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Wanted: Small motherboard capable of 2GB RAM and 3.5" and 5.25" floppy drives.

Fire-Flare

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Wanted: Small motherboard capable of 2GB RAM and 3.5" and 5.25" floppy drives.

I'm looking for a small-form factor motherboard, preferably ITX or DTX, that can support a minimum of 2GB RAM and both a 3.5" and 5.25" floppy drive.

Willing to spend $50 US.
 
This is being posted in the non vintage area. So I think it's ok.

Now finding an ITX board with even floppy support may be next to impossible. They seem to use modern processors. Best you can hope for is a USB 3.5 and that would be about it.
 
It gets pretty hard to stick all that stuff, including CPU on an ITX motherboard. If a mATX would do, look at, say, the Biostar M68S. Legacy floppy and IDE as well as SATA (I can't recall if it's 1 or 2 floppies, though).
 
Man, I didn't think floppy on an itx board would be difficult. It seems most dropped floppy after P3's. But P3's cant really do 2gb of ram in just 2 slots. (at least not in ITX) I mean its POSSIBLE, but it might be a 1 in 1000 type board.

You're going to need to drop the 2gb or the floppy connector, or goto uATX. 3.5" floppies can be read via USB or LS-120 drive.
 
3.5" floppies can be read via USB or LS-120 drive.

Well, yes and no. You can read standard DOS format floppies, but if they're for a different (e.g. CP/M) system, neither the USB or LS-120 will do the job. Some later USB drives can't even read 720K media. You're definitely not going to be able use the drive with something like ImageDisk.
 
Well, yes and no. You can read standard DOS format floppies, but if they're for a different (e.g. CP/M) system, neither the USB or LS-120 will do the job. Some later USB drives can't even read 720K media. You're definitely not going to be able use the drive with something like ImageDisk.


news to me. I've used an usb 3.5 floppy and its worked perfectly. even with 400k mac disk images via winimage. I have an ls-120 but driver issues have kept me from using it. at least in win-7.
 
You're talking about the old SS 400K Mac GCR? That's really news to me--what are you using for a drive?

Try reading and writing some FM disks on it--or something with 128 or 1024 byte sectors.
 
This is being posted in the non vintage area. So I think it's ok.

It was moved after it was posted.

The better way to handle these is to flag the post and let a moderator deal with it instead of replying to the post. We all make mistakes and all that was needed was a few clicks to fix it.
 
You're talking about the old SS 400K Mac GCR? That's really news to me--what are you using for a drive?

Try reading and writing some FM disks on it--or something with 128 or 1024 byte sectors.
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I think so. I used them to boot a mac 512 before I sold it. Worked fine. I don't have anything else besides IBM machines that use 3.5's so I cant really test anything else out. I know the drive I have works fine with 800k mac floppies and winimage. I made one last week. here is an ebay link in case you want one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/111655349136

You are right, other brands of usb floppies suck, but for some reason that IBM drive is a miracle.
 
I'm familiar with that IBM drive--it uses a Teac FD05U--at least the one that I have. Nothing special there. Never got them to read really strange floppies--and, of course, they won't work with ImageDisk, if that matters.

The floppies that I'm thinking of are the old CLV floppies that sped up or slowed down as the head moved in and out--you could hear it. Utterly incompatible with traditional PC floppies of any stripe. The Central Point DOB was popular for formatting, reading and writing them.

It could be that IBM changed floppy drives at some point, but a USB device listing program (on Linux, it's "lsusb") should tell you what's inside the case. I'd be interested to know.
 
Jetway made a few mini-its atom boards that have floppy connectors. Not sure about 5.25" support though. I use a Jetway NC92-330-LF.
 
I think this is what you were looking for:

Code:
Device Description - TEAC USB Floppy
Device ID - 0644-0000
Device Class - 08 / 04 (Mass Storage)
Device Protocol    - 00
Manufacturer - TEAC
Product - TEAC FD-05PUB
Supported USB Version - 1.00
Current Speed - Full  (USB 1.1)
 
I believe the last Mini-ITX board I purchased that had a floppy controller was a Jetway VIA C7-based board. It was limited to 1 GB RAM, though.
 
I think this is what you were looking for:

Code:
Device Description - TEAC USB Floppy
Device ID - 0644-0000
Device Class - 08 / 04 (Mass Storage)
Device Protocol    - 00
Manufacturer - TEAC
Product - TEAC FD-05PUB
Supported USB Version - 1.00
Current Speed - Full  (USB 1.1)

Yup, got one of those--it will do common MS formats as well as read (not sure about write) PC98 (1.23MB 360RPM) disks. But forget it for doing non-PC stuff. Besides, ImageDisk won't work with iit.
 
I think so. I used them to boot a mac 512 before I sold it. Worked fine. I don't have anything else besides IBM machines that use 3.5's so I cant really test anything else out. I know the drive I have works fine with 800k mac floppies and winimage. I made one last week. here is an ebay link in case you want one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/111655349136

I hate to be Doubting Thomas here but normal PC disk controllers can't handle the 400k/800k format; as noted, the Mac drive physically speeds up and slows down depending on what track it's on so the only sort of controller that can read or write those disks in a single-speed drive is something that can do variable data rates. (Central Point sold a "Deluxe Option Board that could do it back in the day, or you can use a Catweasel controller or similar.) I don't know of a single off-the-shelf USB floppy drive that can handle the format; even the USB floppy drives they sold for Macs starting with the iMac only handle 720/1.44k disks.

Are you *positive* you're using 800k images, not 1.44MB ones? Remember, the only Macs that use the 800k drives are the original toasters (128k->Plus), *early* SEs, and non-upgraded Mac IIs. Any old floppy drive works fine with the 1.44MB Mac images, you just need to "dd" or equivalent..
 
Well, last week i made a DD image of a system 6 boot disk and it worked fine in a friends plus. At least he SAID it worked. I just made the disk for him. Ive been using winimage and everything seems fine.
 
I believe the last Mini-ITX board I purchased that had a floppy controller was a Jetway VIA C7-based board. It was limited to 1 GB RAM, though.

I'm using one of those now, it runs at 1.5GHz and supports dual 5.25 drives.

I hear they made one that runs at 2GHz, but it's still limited to 1GB of memory. :c
 
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