> -----Original Message-----
> From: Maciej W. Rozycki via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
> Sent: 25 September 2024 12:51
> To: Steve Lewis via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
> Cc: Steve Lewis <lewiss...@gmail.com>; Maciej W. Rozycki
> <ma...@orcam.me.uk>
> Subject: [cctalk] Re: request for 5.25 floppies
>
> On Tue, 24 Sep 2024, Steve Lewis via cctalk wrote:
>
> > For shipping/delivery purposes, I'm in north Texas. When I got these
> > drives, I then realized I no longer have any 5.25 floppies anymore -
> > and even if I did, then I'm not quite sure how to get the images on
> > there (did anyone ever make a "USB-to-5.25" drive? I have a couple 3.5
> > versions of those - maybe the power to motor the 5.25 is too much for
USB? :D
> ).
There are several USB to floppy tools that interface to floppies at a low
level and which can be used to read/write images. This is one:-
https://github.com/keirf/greaseweazle/wiki
Dave
G4UGM
>
> From the software's point of view the drives are the same (with different
limits
> of course), e.g. once I successfully formatted 3.5" HD medium for
> 80 tracks of 15 sectors double-sided and imaged a 1.2MB 5.25" disk onto it
for
> use with IIRC DOS 3.2 that didn't support 3.5" drives and it booted from
that
> disk and worked just fine treating the 3.5" HD drive as a 5.25"
> HD drive.
>
> However whatever the circuitry the USB-to-FDD adapter has, it has to
provide a
> way to set track and sector count with the drive behind, but I guess it
has to
> anyway to support 720kB (and maybe 2.88MB) 3.5" medium if nothing else.
>
> As someone else pointed out power can be supplied externally and data can
be
> wired using an original flat ribbon cable, by using corresponding .1"
> pitch PCB pin header and PCB edge IDC connectors originally intended for
the
> drive at the same address (or an equivalent purpose-made cable).
>
> NB this is based on my past experience with original floppy disk drives
and not
> any USB-to-FDD adapters, in a hope that it will help. Good luck!
>
> Maciej
Dave
