Many recent motherboards do not have floppy ports. Does anyone know of a pci floppy controller other than the catweasle card? I've searched and searched to no avail.
Thanks Mark
On Tuesday, October 04, 2011 01:35:51 PM Mark Hounschell did opine:
Many recent motherboards do not have floppy ports. Does anyone know of a pci floppy controller other than the catweasle card? I've searched and searched to no avail.
That board is as close as we will likely get to a universal floppy controller. To my knowledge, it has no competition.
Cheers, Gene
On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 6:15 PM, Mark Hounschell markh@compro.net wrote:
Many recent motherboards do not have floppy ports. Does anyone know of a pci floppy controller other than the catweasle card? I've searched and searched to no avail.
Does it need to be PCI? There are newer USB-based projects that go beyond what the CatWeasel can do -- see KryoFlux (http://www.kyroflux.com) and DiscFerret (http://www.discferret.com). There's some software available for both, but it depends what exactly you had in mind.
Cheers,
Si
On 10/05/2011 04:44 PM, Simon Owen wrote:
On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 6:15 PM, Mark Hounschell <markh@compro.net mailto:markh@compro.net> wrote:
Many recent motherboards do not have floppy ports. Does anyone know of a pci floppy controller other than the catweasle card? I've searched and searched to no avail.Does it need to be PCI? There are newer USB-based projects that go beyond what the CatWeasel can do -- see KryoFlux (http://www.kyroflux.com) and DiscFerret (http://www.discferret.com). There's some software available for both, but it depends what exactly you had in mind.
It doesn't _have_ to be PCI. It's just that normal floppy support seems to be disappearing from Mother Boards these days. If it has a floppy port, it only supports one floppy. Many don't even do that these days. The USB way looks interesting but seems to be geared towards external devices. I guess it could be used for internal devices though. But what about the software already geared towards /dev/fd0/1. I'm sure the USB way changes everything and existing code probably couldn't use it as is. Not sure though, haven't actually got one. It just seems someone should have made a PCI card. Serial ports are similar but there are plenty of PCI based serial cards out there. Why not for floppies??
Thanks Mark
On Friday, October 07, 2011 09:22:58 AM Mark Hounschell did opine:
On 10/05/2011 04:44 PM, Simon Owen wrote:
On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 6:15 PM, Mark Hounschell <markh@compro.net
mailto:markh@compro.net> wrote: Many recent motherboards do not have floppy ports. Does anyone know of a pci floppy controller other than the catweasle card? I've searched and searched to no avail.
Does it need to be PCI? There are newer USB-based projects that go beyond what the CatWeasel can do -- see KryoFlux (http://www.kyroflux.com) and DiscFerret (http://www.discferret.com). There's some software available for both, but it depends what exactly you had in mind.
It doesn't _have_ to be PCI. It's just that normal floppy support seems to be disappearing from Mother Boards these days. If it has a floppy port, it only supports one floppy. Many don't even do that these days. The USB way looks interesting but seems to be geared towards external devices. I guess it could be used for internal devices though. But what about the software already geared towards /dev/fd0/1. I'm sure the USB way changes everything and existing code probably couldn't use it as is. Not sure though, haven't actually got one. It just seems someone should have made a PCI card. Serial ports are similar but there are plenty of PCI based serial cards out there. Why not for floppies??
Thanks Mark
Excellent question Mark. I had forgotten I was subbed to this list, but this does remind me that it would be nice if we had hardware (as in the fdc) that can handle the 256 byte/sector MFM format used by the color computers os9 operating system. I have a top of the line ASUS motherboard here, which still had an fdc on it at the time I built this box. But the fdc upchucks and has even forced a few reset button reboots while trying to read or write the 256 byte/sector formats so that I can sneakernet software to/from my coco's.
So since there seems to be traffic, let me ask if anyone knows the exact syntax to add to the mediaprm file, to replace the 'zero-based' that now breaks setfdprm when encountered in the COCO360 and COCO720 stanza's of /path/to/mediaprm?
Thanks
Cheers, Gene
On 10/07/2011 10:36 AM, gene heskett wrote:
On Friday, October 07, 2011 09:22:58 AM Mark Hounschell did opine:
On 10/05/2011 04:44 PM, Simon Owen wrote:
On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 6:15 PM, Mark Hounschell<markh@compro.net
mailto:markh@compro.net> wrote: Many recent motherboards do not have floppy ports. Does anyone know of a pci floppy controller other than the catweasle card? I've searched and searched to no avail.
Does it need to be PCI? There are newer USB-based projects that go beyond what the CatWeasel can do -- see KryoFlux (http://www.kyroflux.com) and DiscFerret (http://www.discferret.com). There's some software available for both, but it depends what exactly you had in mind.
It doesn't _have_ to be PCI. It's just that normal floppy support seems to be disappearing from Mother Boards these days. If it has a floppy port, it only supports one floppy. Many don't even do that these days. The USB way looks interesting but seems to be geared towards external devices. I guess it could be used for internal devices though. But what about the software already geared towards /dev/fd0/1. I'm sure the USB way changes everything and existing code probably couldn't use it as is. Not sure though, haven't actually got one. It just seems someone should have made a PCI card. Serial ports are similar but there are plenty of PCI based serial cards out there. Why not for floppies??
Thanks Mark
Excellent question Mark. I had forgotten I was subbed to this list, but this does remind me that it would be nice if we had hardware (as in the fdc) that can handle the 256 byte/sector MFM format used by the color computers os9 operating system. I have a top of the line ASUS motherboard here, which still had an fdc on it at the time I built this box. But the fdc upchucks and has even forced a few reset button reboots while trying to read or write the 256 byte/sector formats so that I can sneakernet software to/from my coco's.
So since there seems to be traffic, let me ask if anyone knows the exact syntax to add to the mediaprm file, to replace the 'zero-based' that now breaks setfdprm when encountered in the COCO360 and COCO720 stanza's of /path/to/mediaprm?
setfdprm /dev/fd0 sect=16 dd ds ssize=256 cyl=40 zerobased
works for me.
Mark
On Friday, October 07, 2011 11:10:03 AM Mark Hounschell did opine:
On 10/07/2011 10:36 AM, gene heskett wrote:
On Friday, October 07, 2011 09:22:58 AM Mark Hounschell did opine:
On 10/05/2011 04:44 PM, Simon Owen wrote:
On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 6:15 PM, Mark Hounschell<markh@compro.net
mailto:markh@compro.net> wrote: Many recent motherboards do not have floppy ports. Does anyone know of a pci floppy controller other than the catweasle card? I've searched and searched to no avail.
Does it need to be PCI? There are newer USB-based projects that go beyond what the CatWeasel can do -- see KryoFlux (http://www.kyroflux.com) and DiscFerret (http://www.discferret.com).
There's some software available for both, but it depends what
exactly you had in mind.
It doesn't _have_ to be PCI. It's just that normal floppy support seems to be disappearing from Mother Boards these days. If it has a floppy port, it only supports one floppy. Many don't even do that these days. The USB way looks interesting but seems to be geared towards external devices. I guess it could be used for internal devices though. But what about the software already geared towards /dev/fd0/1. I'm sure the USB way changes everything and existing code probably couldn't use it as is. Not sure though, haven't actually got one. It just seems someone should have made a PCI card. Serial ports are similar but there are plenty of PCI based serial cards out there. Why not for floppies??
Thanks Mark
Excellent question Mark. I had forgotten I was subbed to this list, but this does remind me that it would be nice if we had hardware (as in the fdc) that can handle the 256 byte/sector MFM format used by the color computers os9 operating system. I have a top of the line ASUS motherboard here, which still had an fdc on it at the time I built this box. But the fdc upchucks and has even forced a few reset button reboots while trying to read or write the 256 byte/sector formats so that I can sneakernet software to/from my coco's.
So since there seems to be traffic, let me ask if anyone knows the exact syntax to add to the mediaprm file, to replace the 'zero-based' that now breaks setfdprm when encountered in the COCO360 and COCO720 stanza's of /path/to/mediaprm?
setfdprm /dev/fd0 sect=16 dd ds ssize=256 cyl=40 zerobased
works for me.
Except that this format has 18 sectors, but the real magic is the lack of the hyphen in zero-based. I've fixed the mediaprm file now, so check:
[root@coyote etc]# setfdprm /dev/fd0 COCO360 Syntax error in /usr/local/etc/mediaprm at line 792 col 40: zerobase unexpected
But it apparently works from the cli. So how do I fix mediaprm? Humm, maybe I have fixed it, but it seems odd that from the cli, zerobased does not need an =argument, but in the mediaprm file it needs zerobased=1
This is fdutils-5.5 built from the tarball. I took a known good disk, a 3.5DD, formatted on the coco to 720k, 2880 256 byte sectors, put it in this drive and tried to read it with dd, couldn't, give input/output error from dd then tried to format it.
[root@coyote etc]# setfdprm /dev/fd0 sect=18 dd ds ssize=256 cyl=80 zerobased=1 [root@coyote etc]# superformat /dev/fd0 Measuring drive 0's raw capacity
Fatal error while measuring raw capacity 0: 40 1: 01 2: 00 3: 00 4: 00 5: 01 6: 08 [root@coyote etc]# setfdprm /dev/fd0 sect=18 dd ds ssize=256 cyl=80 zerobased=0 [root@coyote etc]# superformat /dev/fd0 Measuring drive 0's raw capacity
Fatal error while measuring raw capacity 0: 40 1: 01 2: 00 3: 00 4: 00 5: 01 6: 08
Bad drive? Bad fdc? I can hear the drive seeking. Put an old floppy copy of memtest86 in the drive, and [root@coyote etc]# dd if=/dev/fd0 bs=512 of=/dev/null 2880+0 records in 2880+0 records out 1474560 bytes (1.5 MB) copied, 48.225 s, 30.6 kB/s
So I think the drive is fine, but my fdc? It did work for a while after I built this box, using an ASUS M2N SLI Deluxe board. But since it doesn't get used all that often, I have no clue when or what broke it. But I would be much obliged if could be brought back to life for 256 byte sectors somehow.
Thanks Mark
Cheers, Gene
On 10/07/2011 12:05 PM, gene heskett wrote:
On Friday, October 07, 2011 11:10:03 AM Mark Hounschell did opine:
On 10/07/2011 10:36 AM, gene heskett wrote:
On Friday, October 07, 2011 09:22:58 AM Mark Hounschell did opine:
On 10/05/2011 04:44 PM, Simon Owen wrote:
On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 6:15 PM, Mark Hounschell<markh@compro.net
mailto:markh@compro.net> wrote: Many recent motherboards do not have floppy ports. Does anyone know of a pci floppy controller other than the catweasle card? I've searched and searched to no avail.
Does it need to be PCI? There are newer USB-based projects that go beyond what the CatWeasel can do -- see KryoFlux (http://www.kyroflux.com) and DiscFerret (http://www.discferret.com).
There's some software available for both, but it depends what
exactly you had in mind.
It doesn't _have_ to be PCI. It's just that normal floppy support seems to be disappearing from Mother Boards these days. If it has a floppy port, it only supports one floppy. Many don't even do that these days. The USB way looks interesting but seems to be geared towards external devices. I guess it could be used for internal devices though. But what about the software already geared towards /dev/fd0/1. I'm sure the USB way changes everything and existing code probably couldn't use it as is. Not sure though, haven't actually got one. It just seems someone should have made a PCI card. Serial ports are similar but there are plenty of PCI based serial cards out there. Why not for floppies??
Thanks Mark
Excellent question Mark. I had forgotten I was subbed to this list, but this does remind me that it would be nice if we had hardware (as in the fdc) that can handle the 256 byte/sector MFM format used by the color computers os9 operating system. I have a top of the line ASUS motherboard here, which still had an fdc on it at the time I built this box. But the fdc upchucks and has even forced a few reset button reboots while trying to read or write the 256 byte/sector formats so that I can sneakernet software to/from my coco's.
So since there seems to be traffic, let me ask if anyone knows the exact syntax to add to the mediaprm file, to replace the 'zero-based' that now breaks setfdprm when encountered in the COCO360 and COCO720 stanza's of /path/to/mediaprm?
setfdprm /dev/fd0 sect=16 dd ds ssize=256 cyl=40 zerobased
works for me.
Except that this format has 18 sectors, but the real magic is the lack of the hyphen in zero-based. I've fixed the mediaprm file now, so check:
[root@coyote etc]# setfdprm /dev/fd0 COCO360 Syntax error in /usr/local/etc/mediaprm at line 792 col 40: zerobase unexpected
But it apparently works from the cli. So how do I fix mediaprm? Humm, maybe I have fixed it, but it seems odd that from the cli, zerobased does not need an =argument, but in the mediaprm file it needs zerobased=1
This is fdutils-5.5 built from the tarball. I took a known good disk, a 3.5DD, formatted on the coco to 720k, 2880 256 byte sectors, put it in this drive and tried to read it with dd, couldn't, give input/output error from dd then tried to format it.
I could be mistaken but I think the only formats dd will work on are the formats predefined by the kernel.
# ls /dev/fd0* /dev/fd0 /dev/fd0u1120 /dev/fd0u1600 /dev/fd0u1722 /dev/fd0u1760 /dev/fd0u1920 /dev/fd0u720 /dev/fd0u820 /dev/fd0u1040 /dev/fd0u1440 /dev/fd0u1680 /dev/fd0u1743 /dev/fd0u1840 /dev/fd0u360 /dev/fd0u800 /dev/fd0u830
I'm sort of doing the same as you, I'm trying to duplicate some old Vista Graphics boot floppies that are on 5.25" dd/ds 360kb media that are formatted like my setfdpfm example below. I need to copy them to 3.5" floppies. I can't dd them either. I'm sure I'll have to write my own software using FDRAWCMD to do the job. I don't even trust fdformat or superformat. Haven't tried superformat to format this format but fdformat certainly does not work. I'm sure I'll have to format them again using the FDRAWCMD API.
Mark
On Friday, October 07, 2011 07:06:51 PM Mark Hounschell did opine:
[...]
So since there seems to be traffic, let me ask if anyone knows the exact syntax to add to the mediaprm file, to replace the 'zero-based' that now breaks setfdprm when encountered in the COCO360 and COCO720 stanza's of /path/to/mediaprm?
setfdprm /dev/fd0 sect=16 dd ds ssize=256 cyl=40 zerobased
works for me.
Except that this format has 18 sectors, but the real magic is the lack of the hyphen in zero-based. I've fixed the mediaprm file now, so check:
[root@coyote etc]# setfdprm /dev/fd0 COCO360 Syntax error in /usr/local/etc/mediaprm at line 792 col 40: zerobase unexpected
But it apparently works from the cli. So how do I fix mediaprm? Humm, maybe I have fixed it, but it seems odd that from the cli, zerobased does not need an =argument, but in the mediaprm file it needs zerobased=1
to get rid of the error that is.
This is fdutils-5.5 built from the tarball. I took a known good disk, a 3.5DD, formatted on the coco to 720k, 2880 256 byte sectors, put it in this drive and tried to read it with dd, couldn't, give input/output error from dd then tried to format it.
I could be mistaken but I think the only formats dd will work on are the formats predefined by the kernel.
That did not used to be the case, I wonder what was changed in floppy.c? I believe that Alan Cox was the last one to walk around in that code. I looked at it myself since I know enough C to be dangerous, but floppy.c is a big bowl of pasta to me. :(
# ls /dev/fd0* /dev/fd0 /dev/fd0u1120 /dev/fd0u1600 /dev/fd0u1722 /dev/fd0u1760 /dev/fd0u1920 /dev/fd0u720 /dev/fd0u820 /dev/fd0u1040 /dev/fd0u1440 /dev/fd0u1680 /dev/fd0u1743 /dev/fd0u1840 /dev/fd0u360 /dev/fd0u800 /dev/fd0u830
I'm sort of doing the same as you, I'm trying to duplicate some old Vista Graphics boot floppies that are on 5.25" dd/ds 360kb media that are formatted like my setfdpfm example below. I need to copy them to 3.5" floppies. I can't dd them either. I'm sure I'll have to write my own software using FDRAWCMD to do the job. I don't even trust fdformat or superformat. Haven't tried superformat to format this format but fdformat certainly does not work. I'm sure I'll have to format them again using the FDRAWCMD API.
Where do I find the docs and code for this FDRAWCMD API? Kernel tree?
Thanks Mark.
Cheers, Gene
-
gene heskett -
Mark Hounschell -
Mark Hounschell -
Simon Owen