USB Floppy Disk Device (Drive) with Support for Windows 10 and QPC2?

Discussion and advice about emulating the QL on other machines.
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Cristian
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Re: USB Floppy Disk Device (Drive) with Support for Windows 10 and QPC2?

Post by Cristian »

Martin_Head wrote:I may be wrong about this, but I think that DD and HD disks had a different magnetic coating.
Well, yes I think it's possible that the very early disk produced might had coating differences. But I'm almost sure that, due to the PC standardization, in the last decades they made the same disk changing only the hole, in order to dramatically reduce production costs.
Surely this is only my theory.


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tofro
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Re: USB Floppy Disk Device (Drive) with Support for Windows 10 and QPC2?

Post by tofro »

Cristian wrote: Anyway, this doesn't seem a general issue but sounds like a matter of unlucky hardware/software combination.
For a pure coincidence, it happens too regularly (to my taste). But our mileages seem to vary.

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Tobias


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dilwyn
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Re: USB Floppy Disk Device (Drive) with Support for Windows 10 and QPC2?

Post by dilwyn »

Cristian wrote:
Martin_Head wrote:I may be wrong about this, but I think that DD and HD disks had a different magnetic coating.
Well, yes I think it's possible that the very early disk produced might had coating differences. But I'm almost sure that, due to the PC standardization, in the last decades they made the same disk changing only the hole, in order to dramatically reduce production costs.
Surely this is only my theory.
Whatever the reasons, disks formatted on one density of drive will often fail on another drive. You may be lucky and have HD drives and DD drives which are happy with each other, but as a former trader who was active when the QL started using HD and ED drives when Miracle started producing the (Super) Gold Cards I quickly came to realise that if I formatted DD disks in HD or ED drives, 9 out of 10 of them would come back as faulty - if I wanted to send a DD disk to use on any other system (including some of my own systems) I had to keep a DD drive just to prepare DD disks for others.
Yes, an HD or ED drive will (or can be persuaded to) format a DD disk quite readily in most cases (Windoze version permitting if using an emulator) and they will usually work on that one drive without problem. Take it to another computer or another drive it will fail, almost guaranteed.


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Cristian
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Re: USB Floppy Disk Device (Drive) with Support for Windows 10 and QPC2?

Post by Cristian »

tofro wrote:
Cristian wrote: Anyway, this doesn't seem a general issue but sounds like a matter of unlucky hardware/software combination.
But our mileages seem to vary.
Yes, I agree


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Re: USB Floppy Disk Device (Drive) with Support for Windows 10 and QPC2?

Post by Cristian »

dilwyn wrote:as a former trader who was active when the QL started
Please don't misunderstand: I'm not discussing about the quality of other people's experience, but I'm trying to focus the (hardware?) problem. Sorry if I haven't expessed clearly my aim.
dilwyn wrote: if I formatted DD disks in HD or ED drives
Actually we were talking about the reverse procedure (format HD disks un DD). In the case you mentioned I'm sure there are more big problems, so I agree with your analysis.
dilwyn wrote: Yes, an HD or ED drive will (or can be persuaded to) format a DD disk [...] Take it to another computer or another drive it will fail, almost guaranteed.
Do you mean formatting a DD disk (after making the hole) in HD/ED format, am I right? In this case I agree as above


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ql_freak
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Re: USB Floppy Disk Device (Drive) with Support for Windows 10 and QPC2?

Post by ql_freak »

Sorry for quoting myself.
ql_freak wrote:It works, but now I have detected, that I could not read a lot of old disks because of:

Medium Check Failed (Bad Medium on a normal QL)
I have now received a second exchange drive. At the first time they just have had sent the same drive back with the comment, that no errors could be detected. Well of course this drive has worked, but it couldn't read all files from disks, that were completely readable on my other PC with a floppy drive.

This time it is really an exchange drive and it works perfectly with HD and DD disks (recorded 10 years and more ago), at least for normal disk access (direct sector access and similar not yet tested) :-)

Tested on Windows 10, no drivers required, just plug in and you can access your floppy disks. Works with QPC2.

Peter


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Re: USB Floppy Disk Device (Drive) with Support for Windows 10 and QPC2?

Post by ql_freak »

ql_freak wrote:Are their USB floppy disk devices (controller and drive) which are compatible with:

Windows 10

AND

QPC2

? QPC2 runs perfectly in Windows 10, but I can't access the floppy disk drive. The disk drive/interface is OK(!). I have testet it with MenuetOS which starts perfectly from the disk.

But the same disk (A:) doesn't work in windows 10, so I ask, if there are USB floppy disk drives, which are compatible with QPC2 and Windows 10.

p.s.: It would be sufficient if they support just reading of normal files (no sector access or similar).
Windows 10 (at least version 1803) now again support floppy disks connected to the mainboard floppy connector (34 pin Shugart bus) :-)

But now the problem: Albeit I can access drive A: from Windows 10 (with DOS/Windows formatted disks), when I try to access "FLP1_" (of course a QDOS formatted disk, which perfectly works with the USB-disk drive) from QPC2 I always get "not found". The disk light goes on for a few seconds, then comes the error message :-(

Has anyone a Windows 10 where QPC2 can access the native (NOT USB-floppy) floppy drive(s)?

Any other suggestions, why QPC doesn't find the disk?

(I haven't measured it yet, but it seems the access to the "real" disk is faster than with the USB disk)


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Cristian
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Re: USB Floppy Disk Device (Drive) with Support for Windows 10 and QPC2?

Post by Cristian »

So strange. It sounds like a software bug... unfortunately I can't try in Windows 10. Did you try other emulators also?


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ql_freak
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Re: USB Floppy Disk Device (Drive) with Support for Windows 10 and QPC2?

Post by ql_freak »

Not yet, I will test it at weekend with UQLX and Windows Subsystem for Linux (UQLX runs on with WSfL if you have an X-Server like XMing installed).

But I have had another problem: After enabling the native Floppy in BIOS, and disabling it, my USB-Floppy was suddenly B:. The solution is to uninstall the USB-Floppy (here it is "NEC USB ...") in Device manager (German: Geräte-Manager), unplug the USB-Floppy for a few seconds and plug it in again. Now it's again drive A: :-)


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GERMAN! QL-Download page also available in English: GETLINE$() function, UNIX-like "ls" command, improved DIY-Toolkit function EDLINE$ - All with source. AND a good Python 3 Tutorial (German) for Win/UNIX :-)
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Cristian
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Re: USB Floppy Disk Device (Drive) with Support for Windows 10 and QPC2?

Post by Cristian »

Some non-standard floppy formats require a special driver for the floppy controller. Anyway, on previous Windows versions the driver supplied was already able to manage Qdos disks. Indeed the Qdos format (not the file system) is the same as DOS.
Let's hope the new Windows 10 driver is not totally restricted to DOS disks...


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