[iyonix-support] Re: Five-and-a-quarter floppies

 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: iyonix-support-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:iyonix-support-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of 
> Richard Mellish
> Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2008 1:38 PM
> To: iyonix-support@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [iyonix-support] Five-and-a-quarter floppies
> 
> David recently asked
> > Talking of 51/4" Floppies.....is there a drive out there 
> going begging?
> 
> There must be many drives stored in attics, as mine is, but I 
> don't know what would be needed to get one working with an Iyonix.
> 
> Even when I upgraded from my BBC B+ to an A5000, that already 
> needed a special interface (which I think came from Beebug) 
> to buffer the signals so it would talk to the old disc drive. 
> And operation wasn't 100% reliable even with the interface, 
> though it did allow me to transfer all the files that I 
> thought I wanted.
> 
> By the time I got my Iyonix, I had had no occasion to read 
> any old floppies for some years, and I removed the interface 
> from the A5000 to make room for an ethernet podule to allow 
> another set of file transfers.
> 
> As the Iyonix has the hardware and software to talk to its 
> built-in 3½ inch drive, it MIGHT be able to talk to a 5¼ inch 
> drive, possibly with the aid of the Beebug interface. Does 
> anyone know?
> 
> There's also the matter of disc formats. Many of my old 
> floppies used the original DFS, and some of them used a 
> Solidisk filing system that allowed multiple directories but 
> with a different structure from ADFS. 
> I think I had a utility on the A5000 that could cope with 
> DFS. Might that run on an Iyonix with the help of Aemulor?
> 
> Richard
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DFSreader works OK on an Iyonix - I use it to read/write 3.5" floppies
pre-formatted using a dual 3.5/5.25" drive on a beeb.

Not sure what would be involved with getting an old 5.25" drive to work
direct though. 

-Neil F.

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