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Three and a Half inch Floppy

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woodchip

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Posted February 21, 2013 at 7:17PM

Just got me thinking, How many still have one of the above? and do you still use it?

Another one for you, Programmers seem to have lost the ability to create small fast programs. It must be that they have become lazy because most have big fast cpu's and hard drives

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Diemmess

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Posted February 23, 2013 at 9:35AM

  • Still have a pack of floppys which would (starting with a formatted HD) install the required MSDOS and then Windows 3.0, you couldn't load Windows unless MSDOS was already installed

In those heady days I had Word v 2 which developed a duff floppy. Complained to Microsoft and faxed a copy of the first disk cover as requested. They not only sent me a fresh set of Word but apologised for being out of stock and sent version 6.

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Chronos the 2nd

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Posted February 23, 2013 at 9:41AM

Not only do I not have on of these floppy things,I very rarely install a CD/DVD optical drive in builds these days. Apart from installing Windows i cannot remember the last time I used one or even needed one.If I do need one then I can either just plug a spare one in using one of these. Ebay. But do have a slimline optical drive which it is possible to buy a caddy for I have recently discovered so even the adapter method will be redundant.

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Ex plorer

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Posted February 23, 2013 at 3:26PM

I have a double external 5 1/4 floppy drive that just plugs into the mains I suppose it was used for copying I cant remember now it may have a connection back to a PC it did belong to one of the university's, Cambridge, or Oxford.

A 3 1/2 external for a 486.

Hacked cables to connect two floppy,s to one PCI slot 5 1/4 to 5 1/4.

Several 3 1/2 floppy,s win 95, all complete, some came from library's.

A brand new 386 computer still in its cardboard box with all its 5 1/4 disks trouble is it blows fuses forgot all about it till now had it several years eBay £15.

Lug-abel laptops. Working last time I looked 5 or 6 years ago.

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wiz-king

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Posted February 23, 2013 at 4:05PM

From my first 'bought' computer I have 44 floppies that contain the backup of the Warp 10 OS and Lotus office suite.

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WhiteTruckMan

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Posted February 23, 2013 at 11:59PM

I'm curious about the device Chronos has mentioned. How can you run an ide device off a usb connection? usb only delivers about 5v, yet I thought a large ide device required a 12v supply, or am I missing something?

WTM

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Forum Editor

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Posted February 24, 2013 at 12:25AM

WhiteTruckMan

These converter kits usually come with their own power supply adaptor.

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Chronos the 2nd

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Posted February 24, 2013 at 6:41AM

WTM

The link actually shows the power brick, but I do have another device which comes with dual USB connections which,I assume,gives it the power it needs.

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WhiteTruckMan

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Posted February 24, 2013 at 8:28AM

Ah yes, I can see the power block if I look closely. It doesnt help that I cannot enlarge the pic.

It deos seem to make it seem less convenient and more unwieldy though (in my eyes, at least)

WTM

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Chronos the 2nd

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Posted February 24, 2013 at 8:55AM

Not sure what you mean by less convenient and unwieldy. As I said apart from when I install Windows I have very little use for an optical drive and as I build more M-ATX/ITX PC's but also decent gaming setups I can use the optical drive slot for a more useful fan controller.

But I take your point, if I was using an optical drive regularly then using my method would be a pain. I am only doing it this way because I had the components and rather than buy a dedicated USB optical drive which I would not use then using the adapter made sense. but I have since come into possession of a slim line optical drive and as I type a caddy is winging its way towards me.

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caccy

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Posted February 24, 2013 at 2:09PM

I still use mine very occasionally. But I don’t use my 300baud cassette tape programmes anymore, used them on my first home build computer (UK101)! Or my Spectum Waffa drive with fast cassettes. Must get the Specie working one day though!

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