are?  You keep quoting the 'PC', and 20 years ago the PC 
term included a lot of machinery that didn't always run M$ code.  TRS-80 
Color Computers and such, or Apple II, Commode-door etc.

>(And no, this wasn't "before my time".)

Figure of speech, Peter, considering that I could be the oldest subscriber to 
this list.  I've been around since '34.

>	-hpa

-- 
Cheers, Gene
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             -- Larry Wall in <199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org>