I would go with the old standby 1.44mb 3.5"/1.2mb 5.25" combo drive. You can use all the old software and only use a single slot. They might be a little hard to find these days, though.

Other interesting drives were the 2.88gb 3.5" (also available in SCSI but expensive) and high density floptical drives that could read ordinary floppy discs. Not all floptical drives could do this, however, as many used proprietary media. Copy protected software might not be readable by a floptical drive, either.

In my first 486 machine I actual used a 135mb Syquest EZ drive instead of a hard drive. I had cartridges that had DOS and Win 3.1 on them and some that had OS/2. All I had to do to switch OS's was power down, swap cartridges, then restart.

I was doing some research on those drives, particularly the LS-240, which has compatibility with 1.44MB drives. But I guess I should be more specific about what I'm looking for. I wanted a machine that would support as many different formats (e.g. 360k 720k and 1.2MB 5.25", 720k 1.2MB 1.44MB 3.5" etc.) as possible in one machine. I've been told that I could emulate different formats with software, but that's not what I'm looking for with this machine either.
Thanks for the suggestions on the combo drive, I have that sitting in my (finally finished, see "back in the 486 game post I made a while ago) soyo 4saw2 486. Two drives I'm trying to get my hands on (dirt cheap anyway) are the TEAC FD55-GFR and the 2.88MB floppy drives. Btw did you mean 2.88mb when you posted 2.88gb, sliderider, or is there a floppy drive that I missed that's really that big?
Again, thanks for the information 😁 .
EDIT: The reason I'm looking for the FD-55GFR is because I was told that they support 360k/1.2mb disks and you can jumper them to support 720k which will eliminate 3 major formats for compatibility in one drive. 😀

Ok, I found out that a lot of the 5.25" drives could handle backwards compatibility, with my only problem being that I never configured them for it or used the DOS commands to properly format the disks. That saves a lot of headache for me 🤣. Now I just gotta make sure I get a motherboard with BIOS that supports the 3 mode floppy for the Japanese 1.2MB format 3.5" disks.

nemesis wrote:

I was doing some research on those drives, particularly the LS-240, which has compatibility with 1.44MB drives. But I guess I s […]
Show full quote

I was doing some research on those drives, particularly the LS-240, which has compatibility with 1.44MB drives. But I guess I should be more specific about what I'm looking for. I wanted a machine that would support as many different formats (e.g. 360k 720k and 1.2MB 5.25", 720k 1.2MB 1.44MB 3.5" etc.) as possible in one machine. I've been told that I could emulate different formats with software, but that's not what I'm looking for with this machine either.
Thanks for the suggestions on the combo drive, I have that sitting in my (finally finished, see "back in the 486 game post I made a while ago) soyo 4saw2 486. Two drives I'm trying to get my hands on (dirt cheap anyway) are the TEAC FD55-GFR and the 2.88MB floppy drives. Btw did you mean 2.88mb when you posted 2.88gb, sliderider, or is there a floppy drive that I missed that's really that big?
Again, thanks for the information 😁 .
EDIT: The reason I'm looking for the FD-55GFR is because I was told that they support 360k/1.2mb disks and you can jumper them to support 720k which will eliminate 3 major formats for compatibility in one drive. 😀

Ooops, yeah. I almost never have any cause to use mb when describing drives anymore, only gb. I must have missed that.

Just to quickly let you know, in case you aren't already aware of this: 1.2mb 5 1/4" drives cannot write 360kb disks that can be read in 360kb drives. It has to do with the size of the read/write heads and that a 1.2mb drive doesn't write enough of each bit of data physically to the disk for a 360kb drive to reliably read them.

I don't know if this will factor into your plans in any way, but it's something to keep in mind if you plan to use this rig to make disks you can read in an older computer that uses a 360kb 5 1/4" drive.

I can add that 2.88MB floppy drives "officially" couldn't use 720kb floppy disks. At least if I remember correctly, can't remember if I ever tried one in such a drive.

I wish I had a 2.88MB SCSI drive but they wanted like $200 each for them!

I'm not sure if it exists, but if there is such a thing as a LS-120 IDE drive which can read 1.44 and 740 disks, that should cut down the number of "slots" you can put on the FDD controller significantly 😉

Edit:The problem with getting a 2.88 floppy drive is that most were made for IBM and don't have the right pinout for using them with a standard FDC
I found it almost impossible to find them, I think on average I found like 1 each year 😜 (and I bought every single one I found that was reasonably priced)

Just to quickly let you know, in case you aren't already aware of this: 1.2mb 5 1/4" drives cannot write 360kb disks that can be read in 360kb drives. It has to do with the size of the read/write heads and that a 1.2mb drive doesn't write enough of each bit of data physically to the disk for a 360kb drive to reliably read them.

I don't know if this will factor into your plans in any way, but it's something to keep in mind if you plan to use this rig to make disks you can read in an older computer that uses a 360kb 5 1/4" drive.

Thank you for clearing that up for me! I do have a 360k drive or two so I'll have to decide if I'm going to bother with that or just save it for another retro build.

I can add that 2.88MB floppy drives "officially" couldn't use 720kb floppy disks. At least if I remember correctly, can't rememb […]
Show full quote

I can add that 2.88MB floppy drives "officially" couldn't use 720kb floppy disks. At least if I remember correctly, can't remember if I ever tried one in such a drive.

I wish I had a 2.88MB SCSI drive but they wanted like $200 each for them!

I'm not sure if it exists, but if there is such a thing as a LS-120 IDE drive which can read 1.44 and 740 disks, that should cut down the number of "slots" you can put on the FDD controller significantly

Edit:The problem with getting a 2.88 floppy drive is that most were made for IBM and don't have the right pinout for using them with a standard FDC
I found it almost impossible to find them, I think on average I found like 1 each year (and I bought every single one I found that was reasonably priced)

Thank you. That gives me something to work with too. And I noticed the same thing with the scsi 2.88 MB drives that you did. They are way too expensive for a poor guy like me.
Now, does anyone know if the Abit st6 has 3 mode floppy support?

nemesis wrote:

Now, does anyone know if the Abit st6 has 3 mode floppy support?

I suppose it would be mentioned in it's manual. Chances are good though.

I've decided that I'm going to try to include:
3.5" floppy (720k, 1.2m, 1.44m)*
3.5" floppy (1.44m, 2.88m) (if I can find one at a decent price)
750mb zip ide
LS-240 (720k, 1.44m, 2m, 120m, 240m) (if I can get ahold of one at a decent price)
5.25" floppy (360k, 720k, 1.2m)*
Any ideas on how to condense this further or any other suggested drives? I've left out a few formats intentionally so far because they either weren't IBM compatible or they were very unsuccessful on the market.
* Drives I have ready to setup and tested.

Just be wary that the ZIP 750 doesn't support ZIP 100 disks, iirc.

Btw, you could use USB ZIP drives, much more convenient 😉

And many of these drives are not supported by XP and newer. What OS will you be using?
I know LS-120 IDE won't work in XP (tried it once) but ZIP 100/250 IDE should work.
2.88 will work in XP if you use WinImage

I vaguely remember having a 286 with 4 floppy drives in it but I'm not sure if that's possible on newer machines (I was thinking about using a P-III build for this) even with the aid of a controller card.

If you get the right sort of controller card, you can run four floppy drives in newer machines... dunno about something as new as a PIII, but it might work. I have several multi-IO cards with such a feature... ISA, VLB, even an early PCI one. The primary floppy port works as normal, but the secondary port is controlled through a driver and takes the IRQ and DMA channel normally associated with the parallel port's ECP mode.

Tetrium wrote:

I can add that 2.88MB floppy drives "officially" couldn't use 720kb floppy disks. At least if I remember correctly, can't rememb […]
Show full quote

I can add that 2.88MB floppy drives "officially" couldn't use 720kb floppy disks. At least if I remember correctly, can't remember if I ever tried one in such a drive.

I wish I had a 2.88MB SCSI drive but they wanted like $200 each for them!

I'm not sure if it exists, but if there is such a thing as a LS-120 IDE drive which can read 1.44 and 740 disks, that should cut down the number of "slots" you can put on the FDD controller significantly 😉

Edit:The problem with getting a 2.88 floppy drive is that most were made for IBM and don't have the right pinout for using them with a standard FDC
I found it almost impossible to find them, I think on average I found like 1 each year 😜 (and I bought every single one I found that was reasonably priced)

I did the same with SCSI DVD-RAM drives for a while. I've got a nice Fantom drive here that I picked up for about $20.

Tetrium wrote:

Just be wary that the ZIP 750 doesn't support ZIP 100 disks, iirc. […]
Show full quote

Just be wary that the ZIP 750 doesn't support ZIP 100 disks, iirc.

Btw, you could use USB ZIP drives, much more convenient 😉

And many of these drives are not supported by XP and newer. What OS will you be using?
I know LS-120 IDE won't work in XP (tried it once) but ZIP 100/250 IDE should work.
2.88 will work in XP if you use WinImage

I made sure the ZIP drive I was looking at says that it supports ZIP 100, 250, and 750. Originally I was going to run MS-DOS 6.22, Windows 98SE (or Windows 95c), and Windows XP, but that's probably going to be too much of a mess. So I'll stick with my personal favorite for vintage hardware, 98SE. That should be the most compatible from what I read. The USB ZIP is actually a really good idea 😁 thanks.

If you get the right sort of controller card, you can run four floppy drives in newer machines... dunno about something as new as a PIII, but it might work. I have several multi-IO cards with such a feature... ISA, VLB, even an early PCI one. The primary floppy port works as normal, but the secondary port is controlled through a driver and takes the IRQ and DMA channel normally associated with the parallel port's ECP mode.

Ok I might just stick with a super 7 build, since I already have one going and it wouldn't take as much to convert it to a floppy machine as building a whole new computer. Might have better luck with that, especially since I already know that it supports the 3 Mode Floppy. Thanks for the input. 😁
Edit: I just wanted to add that I already did a system to read almost all optical disc formats and it was much easier because I got my hands on a LG GGW-H20L. Lol one drive covers almost every format.

Iirc there were also LS-120 USB drives. No idea about LS-240 though, never had one.
And if you can find any SCSI drives, those will also free up a floppy slot 😉
Another hint, I bought a lot of those Parallel 1.44 floppy drives. The drives were basically an external case with a standard floppy drive in them. I know for a fact you can use a standard 2.88 floppy drive in there (I done the mod myself) and the floppy2USB adapter will also work with at least 1 type of the 5.25in drives.
So theres a lot of options, you could get most of the floppy drive formats without even requiring the internal floppy drive controller on the motherboard! 😉

Does anyone here know what the compatibility of the 2.4MB 5.25" drives are?
Also, when I'm refering to compatability, I'm more concerned with reading the disk even if it can't write to it (like the ZIP 750 vs the 100).
At this point, I'm tempted to just get an IBM 2.88 and make a converter for it. It's almost impossible to find a decent priced one so far in SCSI or standard floppy.

Does anyone here know what the compatibility of the 2.4MB 5.25" drives are?

I assume you're talking about the ones used in the old IBM terminal controllers. The two I have will read and write 1.2MB disks OK, but don't seem to like 360K disks... they'll read some 360K disks, but it's pretty hit-or-miss, and writing 'em doesn't seem to produce any sort of readable result. And I could never find a way to use the 2.4MB format on a PC at all.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

Does anyone here know what the compatibility of the 2.4MB 5.25" drives are?

I assume you're talking about the ones used in the old IBM terminal controllers. The two I have will read and write 1.2MB disks OK, but don't seem to like 360K disks... they'll read some 360K disks, but it's pretty hit-or-miss, and writing 'em doesn't seem to produce any sort of readable result. And I could never find a way to use the 2.4MB format on a PC at all.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. Thanks for the info, I'm probably not going to bend over backwards to try to get one into the floppy machine I guess. (Maybe over time I'll make other computers to fill in the gaps of the drives I can't get to work in the build I'm very slowly finishing.)

I reckon building a (partial) floppy machine with just the basic drives (5.25 and 720kb/1.44MB) will give you some experience, you never know when you could bump into a problem.

I'd say:start building, even though you only have half the required drives laying around. You can always complete the floppy machine (or build another one) later 😉

I've built several partial floppy machines, but I'm pretty rusty at the older ones like the 5.25" drives and setting up more than 2 floppy drives in one machine. Therefore I'll probably start with my VA-503+, since I already have a couple drives in it. I'll post more when I get farther. Remember, baby steps. 🤣