Can anything different be done with B:\?

MERRICK

Here's an academic topic:

Is there anything that can be done with the B:\ drive besides putting in a second floppy drive?

Has anyone done anything interesting? Is the B:\ drive going to be a real mystery in a coupla years (let alone the A:\ drive)?

And on the subject, is the slow read/write of A:\ and B:\ due to the physical media of the floppy or the digital troughput spec?

Just wondering

profdlp

It would be nice if some clever soul could figure out a way for you to map it to things like a memory card reader, USB drive, or some other removable storage drive. At least that way it would keep its association with removable storage. That would also keep your memory card reader from wanting to bump your other drives down a letter. (I make my DVD drive and CD-RW "P" and "R" respectively so I have a few letters in between, anyway.)


Prof

Crypto

I run an LS120 drive as "B".

It reads and writes a lot faster than a floopy!

Don't know if they are still available, but I always have a disk in the drive and I have an automatic back-up weekly of my data files and e-mail folders.

Cheers

Crypto

primesuspect

I may be missing something here: But in win2K and XP you can assign B: to whatever you want.. Is this not what you're talking about?

BlackHawk

primesuspect said
I may be missing something here: But in win2K and XP you can assign B: to whatever you want.. Is this not what you're talking about?

AFAIK, that can't be done. Maybe with some tweaking or something.

primesuspect

Okay, I use it for mapped drives a lot, that's what I was thinking of.. You can map a network drive to B: but not a physical drive.

MERRICK

I run an LS120 drive as "B"

I am real novice at this. What is an LS 120 drive? Is it related to a Zip? I always thought so but I'm probably wrong.

Hey Prime. I'm talking win98SE from my particular point. If 2k allows assignable B:\ that's very cool.

So is the slow READ/WRITE speed of B:\ and A:\ based on the media or the MoBo throughput spec?

croc_

LS 120 isnt that called a "superdrive", with 120mb disks?

profdlp

MERRICK said

I run an LS120 drive as "B"

I am real novice at this. What is an LS 120 drive? Is it related to a Zip? I always thought so but I'm probably wrong.

Hey Prime. I'm talking win98SE from my particular point. If 2k allows assignable B:\ that's very cool.

So is the slow READ/WRITE speed of B:\ and A:\ based on the media or the MoBo throughput spec?

LS 120 is similar to a zip drive. I found this, which pertained to a Winbook. An old boss of mine described Winbooks as "a piece of sh*t on a stick" (the laptop, not the drive) :

How the LS-120 works

The LS-120 diskettes have optical reference tracks permanently (i.e., a user can't inadvertently erase them) laid down on the media at the factory. A laser servo mechanism (that's what the LS stands for) in the drive uses the tracks as a guidance system to more precisely position the drive heads. This allows data tracks to be written more closely together. Compared to 135 tracks per inch on a standard 1.44 MB floppy, the LS-120 disk has 2,490 tracks per inch.

Is the LS-120 drive faster than a standard floppy drive?

The LS-120 drive rotates slightly faster than a standard floppy drive, and will transfer data at 565 KB per second, compared to about 60 KB per second for a standard floppy. The LS-120 disks also use a different medium and magnetic pigment, and more precisely engineered parts. All of these contribute to its higher capacity and faster performance.

Prof

MERRICK

Thanks for the info. One interesting point is the quote:

The LS-120 drive rotates slightly faster than a standard floppy drive, and will transfer data at 565 KB per second, compared to about 60 KB per second for a standard floppy.

These are inviting numbers and they allude to the fact that the media itself is the big factor for optimal speed. So what is the fastest transfer that can be acheived on a floppy cable/MoBo?

Cool idea? a PCMCIA card read/write port designed for B:\
or a MIDI port interface designed for B:\?

I have some internal Zip drives and if I recall they can only be interchanged with A:\ according to the install manual. I wonder if there is a B:\ work around

MarkTAW

I still have a dual 3.5 / 5.25 floppy drive if you really need your B drive to do something.

profdlp

MarkTAW said
I still have a dual 3.5 / 5.25 floppy drive if you really need your B drive to do something.

Wow, I'd forgotten about those!

I remember a customer I had a couple of years ago. He wanted to add a combo floppy drive to a new computer he was buying. He was an old guy (and a REAL professor:p ). When told that 5 1/4" drives were hard to find he started wailing and moaning about how he had all of his research documents backed up on 5 1/4" disk and now his lifes work was down the drain. I suggested that he copy his data to 3.5" discs on his old computer, then just go with the more modern drive.

He got this look like a light bulb just went on inside his head and said "You can do that?"


Prof
(A phony one):banghead:

MERRICK

I still have a dual 3.5 / 5.25 floppy drive if you really need your B drive to do something.

vERY FUNNY sHMARTY

Like I said purely academic. But here's a motivation:

Old computers are something that get thrown out/given away. Well, I think with certain tweaking etc. the machines can have value for:

Charity:
People in poor circumstances who otherwise would not have a computer at all.

Commercial:
Psuedo embedded machines like DAWs that could be sold cheap to a musician who wants an entry level DAW but is on a budget. Have you seen the money companies like Roland and Korg ask for for their table top DAWs and what slim pickins you get for it?

Just thinking out loud