Deprecating / Removing floppy drive support

[Cy Schubert]

I have one of those, used to boot an IBM 3274 controller.

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Sent using a tiny phone keyboard.
Apologies for any typos and autocorrect.
This old phone only supports top post. Apologies.

Cy Schubert
<Cy.Schubert at cschubert.com> or <cy at freebsd.org>
The need of the many outweighs the greed of the few.
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-----Original Message-----
From: Willem Jan Withagen
Sent: 04/12/2017 03:34
To: Alex Kozlov
Cc: arch at freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Deprecating / Removing floppy drive support

On 4-12-2017 11:38, Alex Kozlov wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 04, 2017 at 10:26:17AM +0100, Willem Jan Withagen wrote:
>> On 03/12/2017 13:18, Alex Kozlov wrote:
>>> On Sun, Dec 03, 2017 at 11:56:27AM +0000, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:
>>>> In message <20171203113341.GA68792 at ravenloft.kiev.ua>, Alex Kozlov writes:
>>>>>> On Sun, 03 Dec 2017 10:27:57 +0000
>>>>>> "Poul-Henning Kamp" <phk at phk.freebsd.dk> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Incidentally FreeBSD is/was the only modern OS which could
>>>>>>> still read 8" floppies.
>>>>> Well, with proper* cable you can connect 8" drive to fdc and read
>>>>> it pretty much on any OS that supports floppies.
>>>> Uhm... no ?
>>>>
>>>> Very few OS's have had 8" format compatible settings since CP/M
>>>> and even fewer handle the track46 pin correctly on write.
>>> I'd done it in dos, I read about successful setups for Linux and
>>> Windows(older). Anecdotally, I was not able to do it in FreeBSD.
>> Never too late to learn....
>>
>> I still think I have my (from 1982) 8" disks around with a ported CP/M 
>> system to a TRS-80 like system... But ever since the Intel ASM/CPM 
>> developement stack died on the University they have been lying round for
>> nostalgic reasons. And the hardware got dumped with the last move about
>> 12 years ago.
>>
>> But it never ever occured to me that FreeBSD would be able to do 8", if
>> alone for the controller. But now I learn that it could have worked...
>> Cool :)
> Theoretically, it should work. In practice, as bde@ suggested, you may need
> to use UP i386 kernel and perhaps downgrade to earlier version of FreeBSD.
> Also you need to somehow acquire 34-to-50 cable or adaptor*. I made mine,
> so perhaps that why I failed :)
> You don't need to worry about tg43 signal if you don't plan to write on these
> floppies.
> 
> In the end, after burning weekend on this little project, I realized that I
> risk to burn much more time, so I just ordered kryoflux.
> 
> *) something like this http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img54306/h/c8ssc.jpg

Like I said. I'm keeping mine for nostalgic reason....
Don't have the drive any longer.

Dare I say that I even have hard sectored 8" disks, when the start of
block is actually indicated by a series of punched holes 8-)

--WjW
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