IBM PS/2 support for 8" floppy?

[MykeLawson]

Okay, so I know that is a bit 'weird', but my IBM PS/2 8560 BIOS support 360K & 1.2M 5-1/4" floppies and 720K and 1.44M 3.5" floppies. I have the external 5-1/4" drive adapter card, cable, and the part that plugs into the 3.5: Drive B: position. Since there are 34 pin to 50 pin 8" drive adapters, I could 'theoretically' connect up an 8" drive to the external floppy drive connector. In theory...... Or am I just bone=headed and missing something quite obvious.... Of course, I doubt I could use that to ready decades old CP/M files, but hey, it'd be cool!

 

[Chuck(G)]

No practical difference between an 8" drive and a 5.25" 1.2M drive operating in high-density. As a matter of fact, there exist 1.2 (actually 1.3) meg 5.25" drives that have no low-density support made for the Japanese NEC PC98 market, as well as 3.5" HD drives that spun at 360 RPM, just like an 8" drive. So there's that.

However, I doubt that the native FDC in the PS/2 supports FM modulation, so that will limit your options when it comes to stuff like CP/M migration.

 

[NeXT]

Glitch should have a registry for testFDC results. There's an easy way to check if it does, assuming someone has both tested it already and submitted the results.

 

[Chuck(G)]

You can do the test using the 3.5" HD drive on the PS/2. TestFDC is here:

http://dunfield.classiccmp.org/img42841/testfdc.zip

A word of caution, however. I've found that TestFDC doesn't always give correct results, particularly with 128 byte MFM sector support. However, the failure in TestFDC is usually a false negative, rather than a false positive. I did write my own version of it over 20 years ago; here it is for your enjoyment.

 

[MykeLawson]

Well, I'd more want to do it for the 'oddity'. I'd just read and write files on it using PC-DOS/MS-DOS. I might just do it at some point. Another project for my list. Right now I'm setting up the PS/2 to act as a file server via RS-232 to my 'soon to be' two Z-80 CP/M machines. I got that idea from the old '$25 Network' program from many years ago. I have the manual and software for that thing. That was my original home network before I went to Token Ring......

 

[Chuck(G)]

Still have that one also.