VOGONS


First post, by Spiffles

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Hello guys! I've been lurking these forums for a while now and gotta say, love the place and how much valuable info on retro hardware one can learn here. I'm going through a phase of fascination with retro hardware, but even more than that, I'm fascinated by obscure data storage media. So I came up with this idea - build a relatively modern computer capable of performing most of today's tasks like
- accepting modern LTE internet connection for browsing the web, watching YouTube etc
- era-appropriate gaming
- an HDD of at least around 80 GB capacity
- access to at least USB 1.1 for ease of moving data onto newer devices
- an overall "relatively modern" experience, so preferably WinXP compatible. Even better if later!
- primary role: reading and recording data storage media: both rather obscure and popular but obsolete ones: so CD/DVD, 5.25 floppy, 3.5 floppy, 750MB Zip, 2.3GB MO, multi card.

I've seen some of those retro, tall tower cases with like six front panel outlets for drives, and it would be amazing to see the entire front panel occupied, kinda like this one: P1010414.JPG
Or this one:
Super-RETRO-OKAZJA

Only with all slots occupied, preferably 😁 There's something really rewarding about that. I've always dreamed of having a case like this and filling up the entire front panel with stuff. So if I were able to get my hands on a case like this, it would go something like this:

- Traditional 3,5'' floppy
- a 750MB IDE 3,5'' ZIP drive
- A DVD-RW drive - a single one for all purposes. IDE or SATA - doesn't matter. Doesn't need to be era-appropriate, just needs to work
- A 5,25'' floppy drive
- A HDD caddy
- An internal multi-card reader (so the mobo will probably need a USB socket on it)
- A 2.3 GB internal magneto-optical diskette drive, 3,5''

That would be enough, meaning I'd require a full tower case with 2 external 3,5'' bays and 5 5,25'' bays or one with a single 3,5'' bay and six 5,25'' bays. I don't have an idea what to use for the sixth 5,25'' slot if I were to get a 6-2 case. Not really interested in a 5,25'' magnetooptical drive, since those are very expensive (especially the 9,1GB drive), the medium itself is too large and cumberson to move around easily, and the drives themselves are SCSI anyway. I don't think a second CD drive would be needed either, since copying CDs is no longer something anyone has any reason to do, though it is an obvious choice if no better option is available. However, it'd probably be best aesthetics-wise to get a case with four 5,25'' bays and three 3,5'' bays to accomodate this setup, though I doubt there are even such cases in existence. Anyway, any idea what else could I use to fill out the remaining panel if I were to get a case like that? I've also noticed that most 6-2 full towers were AT, so I'd definitely need an ATX case there. Any suggestions as to a particular model?

My main question here though is: is there even a way to have all of these things work on a somewhat modern system? Is there a mobo that supports 5,25x floppy but also has USB on it to plug in the multicard reader? What sorts of extensions would I need to accomodate all those IDE cables for the extra drives? Are there even post-486 era motherboards with enough connectors for all that stuff? Also, if such a system is possible, what era would be the latest feasible? Something like Pentium 4, maybe? I would imagine the motherboard should primarily feature PCI slots for all those expansion cards this build would probably need, like SATA/IDE controllers etc.

Could you advise what sort of hardware is the latest that could accomodate all of this stuff, what sorts of extensions/adapters would be needed and help me plan outall the hardware I'd have to get? Thanks in advance!

Reply 1 of 47, by ODwilly

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I "Think" Intel 865 or 875 chipset boards, and maybe some VIA or SIS based ones from the socket 775 and or AMD 939 era will support 5.25 floppies, I think that will be the biggest hurdle is finding something with that and a pcie slot. For actual web browsing and modern video playback you really dont want to bother with AGP.
EDIT: check out this thread Latest chipset / motherboard with dual floppy support

Main pc: Asus ROG 17. R9 5900HX, RTX 3070m, 16gb ddr4 3200, 1tb NVME.
Retro PC: Soyo P4S Dragon, 3gb ddr 266, 120gb Maxtor, Geforce Fx 5950 Ultra, SB Live! 5.1

Reply 2 of 47, by Spiffles

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ODwilly wrote on 2020-10-17, 03:10:

I "Think" Intel 865 or 875 chipset boards, and maybe some VIA or SIS based ones from the socket 775 and or AMD 939 era will support 5.25 floppies, I think that will be the biggest hurdle is finding something with that and a pcie slot. For actual web browsing and modern video playback you really dont want to bother with AGP.
EDIT: check out this thread Latest chipset / motherboard with dual floppy support

Well, I recall watching a vid on Youtube about the most powerful AGP card ever made, and they were actually able to play GTA V on it. Of course I assume the rest of the system was relatively modern, so the card wasn't bottlenecked by the CPU, but still 😜

Reply 3 of 47, by ODwilly

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Well the HD4670 and HD 3850 are super expensive and the only AGP cards with unified shaders and any kind of modern video acceleration. For cases if you want to stick to Beige check out the Antec SX series, and the Cheiftec branding of it.

Now, if using a single floppy drive isnt an issue I had an idea of using a pci usb card with a port on the back, mounting a usb 3.5 inch floppy drive in a 3.5 bay and routing the usb cable through the inside of the case into the back of the pci card. Then you could just hook up a 5.25 drive to the onboard floppy header.

Main pc: Asus ROG 17. R9 5900HX, RTX 3070m, 16gb ddr4 3200, 1tb NVME.
Retro PC: Soyo P4S Dragon, 3gb ddr 266, 120gb Maxtor, Geforce Fx 5950 Ultra, SB Live! 5.1

Reply 4 of 47, by Spiffles

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ODwilly wrote on 2020-10-17, 03:30:

Well the HD4670 and HD 3850 are super expensive and the only AGP cards with unified shaders and any kind of modern video acceleration. For cases if you want to stick to Beige check out the Antec SX series, and the Cheiftec branding of it.

Now, if using a single floppy drive isnt an issue I had an idea of using a pci usb card with a port on the back, mounting a usb 3.5 inch floppy drive in a 3.5 bay and routing the usb cable through the inside of the case into the back of the pci card. Then you could just hook up a 5.25 drive to the onboard floppy header.

Interesting, I'll look into it! thanks for the heads up!

Found a Sapphire Radeon HD3850 for like 87 bucks, it's not that bad.

What if I used a PCI expansion card for it though?
41FrrQI2ZwL._AC_UL474_SR474,450_.jpg
How does it look like in regards to compatibility? Do these cards actually let you mount floppy drives on any board with PCI sockets?

Found a vid here of a dude doing pretty much what you described, though I know that some motherboards do have traditional USB A type sockets on them, so this sort of adapter might not even be necessary after all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8qk1WCbvag

What I'm curious about is whether it's possible to hook up a sincle SCSI adapter for the magnetooptical drive and whether a motherboard for say, the Core 2 Duo period will allow a standard IDE cable to hook up the ZIP drive. Then again, even if not, can't I circumvent all of this using a PCI extension card?

Reply 5 of 47, by Spiffles

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Ok, I did some reading and came up with the required components. Here's a list. Do you think this could work?

Case:
Chieftec BIGTOWER ATX

1x Motherboard: AsRock K7S41GX
1x CPU: AMD Athlon XP 3200+
1x AGP Sapphire Radeon HD3850 graphics card

FDD:
1x FDD 5,25''/3,5'' tape
1x FDD 3,5'' drive
1x FDD 5,25'' drive

IDE:
1x IDE DVD-RW drive
1x IDE HDD 500 GB
1x IDE HDD 20 GB (for Windows XP)
1x IDE Iomega ZIP drive 750 mb
2x IDE cables

SCSI
1x SCSI PCI controller card
1x SCSI 50 pin tape
1x Fujitsu 2,3GB MO drive SATA 50 pin

Reply 6 of 47, by ODwilly

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First off NEAT! I never even knew that pci floppy controllers existed, usually cards like that are just IDE and SATA.( EDIT: NM thats just IDE on that card.)
Secondly with a board/CPU that old the HD 3850/4670 cards are pretty much pointless. Not enough CPU power and you end up running into compatibility issues with older games anyways. Something like a FX5950 Ultra or ATI 9800 would probably be a better fit. Also note that you wouldnt need a second floppy port with a board that old anyways.

Also odds are that AsRock would need to be recapped soon, they usually used pretty terrible caps back then.

Something from the Core2Era would allow you to use the Zip drive on IDE no problem, I just gave away a Core2Quad machine that had one and a floppy drive in it.

Honestly since your goal is less older games and more storage capabilities and a relatively modern user experience I think finding something as new as possible, with plenty of pci slots and onboard ide/floppy would be the best goal. For example the XP 3200+ would have a hell of a hard time on the internet, even with a super advanced HD 4670 gpu because it lacks SSE2 instruction sets. So you would have some of the video acceleration capabilities required for stuff, but lack CPU features. Back in 2011 my P4 had the opppsite problem, the CPU could still crawl through the web but my 32mb AGP Radeon 7200 just would not work with alot of websites.

Main pc: Asus ROG 17. R9 5900HX, RTX 3070m, 16gb ddr4 3200, 1tb NVME.
Retro PC: Soyo P4S Dragon, 3gb ddr 266, 120gb Maxtor, Geforce Fx 5950 Ultra, SB Live! 5.1

Reply 7 of 47, by Spiffles

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ODwilly wrote on 2020-10-17, 23:07:
First off NEAT! I never even knew that pci floppy controllers existed, usually cards like that are just IDE and SATA.( EDIT: NM […]
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First off NEAT! I never even knew that pci floppy controllers existed, usually cards like that are just IDE and SATA.( EDIT: NM thats just IDE on that card.)
Secondly with a board/CPU that old the HD 3850/4670 cards are pretty much pointless. Not enough CPU power and you end up running into compatibility issues with older games anyways. Something like a FX5950 Ultra or ATI 9800 would probably be a better fit. Also note that you wouldnt need a second floppy port with a board that old anyways.

Also odds are that AsRock would need to be recapped soon, they usually used pretty terrible caps back then.

Something from the Core2Era would allow you to use the Zip drive on IDE no problem, I just gave away a Core2Quad machine that had one and a floppy drive in it.

Honestly since your goal is less older games and more storage capabilities and a relatively modern user experience I think finding something as new as possible, with plenty of pci slots and onboard ide/floppy would be the best goal. For example the XP 3200+ would have a hell of a hard time on the internet, even with a super advanced HD 4670 gpu because it lacks SSE2 instruction sets. So you would have some of the video acceleration capabilities required for stuff, but lack CPU features. Back in 2011 my P4 had the opppsite problem, the CPU could still crawl through the web but my 32mb AGP Radeon 7200 just would not work with alot of websites.

Good stuff, thanks for all that info! I suppose I could sacrifice the modern experience a little bit, though having it all would definitely be a nice and rewarding challenge to put together!

I notice that if I were to forego dual floppies, then I could use a much newer motherboard - and as for IDE and SCSI stuff, there are adapters for those even for PCI-Express, so I might as well just buy external drives for Zip and Magneto-optical to use with my current PC and forget all about that build. But I'm really into the idea of having a PC with a fully loaded front panel, no matter the era!

Since the only thing really bottlenecking this is dual floppy support, the only real challenge is getting around that problem. I can think of two solutions:

1) Pick up an industrial motherboard with ISA slots. This one looks like an interesting pick, since it has a PCI-E slot for graphics, and two ISA slots to boot:

Taiwan Core 2 DUO Industrial ISA Slot Motherboard, Model No.: IMI-G31 2ISA
industrial-motherboard-500x500.jpg

It doesn't appear to have a floppy controller, but it could probably take one of those old ISA floppy controllers back from the x86 era and serve the two floppy drives through that:
800px-Acculogic_sIDE-4%E2%88%95PLUS.jpg

I don't think I'll be finding a Core 2 Duo era motherboard with ISA slots that is not industrial.

2) Use a regular Core 2 Duo era or newer motherboard with a FDD socket on the motherboard that can handle only a single drive and use it for the 5,25'' drive. I know this is possible from watching the video of a guy who managed this on a Gigabyte GA-965-P-DS3. He said the mobo supposedly supported two drives, but when he connected a 3,5'' alongside his 5,25'', only one of them worked. That's a common problem I hear of with the latest motherboards with FDD. But to circumvent this problem, I could convert the 3,5'' floppy from FDD to USB and use it with the board's internal USB pinout (or USB A socket, if it has one) like the gentleman in this video demonstrates:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8qk1WCbvag

The SCSI and IDE devices could be handled by PCI or even PCI-E expansion boards if necessary, those are both easy to get (well, I'm sure it'd just be regular PCI for SCSI, but that's completely fine).

So my question is: what's the newest, preferably full ATX motherboard that supports at least a single floppy? I think with solution 2) I can take it from there. I suppose it having a PCI-E slot would also let me get some better video card for it (CPU-appropriate so there's no bottlenecking) and perhaps be able to enjoy reasonable functionality and maybe even Windows 10. If I wanted the magneto-optical drive, I'd need at least one PCI slot for the 50-pin SCSI adapter, since I don't think those exist for PCI-E. IDE adapters are much easier to get.

Last edited by Spiffles on 2020-10-18, 02:06. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 8 of 47, by Spiffles

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s-l1600.jpg

Also, just realized these were a thing... Damn. Looks like we've got Solution 3). They use identical connectors as traditional 3,5'' drives, so I wonder if that adapter card that converts them to USB would make both bays readable? Anyway, even without that, all mobos with FDD that support a single floppy drive would probably handle this thing easy. I wonder if it could be seen as two drives and take the different floppies at the same time, though.

Reply 9 of 47, by ODwilly

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So it looks like anything newer than Core2 and AM2 socket has an issue with 5.25 floppy drives not being supported. And am2 boards with the AMD chipset being in issue while boards with Nvidia chipsets supporting the 5.25. That Gigabyte board you mentioned looks super promising, supporting the C2Q chips, having 3 pci slots and extra pcie x1 slots. A Q6600 or even the Extreme Edition is dirt cheap anymore and makes for even a great Windows 10 experience, so dual booting XP and 10 would be a fun experience. Not to mention 2gb sticks of DDR2 800 can be had for peanuts now 😀

Main pc: Asus ROG 17. R9 5900HX, RTX 3070m, 16gb ddr4 3200, 1tb NVME.
Retro PC: Soyo P4S Dragon, 3gb ddr 266, 120gb Maxtor, Geforce Fx 5950 Ultra, SB Live! 5.1

Reply 10 of 47, by ODwilly

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Spiffles wrote on 2020-10-18, 01:37:
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/GCoAAOSwAE9b4zmA/s-l1600.jpg […]
Show full quote

s-l1600.jpg

Also, just realized these were a thing... Damn. Looks like we've got Solution 3). They use identical connectors as traditional 3,5'' drives, so I wonder if that adapter card that converts them to USB would make both bays readable? Anyway, even without that, all mobos with FDD that support a single floppy drive would probably handle this thing easy. I wonder if it could be seen as two drives and take the different floppies at the same time, though.

The main issue I can see with this solution is that from what Iv read it seems to be a issue with the bios not being able to pick up both floppy drives. Iv got an MATX Am2/+/3 Asrock board with a Nvidia chipset that I think has a floppy connector and I also have one of those drives in a 486. I can install XP on it and see what happens tonight

Main pc: Asus ROG 17. R9 5900HX, RTX 3070m, 16gb ddr4 3200, 1tb NVME.
Retro PC: Soyo P4S Dragon, 3gb ddr 266, 120gb Maxtor, Geforce Fx 5950 Ultra, SB Live! 5.1

Reply 11 of 47, by ODwilly

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On another note, there are LGA775 boards using the Intel 865 chipset and also socket 478 boards with pcie, both of which would probably support dual floppies. Limits you to a P4 but a Prescott core P4 w/HT and @3.0ghz can still web browse fairly well and playback video no problem.
EDIT: http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/ConRoe865PE/ this board supports C2 and P4, 4gb of DDR1 which would be perfect, based on the chipset would support dual floppies, and with a HD4k series agp GPU do fairly modern video playback no problem, even Bluerays.

Main pc: Asus ROG 17. R9 5900HX, RTX 3070m, 16gb ddr4 3200, 1tb NVME.
Retro PC: Soyo P4S Dragon, 3gb ddr 266, 120gb Maxtor, Geforce Fx 5950 Ultra, SB Live! 5.1

Reply 12 of 47, by Spiffles

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Thanks for the many suggestions, I now think the issue can be solved one way or another. I'm leaning towards installing the 5,25'' drive to the FDD controller and just converting the 3,5'' to USB, so that Gigabyte mobo does look promising indeed, though it supports only one floppy. That ConRoe865PE mobo you suggested was proven to also support one, in this thread: Latest chipset / motherboard with dual floppy support

As for dual floppy support, there was that thread from 2016 where someone tried to make a list of mobos supporting dual floppies:
https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=11823
While that list is by no means exhaustive, it probably gives a decent enough idea. Anyway, I'm already kinda set on making the 3,5'' drive into an USB drive, and for that purpose a mobo supporting a single drive should be enough.

Reply 13 of 47, by ODwilly

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Awesome! Glad I could help 😀

Main pc: Asus ROG 17. R9 5900HX, RTX 3070m, 16gb ddr4 3200, 1tb NVME.
Retro PC: Soyo P4S Dragon, 3gb ddr 266, 120gb Maxtor, Geforce Fx 5950 Ultra, SB Live! 5.1

Reply 14 of 47, by Spiffles

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Yeah, that thread is where I got that AsRock mobo for Athlon from. Good thing you dissuaded me from getting that one. So now I'm trying to decide between two Gigabyte mobos: GA-P43-ES3 and GGA-965P-DS3. Here are their layout schematics compared:
mobos.png

The P43 is a newer chipset and has better functionality in many regards, and the mobo still has 1 FDD and 1 IDE socket built in. It has so many SATA sockets that I could totally let it handle all the hard drives and possibly the DVD-RW drive as well and I might not need a PCI IDE adapter if I want the ZIP drive. That would mean I'd only really have to pick up a PCI SCSI adapter for the magneto-optical drive. After that I'd only need to find a proper chassis and make sure to color-match all my drives. I know it's possible to find everything in black and white, but the magneto-optical drive by Fujitsu comes only in white, so I'll probably have to make my purchases with that in mind 😜

Reply 15 of 47, by hwh

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Spiffles wrote on 2020-10-18, 01:37:
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/GCoAAOSwAE9b4zmA/s-l1600.jpg […]
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s-l1600.jpg

Also, just realized these were a thing... Damn. Looks like we've got Solution 3). They use identical connectors as traditional 3,5'' drives, so I wonder if that adapter card that converts them to USB would make both bays readable? Anyway, even without that, all mobos with FDD that support a single floppy drive would probably handle this thing easy. I wonder if it could be seen as two drives and take the different floppies at the same time, though.

I have an SD-700 ("somewhere...") and I think I had either a 750 or 800. Threw a few of them out. IIRC it is two separate drives. Like, there's a thin 3.5 drive with its own connections and a thin 5.25 drive with the same. Don't think they are shared. IIRC. I might be wrong. Also I don't know/remember the difference between the SD-700 and 800.

Besides this, I built a 3200+ in 2003, and my mother got another one in 2005 or so. I also have extensive experience with a 2800+M. From this I will tell you, it's possible to browse the web with them, but it will be slow. A bigger problem is software. You have to be some kind of wizard to get XP on-line today. This is because of encryption ciphers, ajax, js, none of it is designed for old browsers or hardware. Client side bloatware. In other words, you "probably" need a third party computer to download the software to update the system so it will access the internet because https.

IMO (guessing here) Windows 7 will run on it and that makes internet access much, much simpler. Though IIRC (got a lot of IIRC in this post) its floppy compatibility...umm...is bad?

Also where's your tape drive :p

Reply 16 of 47, by gbeirn

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In my opinion, the easiest solution is to find the most recent motherboard that supports 5.25” floppy drives. Dual support is not so important.

3.5” disks could be read via a USB drive or over IDE using a LS120 drive which is missing from your list 😉

We had a machine setup like this for data recovery and migration at an old job of mine. We used a Socket A board and it ran Windows XP. Had nForce 2 chipset I believe along with an onboard RAID controller. I think it was 2 SATA port and 3-4 IDE channels. We had ZIP, LS120, DVD-RW along with floppies. We didn’t have need for MO or tape drives. We did have a PCI Adaptec SCSI card for the rare SCSI drive that came in.

I thought Windows dropped support for 5.25” drives with some version but I’m not sure.

Edit: Don’t forget Iomega Jaz drives, the short lived Clic, REV (we sold lots of these at a different job). The various SyQuest drives: EZ135, SparQ.

Get the external SCSI versions and keep daisy chaining them!

Reply 17 of 47, by red-ray

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gbeirn wrote on 2020-10-18, 06:55:

I thought Windows dropped support for 5.25” drives with some version but I’m not sure.

I just checked my Gigabyte 965P-DS3 and the BIOS allows a 1.2 MB 5.25" floppy to be selected, further Windows 10 20H1 Build 19041 seems to support it, but as I don't physically have a 5.25" drive I can't check if it works.

To access 3.5" floppies I think you could use an LS-120 which as I recall has an IDE interface.

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Reply 18 of 47, by bestemor

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You are perhaps missing the dearly beloved UDO system ? 😅
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_Density_Optical

I actually considered this for safe storage (vs DVD/Bluray), but could not get my hands on a reasonably priced drive....
https://www.ebay.com/sch/58058/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=udo

Or, how about the Superdisk ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperDisk

Edit: ah,someone already mentioned the LS-120...

Internal IDE drives do exist:
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_tr … 120%22&_sacat=0

And if you really want to go to town on this, here is some more inspiration 😁😆
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk_variants

Reply 19 of 47, by Tetrium

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Spiffles wrote on 2020-10-17, 13:30:
Do these cards actually let you mount floppy drives on any board with PCI sockets? https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/image […]
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Do these cards actually let you mount floppy drives on any board with PCI sockets?
41FrrQI2ZwL._AC_UL474_SR474,450_.jpg

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I doubt it, unless your intention is to use a USB (external) floppy drive or an LS-120 drive (which are capable of operating some of the standard floppy disks, but may come with its own set of problems).

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