Re: tlug: Reading NEC floppies?

[Matt Gushee <matt@example.com>]

Darren Cook writes:

 > I'd have thought you need a 3-mode floppy drive - if everything could be
 > done in software there would be no reason for such a thing to exist would
 > there?

Well, my wise-acre answer is: there are things that can't be done with
software; things that can be done with software, but only if you use
Linux (like my new hard disk that wasn't supposed to work); and things
that can be done with software, but the hardware makers don't want you
to know it.

More seriously, I have no reason to doubt what you're saying. But
I'm curious: what are the 3 modes of a 3-mode floppy drive, and are
you sure we can assume I don't already have one?

I do know that the 1.2 Mb disk size is unknown to the people who
designed/documented Linux floppy disk support -- thus there is no
device file for it unless I create one by hand (as mentioned in my
previous post) -- and chances are I haven't done it right yet, so
whether or not my hardware supports the thing, the configuration is a
problem.

I also know my old Compaq Presario -- with strictly standard-issue
hardware -- could read the NEC disks if the appropriate driver was
installed -- suggesting that at least some Japanese computers come
with 3-mode floppies by default. So I'd like to find out more before I
write it off as a hardware issue (and I don't really want to buy a new
floppy drive if I can help it -- since this is likely to be a one-time
thing). Unfortunately the computer's manual gives only the vaguest of
info, and Toshiba has pulled the specs from their website.

Thanks for the info so far -- I'd to hear more if anybody knows more.

Matt Gushee
Oshamanbe, Hokkaido
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