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Re: OT: Can modern PCs run 5-1/4" floppy drives?

> Nah, it's mutual. I don't like to keep stuff either, there has got to be > a solution. In fact, I'd like to reduce the office footprint here at > some point and keeping the old box goes in the wrong direction. When > googling I found that this is by far not the only mobo that has been > lobotomized down to one floppy drive. Only a matter of time until that > number becomes zero (AFAICT it has on some).

Some of the cheap Dell home PCs are shipped without a floppy drive, and the motherboard didn't have a connector, or the controller chip installed.

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Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I\'ve got my DD214 to
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Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell
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This one does have the connector and the controller chip. Found the chip's datasheet and it does support two drives of nearly all flavors I've ever heard of. For some reason the BIOS only supports a single drive and only one format.

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

Maybe if you dual-booted and ran Linux, it would work. AFAIK, Linux loads its own bios, and completely ignores the ROM.

Cheers! Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise

Did you look on their site for any BIOS updates, and the reasons for them?

Reply to
ChairmanOfTheBored

Methinks the FDC and IDE controller logic is onthe same ASIC that does almost everything else...

Reply to
Robert Baer

No BIOS updates (yet) but it's a new mobo so there may be hope. However, I got side-tracked by a new client who needs help. So, old iron horse here has to keep on chugging for at least one more week. Hopefully it won't seize up on me. Sometimes needs 3-4 power cycles for the PS to come on.

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

It's an IT8718F. Neat chip, actually. It does all the floppy stuff, SPI, lots of other things plus LPT/COM. The latter has, unfortunately, been lobotomized on this mobo :-(

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

Make sure you email them through their support site, expressing your desire for them to implement the chip's features/capabilities properly. Having support for two floppies requires no further hardware as they are both on the same cable, and adding support for the other types of floppy drive is only a matter of a few hundred more bytes of code, and I cannot imagine that they took up the entire flash chip on an other than top of the line MOBO.

Reply to
ChairmanOfTheBored

Which tells me that they have plenty of space on that flash chip for code. It couldn't possibly take that much code to add the other floppy form factors.

Reply to
ChairmanOfTheBored

Good idea although my experience with large companies is that it's like kicking an oak tree. The toes hurt but not a single leaf falls off.

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

I am sure they do but if I am the only one requesting 5-1/4" support they'll just have a good chuckle and toss the request. "Look, one of them Luddites wants the oxen and ploughs back."

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

There was a time in this country where backward compatibility was the rule of the day, not "gimmie your cash... thanks a lot, and oh... BTW f*ck you for actually wanting things to work..." Then, "Have a nice life..."

Reply to
ChairmanOfTheBored

However, it's a relief to see that HP brought back the HP35S and the HP12C. Ok, the 35S is rather gussied up now but still, someone figured out that fumbling around on a PDA screen with a stylus or firing up Excel everytime you want to calculate a simple filter ain't cutting it.

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

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