Re: [PLUG] Floppy Drive

[JP Vossen via plug <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>]

I just plugged an ancient Sony USB floppy drive (PCGA-UFD5) into my Mint-21.3 desktop and it auto-mounted and Just Worked.  The hardest part was finding the right size box to sit it on so the USB pigtail could reach a port without the unit hanging in the air.

I still have the Zenith 181 laptop I took to college in 1988.  8088 CPU, blue LCD screen, dual 720K 3.5" floppies, no hard drive, and 300 baud modem.  It worked last time I powered it up.  I've rebuilt the battery pack at least once, it's just a bunch of C cells soldered together and shrink-wrapped.

That was superseded by a BSR 386SX/16 that I also still have, but haven't tried to power on since the mid-late 1990's probably.  It was originally DOS but I converted it to Linux.  I'm pretty sure I had Slackware 1 or 2 from Walnut Creek or InfoMagic CDs on it around 1993 or maybe 1994.  I can't find a Walnut Creek set at a quick glance, but I have August 1995 and December 1996 InfoMagic 4 and 6 CD sets.

The 1995 InfoMagic CD2 includes "DOOM (the game) for LINUX," looks like from sunsite.unc.edu `/public/ftp/pub/Linux/games/doom/`.  Wow.  :-)


On 12/16/25 04:01 PM, Rich Mingin (PLUG) via plug wrote:
> Ooooh! I had a Toshiba Pro 360CDT way back when, I loved that awful
> little brick! Chips and Tech 65555 2D decelerator! Lots of good
> memories.
>
> On Tue, Dec 16, 2025 at 3:22 PM Chad Waters via plug
> <plug@lists.phillylinux.org> wrote:
> > Hey,
> >
> > What's the status of floppy drive kernel modules these days? Can I just grab any USB FDD from Amazon? I found A LOT of 3.5 floppies at my Dad's house recently and want to see if there's anything worth savaging.
> >
> > Really cool finds among them:
> > Duke Nukem
> > Starflight (5.25 floppy)
> >
> > Next project: I have his first "laptop": a beast of a Toshiba Pro 430CDT (Pentium Intel Inside!). I'll try powering it up and see if I can do anything with it.

Later,
JP
--  -------------------------------------------------------------------
JP Vossen, CISSP | http://www.jpsdomain.org/ | http://bashcookbook.com/
___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group         --        http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion  --   http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug