8-inch disk drives

From: Nico de Jong <nico_at_farumdata.dk>
Date: Tue Jul 22 18:34:41 2003

From: "Fred Cisin" <cisin_at_xenosoft.com>
To: <cctalk_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2003 6:39 PM
Subject: [Spam][95.7%] Re: 8-inch disk drives


On Tue, 15 Jul 2003, Jo Cooley wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm new to the list and am currently trying to find a solution to
> transfering data/software from 8-inch disks to a pc.
> We have a working minc-II with two floppy drives. The console is gone
> but I currently have an old 386 hooked up to act as a terminal.
> What would be the best way to transfer the info from the old disks to the
> 'newer' pc?
> One suggestion was to get an old 8-inch floppy drive and hook it directly
> to the pc, but it seems to me that would involve possible building a
> hardware interface and writing driver software.
> Any suggestions or pointers to web pages would be very welcome, I've
> already spent a few hours searching the web without finding a solution.

That depends on if you want to tinker yourself or want someone to do it.

I have used a MicroSolutions floppy controller for a project, where I had to be able to read each and every sector (128 bytes up to 1024 bytes) from an 8" disk (SSSD to DSDD).
It was suggested, that you could use PC controllers for 1.2 meg disks for the job, but this is not the case, as they will only recognize 512 byte sectors and only DOS file systems.

You can do a Google search on "media conversion", which gives many hits.

You could also take a look at www.farumdata.dk/enindex.htm if you want to explore the possibilities i can offer in our servicebureau.
Who many disks are we talking about ?

Nico
Received on Tue Jul 22 2003 - 18:34:41 BST