Dumas Walker wrote to Dr. What <=-
When I first had a 386 with a 1.2M 5.25 drive, so long as the 360K disk was formatted properly, my XT with the 360K drive could read it just
fine after the 386 wrote to it.
IIRC, there was a switch I would include on the FORMAT command if formating the 360 disk on the 386. It might have very well sensed it
on its own, but I didn't want to leave it to chance.
My understanding (and I'm really reaching back in the memory here) was that many 360K drives were not in really good alignment. Not a real big deal when reading other 360K disks, but to read a disk written to by a 1.2M drive meant that the 360K drive had to be in proper alignment or there would be issues.
IIRC, there was a switch I would include on the FORMAT command if formating the 360 disk on the 386. It might have very well sensed it
on its own, but I didn't want to leave it to chance.
I don't think it could sense, but that might be my faulty memory.
But I do remember the switch on the FORMAT command.
Hello boraxman!
** On Monday 28.04.25 - 00:12, boraxman wrote to Al:
Not me:
http://kolico.ca/fidonet/echos/win95/#diskettes
--- OpenXP 5.0.64
* Origin: (} Pointy McPointFace (21:4/106.21)
Wow... I've still got a LOT of disks, mostly 1.44M, but some 1.2M and a couple of disk boxes of 360K floppies from when I had an XT. The 1.44M disks are kind of dying, but the 5 1/4 inch disks, mostly holding up well, despite being 30+ years old.
Would be good if you could still buy new disks and drives, just for the thrill of it.
___ MultiMail/Linux v0.52
--- Mystic BBS/QWK v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
On 27 Apr 2025 at 12:14a, Al pondered and said...
I've still got several including an external USB 3.5" drive. Some of them are the 1.2M 5 1/4inch variety. Those are still my favourite disks.
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* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
Re: Re: floppy disks
By: StormTrooper to Nightfox on Mon Apr 28 2025 09:28 am
I've seen some weird things like that. One thing I noticed is that if I burned CDs on the maximum speed, they'd often read okay in my PC, but other CD-ROMs and CD players might have trouble reading it. I found that it was best to burn CDs at the slowest speed available, and that generally helped.
Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.24-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
I've seen some weird things like that. One thing I noticed is that if I
burned CDs on the maximum speed, they'd often read okay in my PC, but other
CD-ROMs and CD players might have trouble reading it. I found that it was
best to burn CDs at the slowest speed available, and that generally helped.
MyDVD PLUS is a program HP had installed on my XP box It has a setting to Finalize CD/DVD's.
Finalizeing makes the disk readable on other computers.
Would your CD's had needed Finalizing?
Ed Vance wrote to boraxman <=-
On 27 Apr 2025 at 12:14a, Al pondered and said...
I've still got several including an external USB 3.5" drive. Some of them are the 1.2M 5 1/4inch variety. Those are still my favourite disks.
--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
Reading that made me wonder if a 5 1/4" external USB drive was ever
made? Ed
I liked seeing Snoopy jumping up on the bottom of that kolico page.
MyDVD PLUS is a program HP had installed on my XP box
It has a setting to Finalize CD/DVD's.
Re: Re: floppy disks
By: Ed Vance to Nightfox on Wed May 14 2025 12:04 pm
I always finalized my CDs when burning them.
Nightfox
--- SBBSecho 3.25-Linux
* Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137)
Never saw one or found one. In doing a search now, I've seen how expensive the 5 1/4 inch drives are today!
___ MultiMail/Linux v0.49
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* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
Hello Ed!
** On Wednesday 14.05.25 - 11:26, Ed Vance wrote to Ogg:
Yeah.. those were happier times when I was experimenting with
such pages as a kind of blog.
--- OpenXP 5.0.64
* Origin: (} Pointy McPointFace (21:4/106.21)
There was a regime of software the let you write in an almost read/write fashion to CDs. It didn't really delete anything just write updated directory info. However in using these they couldn't be finalised during use. Once you'd finished with the thing, or it was "FULL" then you had to finalise it to make it "transportable" like a regular CD-ROM..
ST
--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Storm BBS (21:2/108)
Never saw one or found one. In doing a search now, I've seen how expens the 5 1/4 inch drives are today!
___ MultiMail/Linux v0.49
--- Mystic BBS/QWK v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Agency BBS | Dunedin, New Zealand | agency.bbs.nz (21:1/101)
I have a 486 box with a 5.25"drive in it.
Haven't had it on in years.
I wouldn't thought 5.25" FDD's would be of interest nowadays.
Never thought to look to price them.
Ed
I wouldn't thought 5.25" FDD's would be of interest nowadays.
Never thought to look to price them.
If you write to a 360K disk in a 1.2M drive, it will probably still be read in another 1.2M drive, but probably not another 360K drive.
I think it's OK to write to a 1.2M disk in a 360K drive, though. But I vaguely remember some reliablity issues there. Again, it's been a long time.
The "newest" vintage machine that I have only uses DD/DS 5.35" floppies.
Wait, did you say ejaculate the disk? You call that civilized? :))
Well, the disk was floppy. :)
It could have just been flaccid also...
Apologies, I'll stop now.`
When I first had a 386 with a 1.2M 5.25 drive, so long as the 360K disk was formatted properly, my XT with the 360K drive could read it just
fine after the 386 wrote to it.
IIRC, there was a switch I would include on the FORMAT command if formating the 360 disk on the 386. It might have very well sensed it on its own, but I didn't want to leave it to chance.
I don't think it could sense, but that might be my faulty memory.my memory is horrible since i developed psychosis xD
That is possible. Luckily I didn't run into that issue with my machines.same
But I do remember the switch on the FORMAT command.I honestly don't think it could sense it, either. I don't remember not using the switch. IIRC, I had a BAT file set up just for formatting 360 disks.
Prices seem to be going from $50 to over $150 and perhaps more.
I have a four, but I don't think I'll sell them all, maybe one or two.
^5.25 disks will never die! I think I have approx 50 of them and
another 50 3/5 disks! You can still purchase both on Amazon.
there is a switch for extended formatting in FreeDOS's format.com to extend format drives
for 360k drives u can use /f:400
for normal 360 use /4
there is a switch for extended formatting in FreeDOS's format.com to ext format drives
for 360k drives u can use /f:400
for normal 360 use /4
IIRC, there was a share/freeware format program that you could do that with back c1990. You had to load the TSR on the system in question, and their format program would let you put ~400-425 on a 360 disk.
Also IIRC, my 1.2M drive could read those without the TSR loaded, but other 360 drives could not.
paul wrote to Ed Vance <=-
^5.25 disks will never die! I think I have approx 50 of them and
another 50 3/5 disks! You can still purchase both on Amazon.
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