[TVARC] 3.5 inch floppy drive

[Cal Fuhrman]

Larry,

Ha!  Proof that some very experienced folks are members of TVARC.  A lot of
that equipment is known to me.  My path was a bit different beginning in
the '60s as a field engineer supporting vacuum- tube mainframes.  Sort of
explains my focus on Collins equipment.

That's what I love about amateur radio, the tremendous variety of
activities and specialties that a person can get involved with.  Whether
you like moonbounce, mountain-topping or working on boat anchors, it is all
enjoyable and there is room for every interest in this hobby.

73
Cal - WA3CTZ


On Thu, Jan 16, 2025, 1:03 AM Larry Sheridan <larry10782 at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Hi Cal:
>
> I didn't do much of anything with CPM so wouldn't have any of that OS.
> Furthest back I did was 1978 using PL/I on
> U of Mich mainframe via dialup on a LA36 DecWriter at 300 baud, thought we
> were really living it up when 1200 came
> along.  Storage in Ann Arbor was on 9-track 10" tapes at 1,650
> bits-per-inch, then moved up to 6,250 BPI later.  Had a
> tape copy of all my PL/I stuff for many years, that finally got discarded
> in one of our moves.
>
> I can set you up with a clean full install of MS-DOS 5.0 off the original
> 360K 5-1/4" installation floppys if that helps (!).
> Might still have IBM DOS 3.3 and pretty sure I have a copy of latest last
> updated MS-DOS 6.22 on a 3.5".
>
> Tried Red Hat LINUX awhile back, got it up & running but was stymied when
> I couldn't find a driver for the internal
> modem to get the final packages & updates.  Looking at maybe trying LINUX
> again on a clean 17" HP laptop that
> runs Win10 great but is 1 generation too old to take Win 11 update, need
> recommendation on best package to use.
>
> I have some other 1/4" streaming backup tape drives & tapes, that
> piggyback on the floppy controller, but would have
> to search for the drivers to get them up & running.  Same with the 100 &
> 250 ZIP drives & cartridges although I may
> have one of the 250 Zips with USB cable.
>
> Got rid of a lot of stuff 4 years ago leaving WY and still brought too
> much, HI.
>
> Larry Sheridan  K8XR
> 307-630-5697
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 15, 2025 at 11:02 PM Cal Fuhrman <calfuhrman7 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Wow, Larry!  You need to open a museum.  Do you have any copies of CPM OS
>> buried among all those other goodies?
>>
>> 😃
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 15, 2025 at 10:09 PM Larry Sheridan <larry10782 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Hi Tim:
>>>
>>> Pretty sure that I've got a 3.5" floppy, dual-drive data cable and
>>> dual-drive power cable here for you, you didn't specify
>>> 720K or 1.44M but may have both in a box.
>>>
>>> IIRC, also have a couple 5-1/4" floppy drives in 360K & 1.2M sizes with
>>> cables, too.
>>>
>>> I do have a tower PC available with all 4 floppy drive sizes in it, that
>>> can run any 2 floppys at a time, specifically for
>>> reading old floppy disks to a hard drive for data recovery if anyone has
>>> a need for that, an oldie but a goodie keeper.
>>>
>>> I'd have to look but might also still have a copy of the program COCO2PC
>>> which will read floppy disks from the
>>> Radio Shack CoCo Color Computer disk format to the standard PC floppy
>>> format.
>>>
>>> Larry Sheridan  K8XR
>>> 307-630-5697
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jan 15, 2025 at 8:52 PM Tim Leonard <tfleonard at pacbell.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Does anyone have a 3.5 inch floppy drive they would like to get rid
>>>> of?  I am looking for the PC/AT version to use with an old Intel Pentium
>>>> motherboard.
>>>> I also need the floppy disk ribbon cable.
>>>>
>>>> Tim
>>>> AA6DQ
>>>> .
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Cal Fuhrman
>>
>
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