[Ql-Users] USB Floppy Drives, emulators and so on
A while back there was talk of the ability to use a USB floppy with QPC etc. As I have recently had to purchase a USB Floppy from Amazon (£10 delivered!) I decided to test it out and see what's what. Linux: On Linux, the drive plugs in and just works. It cannot read QL Floppies without a QL5A/QL5B filesystem (yet). QPC cannot see the device as flp1_. QPAC2's files menu also seems no medium when I attempt to look at the files and SBasic retunes a dir of win1_ (PROG_USE and DATA_USE set to win1) if I attempt to dir flp1_. Windows XP: When I absolutely have to, I run XP in a VirtualBox emulator VM. As expected, the USB floppy turns up as drive A: and can be read from DOS, Windows Explorer. QPC happily sees the device and can read from it. QPAC2's files menu can also see it and read it happily. Windows 7: To be tested. On a similar note, I have downloaded Jonathan Hudson's qltools, qxltools and wxqt2 from The Dead Letter Drop and attempted to compile them on OpenSuse 11.4 running GCC version gcc (SUSE Linux) 4.5.1 20101208 [gcc-4_5-branch revision 167585]. qltools: needed a few changes to make it work. I can happily read from a floppy image or from the device itself (/dev/usb_floppy), I can write to and format new floppy images - I have not tried writing to my (precious) floppies yet. Formatting a floppy directly doesn't work, but formatting a floppy image does. However, it formats short in as much as if I ask it to format me an HD floppy image, I get a very short file and not 2880 sectors. More experimenting to be done, but as far as images go, reading is fine, writing is fine, formatting is fine (see above) as is getting directory listings and info etc. Physical devices allow directory listings, reading of files, writing is still to be tried and formatting (of a brand new unformatted disc) fails. qxltools: multiple compilation failures. Still working on this one. wxqt2: Even worse that qxltools. :-( I'm not sure what the score is with Jonathan's source code. I'm thinking that maybe it could be put up on SourceForge as a project? At least then there's a safe central place for future enhancements? I'll update that as I experiment. Cheers, Norm. -- Norman Dunbar Dunbar IT Consultants Ltd Registered address: Thorpe House 61 Richardshaw Lane Pudsey West Yorkshire United Kingdom LS28 7EL Company Number: 05132767 ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] USB Floppy Drives, emulators and so on
On 1 Sep 2011, at 13:55, Norman Dunbar wrote: When I absolutely have to, I run XP in a VirtualBox emulator VM. As expected, the USB floppy turns up as drive A: and can be read from DOS, Windows Explorer. I use XP via VMware on a MAC. The floppies are accessed as drive B ie FLP2. George ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] USB Floppy Drives, emulators and so on
More information, Windows XP: Ok, formatting a blank disc fails in Windows Explorer because there are no options in any of the drop down lists for capacity, volume name etc. The OK button works (as does Cancel) warns me that formatting will destroy all data on the disc, then OK just ignores me and does nothing. Format a: /FS:FAT in a dos box works perfectly. Once DOS formated, QPC can read it as a DOS formatted floppy. So far so good. In SBasic, the format flp1_TEST command works. (At least, using a 720 KB disc it does.) However, it formats to 1.44 Mb rather than 720 KB and it's noisy. There are no HD holes in the floppy - so maybe the drive is lying to QPC/Windows? A completely blank unformatted disc also formats under QPC - but this time correctly to 720 Kb. This time the format is as quiet as I remember QL formats to be. :-) Reformatting the first one again using SBasic or QPAC2 results in a noise 1.44MB Format. Windows 7 still to come. ;-) Cheers, Norm. -- Norman Dunbar Dunbar IT Consultants Ltd Registered address: Thorpe House 61 Richardshaw Lane Pudsey West Yorkshire United Kingdom LS28 7EL Company Number: 05132767 ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
Re: [Ql-Users] USB Floppy Drives, emulators and so on
Norman Dunbar wrote: In SBasic, the format flp1_TEST command works. (At least, using a 720 KB disc it does.) However, it formats to 1.44 Mb rather than 720 KB and it's noisy. There are no HD holes in the floppy - so maybe the drive is lying to QPC/Windows? Could you try FORMAT 'FLP1_TEST*D' perhaps to try to force it to (re)format it as DD? Some drives sometimes seem to have no sensors, annoyingly. Or at least none that seem to work. In the past I've covered holes with sellotape to force one format or another and had mixed success. I never know if floppy drives are going to sense them optically or mechanically. Windows 7 still to come. ;-) I'll have to dig my USB floppy drive out to try with this new PC (Win 7 64 bit) because it has no floppy drive. (Oh dear, Norman just fainted thinking of me let loose connecting a new device to a new PC...) I still get asked for QL stuff on floppy disks from time to time, so within the QL community I don't foresee being able to manage without floppy disks and floppy drives for a while at least. Dilwyn Jones ___ QL-Users Mailing List http://www.q-v-d.demon.co.uk/smsqe.htm
