USB floopies are not general purpose devices. They have a fixed number of formats that work, and the rest do not.
Warner On Sun, Feb 26, 2023 at 2:44 PM Wayne S via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > Your troubles with USB floppy drives reinforces my own experiences. They > seem to work okay in windows using a Microsoft written utility but not too > well in dos or user written programs. It’s hit or miss as to if the program > will see the usb floppy. However, using a builtin floppy always seems to > work. > > Sent from my iPhone > > > On Feb 26, 2023, at 12:17, Chris Zach via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> > wrote: > > > > Hi Henry! > > > >> You wanted a SETUP disk for a Deskpro/XE system, right? Like SP1363 > >> as listed here https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=76542 > >> <https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=76542> ? I was able to do > >> this in Dosbox-X no problem: mount the local directory with > >> sp1363.exe as C: or whatever, attach a disk image to A:, and then > >> let sp1363.exe create the disk image on A: . You can then write the > >> raw disk image to a 1.44" floppy. > > > > Interesting. I was using DOSBOX, not DOSBOX-X. I tried downloading it, > set the A: drive to be the USB a: drive, and it doesn't work. This time it > bombs out with QRST transfer incomplete. > > > > So I restarted, copied one of the diagnostic floppy images I did have to > a filename of xe.img, mounted it in dosbox-x with the imgmount a (filename) > command, then ran QRST and it seems to have worked. > > > > So if you try to use a USB floppy it can't see it, but if you use an > image file it can. I wonder if Dosbox sees the external floppy as a SCSI > device, but when you do an imgmount it knows to use the real, crappy DMA > based routines to access the image file. > > > > Off to copy the image file to the pi, then to the USB floppy, then maybe > to get the XE running. Fascinating, and thank yoU! > > > > CZ >
