Do you still have a 5 1/4 floppy drive?

It would be interesting to me to learn if a modern computer could read files that old.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
It would be interesting to me to learn if a modern computer could read files that old.
Click to expand...

Windows will I imagine be able to read a DOS formatted FDD. Used FAT file system, now known as FAT16.

Mark 1 Macintosh ... Ha ha ha ha ha.

As I recall, Woz rolled his own disk controller using almost no hardware (a disk controller chip was not a cheap item) and invented his own format. The file system was also unique but I have no clue whose idea that was.

Now, if the files are in some proprietary format you will need a suitable app to read them but something like a text file will be fine.

I thought I best get some confirmation -
https://www.thewindowsclub.com/use-floppy-disk-windows-10

You can buy a USB drive, but it looks like they cost about the same a several DVD drives, economy of scale.
 
Last edited:
Absolutely! 2 of the 5 1/4 inch drives for my Apple IIe which is running as I type this and has been since I bought it in 1982. I programmed the machine to look at light and temperature sensors, driveway sensors, control the lawn sprinklers and various in-house lights (using X-10 switches) as well as announcing things over the house's intercom system using a Radio Shack speech synthesizer chip. The machine has an Epson dot matrix printer and the typical green monitor. I "UPGRADED" the memory from 64 k to 128 k about 35 years ago. Added an external power supply because the internal Apple switching supply failed as did its replacement within a couple of years. I don't think the machine was designed to operate 7 X 24 X 365 as mine does!!
 
I don't know, will an Apple machine read PC FAT formatted disks?

I looked on Ebay, and apparently old 5 1/4 inch drives are still for sale, ranging from about $40 to $120 a unit. I also see that there is a device out there that will adapt the drives to a USB port.
 
I do. I have owned every microsoft computer starting with 8086...I just sit the old units in my closet. I would have to see if it still boots up. It has a tape drive also.:)
 
I do, but it’s a TRS
 
Starting to feel a bit old here as I remember working with a system that used the old 8" IBM floppy disk ...

Dale
 
Fiveslide said:
I believe there is some more modern software available now. :D

Is it out of boredom you're trying to decades old software going?
Click to expand...

My son teaches animation at Seattle's Nova school. I believe his first digital animations are on this disk. If so, I'd like to give them to him after, wht, 35 years...........
 
Doug Reid said:
I do. I have owned every microsoft computer starting with 8086...I just sit the old units in my closet. I would have to see if it still boots up. It has a tape drive also.:)
Click to expand...
I don't think that Microsoft made computers back then. I guess you mean every PC that used a MS OS. So have I. I just recently cleaned house.
BTW, an 8086 would have been a rare bird; I had an Amstrad with that chip. The IBM PC and clones used the 8088, with a narrower data path.
 
Re- 64k RAM upgrade
Let'sgoflying! said:
that is hilarious!
How many kb is this thread so far?
Click to expand...

My first upgrade was 16k to 32k RAM. 8, 1 bit RAM chips.

Along with a disk controller chip and some other stuff it was a third the price of the original machine. This was followed by an FDD, I can't recall how much that was but it was quite a bit.
 
Doug Reid said:
I do. I have owned every microsoft computer starting with 8086...I just sit the old units in my closet. I would have to see if it still boots up. It has a tape drive also.:)
Click to expand...

I still have every computer I've ever owned. Plenty of working 486s with 5 1/4" drives and yes, tape drives!
 
I miss my C-64...


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
I had a Vic20 with a cassette tape drive running a slow scan tv program on my amateur radio transceiver back in the early 1980's...then upgraded to a Commodore computer that had a small color screen and floppy drive built in..I do not recall the exact model, but it was cool at the time...then 8088, 8086, 286 and so on..I just realized I was a nerd !
 
Arrow76R said:
For those who remember "yester-year", do you recall the trick of using an Exacto knife to cut a notch in the opposite corner of the 5 1/4 disk so you can use BOTH sides??? :)
Click to expand...
Rich kids had a punch like a paper punch to make that notch.
My first computer was a RS Model 3 double disc drive. with tractor feed dot matrix printer it was @$5000. I leased it , then bought out the lease. Friends was a Model 3 tape drive. The we each bought 300 baud modems / Internest service was 800 # in San Jose Ca, Good memories.Lousy expensive programing . Shareware "Twin" got me into Spread sheet design for farm use . Cool stuff . The Twin was $20.00 compaired to $150 for Lotus 123.
 
Doug Reid said:
I do. I have owned every microsoft computer starting with 8086...I just sit the old units in my closet. I would have to see if it still boots up. It has a tape drive also.:)
Click to expand...

Respect!

Funny, I also have a 8086 connected to a tape drive. Except the 8086 is a 8086K and the Tape Drive is a LTO-8 tape drive. But I just love the symbolism of the setup!
 
Southpaw said:
Rich kids had a punch like a paper punch to make that notch.
Click to expand...

Middle of the road kids figured out the round punch the family already had for three ring binders worked fine, if you were careful. Just nibble a tad bigger until it worked... :)
 
Doug Reid said:
I had a Vic20 with a cassette tape drive running a slow scan tv program on my amateur radio transceiver back in the early 1980's...then upgraded to a Commodore computer that had a small color screen and floppy drive built in..I do not recall the exact model, but it was cool at the time...then 8088, 8086, 286 and so on..I just realized I was a nerd !
Click to expand...
Amiga-1000 is probably what you upgraded to.

17 year old kid....Saved up my summer job money and bought my first computer in 1983 (a year after it was introduced).
The mighty Commodore-64! ...with tape drive :D...(bought a 5 1/4 floppy drive and dot matrix printer a little later).

Man I loved that thing!
Bought my first, of several, flight simulators for it (which was my main reason for buying it). Solo Flight, SubLogic FS, Falcon, etc.

Then I learned a little BASIC programming language and wrote a few 'basic' programs, but that's it.

Built a speech synthesizer kit to plug into it as well (I used to build a lot of electronics kits back then. Radios, etc). A few years later, I upgraded to an Amiga-500. That was my last Commodore before moving over to the IBM platform, starting with the 8088, then 80286, 386, 486, Pentium...all the way to my current build i7-7700k, which I built exclusively for my various flightsims..X-plane 11, DCS World and AF2, which are amazing in VR!

Commodore was what got me into computers and flight simulators, but they couldn't keep up. All of the increasingly advanced flightsims were being programmed for MS operating systems, so I had no choice but to get onboard. Very few were being released for Macs, so they never interested me. X-plane is probably the only one that's actually written on a mac.

Nerd or geek... one kid I grew up with (my brother's friend) used to call me the 'mad scientist' LOL:D
 
Last edited:
Never had an Amiga. I upgraded from C-64 to the C-128. Anyone remember that? Probably spent 97% of its life in C64 mode. I think I only had a couple programs that were “128” native.
It did have a built in Sprite editor!

When I sold it off to get my first IBM clone, I had 2 printers, 5.25 drive, 3.5 drive, 8billion programs (some of them even legitimately purchased).

Fond memories of playing Spy vs Spy with my dad.

I’ve heard you can get C64 emulators for windows now. I’m hesitant about sketchy places though.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
flhrci said:
Wow, no love for the Atari 600XL and 800XL I had. :(
Click to expand...

Dude, my first computer was an 800XL! I had an external floppy and a tape drive.

After a year or so, I did the "RAM Cram" mod on it and in creased the memory to ans INSANE 256K!

I wrote some programs and games on it and used it to bootleg copy some of the early video games...

My favorite app was "Parrot." It was a sound recording program that plugged a microphone directly into an RS232 serial port and digitized the audio with that 8-bit sound!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top