I'm working with an EVOC brand SBC on a PICMG 1.0 backplane. I have not been able to get floppy disk support in Freedos 1.3, period.
I know USB 1.1 isn't part of the DOS specification that freedos is targeting, but a USB floppy driver is needed since that is what this particular SBC offers. I'm wondering if freedos could be reasonably modified to support a USB floppy drive as A drive? Another thought, if building a USB device with a 34 pin floppy output for legacy 1.44 m floppy drives... Why not emulate a floppy drive if desired as well? I'm thinking a CF to usb adapter with a 34 pin floppy connector. Another option, MicroSD card like the ones used on the Raspberry Pi. DOS if I'm not mistaken expects the floppy support to be in the BIOS. It also expects IRQ 6, DMA 2, I/O address something... The advantage of floppies is they are easily destroyed. Try destroying a USB flash key, they are more resilient than floppies and much higher capacity, but they are NOT easily destroyed. What I'm asking is with Linux and Microsoft moving away from floppies, should Freedos support emulated floppies? If say you are connecting via USB 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, or 3.1 that is different than what traditional DOS expects. Modern PCs lack the traditional floppy controller. Can freedos be tweaked to work around the no floppy controller issue in a compatible fashion? I'm thinking ATAPI devices such as Zip drives can be a floppy replacement, but can they be pointed to as the A: drive? I have a Zip 750 Atapi drive coming tomorrow and 3 sealed 750 meg zip disks. Atapi zip drives work in Windows XP and Windows 9x, but they don't work in MS-DOS and they don't work in Freedos unless I'm mistaken. I may be stuck with MS-DOS 6.2 for the real time system that the Tyco QSP-2 uses. I bet Freedos could be in place of MS-DOS if you only use HIMEMX. Haven't had a chance to test the real time system on freedos because I don't have floppy support unless the SBC in question that I'm testing with has a real floppy controller and a real 1.44M floppy drive in working condition is available. I'm not an EE, but I know someone who is and I would like to contribute an open hardware and driver specification for a floppy replacement that is compatible with MSDOS, Freedos, Linux, Windows... Magnetic media is easily disposed of, but it less than reliable in many cases and the capacities tend to be low. Something modern that is higher capacity and that can replace what came before is needed. Something that is easily destroyed like floppies but readily available and higher capacity. CD-R media is great, but it isn't as rewriteable as floppies. I'll be testing my Zip750 disks to see how destructible and how reliable they are and I'll be looking to see if I can replace A: with them. As far as using a USB floppy drive, I think I broke mine. Even so, I don't think freedos is able to use USB devices let alone floppy replacements.
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