🚀 go-pugleaf

kevinl@fangorn.cs.monash.edu.au (Kevin Lentin) writes:

>Michael Page (map@hal.maths.monash.edu.au) wrote:
>> I'd like to try and get hold of a cheap 3.5" floppy drive for an
>> old XT computer (to fit in a standard 5.25" slot).  Doesn't have 
>> to be at all fancy, but I'd like to know it works as I'll be carrying
>> it across to Perth before I can try it out.

>Your problem won't be the 3.5" floppy drive itself, it will be making an XT
>recognise it. I have no idea how you'd do that.

There was an IO card which made 3.5" floppies work on XTs. It effectively
installed a new BIOS. We had a couple of old XTs here which had them.
Check with Jason Singleton or Gary Evans. They may not be trashed yet.

--
Jim Breen          [$@%8%`!&%V%j!<%s(J@$@%b%J%7%eBg3X(J]
Department of Digital Systems.                  Monash University, 
Clayton VIC 3168 Australia (p) +61 3 9905 3298 (f) +61 3 9905 3574  
j.breen@dgs.monash.edu.au   [http://www.dgs.monash.edu.au/~jwb/]

Michael Page (map@hal.maths.monash.edu.au) wrote:
> I'd like to try and get hold of a cheap 3.5" floppy drive for an
> old XT computer (to fit in a standard 5.25" slot).  Doesn't have 
> to be at all fancy, but I'd like to know it works as I'll be carrying
> it across to Perth before I can try it out.
> 
> Can anyone suggest a good place to get hold of such a dinosaur?
> 
> I had thought of trying one of the swap meets, but it's hard to
> be sure the thing actually works when buying there.  (I'm willing
> to pay a little more to be a little confident it's not a dud.)

Your problem won't be the 3.5" floppy drive itself, it will be making an XT
recognise it. I have no idea how you'd do that.

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[     Kevin Lentin               Email: K.Lentin@cs.monash.edu.au      ]
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map@hal.maths.monash.edu.au (Michael Page) writes:
>I'd like to try and get hold of a cheap 3.5" floppy drive for an
>old XT computer (to fit in a standard 5.25" slot).  Doesn't have 
>to be at all fancy, but I'd like to know it works as I'll be carrying
>it across to Perth before I can try it out.

You can use a standard 3.5" drive with a cheap mounting bracket. As other
posters have pointed out, your problem will be getting the XT to recognise
it. 

Is your XT a genuine IBM XT or a clone? If it's the former, I think you 
may be out of luck. If the latter - some of the later models could use at 
least 720K 3.5" floppies.

There were adapter cards which would let you use 3.5" floppies, but I
can't remember if they would let you use 1.44M ones. I seem to recall that
slow XTs (4.77Mhz) were physically incapable of reading 1.44M disks
because the data speed was too high. 

Finally, there is no good reason for using an XT nowadays, let alone 
carrying it interstate. The luggage costs alone are likely to be more 
than the thing is worth. 

jds
--
joe@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au           | `You SHOULD have said "It's extremely
T: +61-3-95258728 F: +61-3-95620756 |    kind of you to tell me all this" -
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joe@melb.dialix.oz.au               | (The Red Queen)

Michael Page wrote:
> 
> I'd like to try and get hold of a cheap 3.5" floppy drive for an
> old XT computer (to fit in a standard 5.25" slot).  Doesn't have
> to be at all fancy, but I'd like to know it works as I'll be carrying
> it across to Perth before I can try it out.
> 
> Can anyone suggest a good place to get hold of such a dinosaur?

I put a 3.5" fdd into a 4.77MHz XT. I still have the fdd if you are 
interested. (The XT has since been upgraded like grandpa's axe). 

However, as others have implied, there might be gotchas. First one is that 
my drive is a 720kb fdd, and secondly you have to add some stuff into 
config and/or autoexec to get it to work as a 720 drive. Try 'help 
drivparm' for more info. I could not get a 1.44mb drive to work, but cant 
remember whether it never worked, or only worked as a 720.

hth

phone me on 9890 5466 for more/less info.

-- 
Jim Maunder     Melbourne PC User Group
Melbourne, Victoria,          Australia

Jim Maunder (jimm@melbpc.org.au) wrote:
: Michael Page wrote:
: > 
: > I'd like to try and get hold of a cheap 3.5" floppy drive for an
: > old XT computer (to fit in a standard 5.25" slot).  Doesn't have
: > to be at all fancy, but I'd like to know it works as I'll be carrying
: > it across to Perth before I can try it out.
: > 
: > Can anyone suggest a good place to get hold of such a dinosaur?
[snip]
: However, as others have implied, there might be gotchas. First one is that 
: my drive is a 720kb fdd, and secondly you have to add some stuff into 
: config and/or autoexec to get it to work as a 720 drive. Try 'help 
: drivparm' for more info. I could not get a 1.44mb drive to work, but cant 
: remember whether it never worked, or only worked as a 720.

I remember having to do some weird driveparm stuff when I installed 
a 1.44Mb into my 8mhz Xt clone about four years back.. If I remember
correctly, it would read and write disks fine, but to format stuff you
had to explicitly specify number of sectors/tracks otherwise it wouldn't
format properly.. H/w was straight forward though.. altough I do
remember something about not actually telling the Xt the drive was there
through bios but somehow it still worked in dos... *shrugs*

Anyway, as someone hinted, it'd be a fairly pointless exercise nowadays..
esp if you'd be carrying it across to Perth.. 

Shawn


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