Jaz drives aren't optical, they're rigid platter drives.

Of course you are correct there, my friend. I was thinking of the ZIP CD drives for some reason. But I still don't consider a platter disk a "floppy".
(Thank you for the correction).

And don't forget the syquest SkyJet drives.

In fact I did forget about them. They were a great product with poor market timing. I'm tempted to make a cartridge/platter based machine some time in the future... well, after I get some money (I love the dentist when I have a major toothache but I hate how much it costs... ok. Long story there.)

As you said they're using compression techniques and for freespace estimation they simply "guess"
that they can compress everything down to 50% size (which is a quite optimistic guess).

I never liked the "guesstimation" that some of the compression companies marketed with... feels too much like lying.

I finally have an update to the Floppy Machine project. I just acquired a 2.88 MB TEAC floppy drive (SCSI via adapter), but I'm still deciding which computer to install it into (probably need one with an ISA bus for my SCSI card). It's the TEAC FD235J with the original manual and mount.

Omg weren't those SCSI drives hella expensive? Anyway, NICE FIND!!

Tetrium wrote:

Omg weren't those SCSI drives hella expensive? Anyway, NICE FIND!!

YES. They are very expensive as a rule. That's why I jumped on this one as soon as I found it... I kinda took a chance too, there was only one picture of it and that one wasn't even close to visible.

Anyway, I got it (ordered online incase you didn't figure that out yet 😀 ) in pristine condition with 2 different mounts and the manual + registration card. I want to post some pics, but it seems that someone "liberated" my adapter to plug my camera card into my main PC, so I'll have to wait for another one.

nemesis wrote:

Tetrium wrote:

Omg weren't those SCSI drives hella expensive? Anyway, NICE FIND!!

YES. They are very expensive as a rule. That's why I jumped on this one as soon as I found it... I kinda took a chance too, there was only one picture of it and that one wasn't even close to visible.

Anyway, I got it (ordered online incase you didn't figure that out yet 😀 ) in pristine condition with 2 different mounts and the manual + registration card. I want to post some pics, but it seems that someone "liberated" my adapter to plug my camera card into my main PC, so I'll have to wait for another one.

So next task is getting the disks?

So next task is getting the disks?

Yup, at a decent price of course. That and relearning how to mess with SCSI in these old machines. I always struggled with it on my 486s for some reason.

Here's some eyecandy since I haven't uploaded a picture in a while and I finally got my adapter.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

🙁 Still can't see it very well I guess. Sorry.

Could you tell me the datecode of the floppy drive? I like yours, it's all black too. Can the SCSI adapter be removed btw?

Tetrium wrote:

Could you tell me the datecode of the floppy drive? I like yours, it's all black too. Can the SCSI adapter be removed btw?

I love black drives, and for some reason I keep getting blessed with them. It appears that it can be dissembled from the SCSI adapter without having to desolder anything which would make it easier to connect to a machine that doesn't already have two floppies (or at least has another controller card).

I would love to give you the datecode, but unfortunately I don't know where it is... I see white stickers on top that have "R 4586650" and "01-W2273C02D".

Any thoughts on this... I can't seem to get my 2.88MB floppy drive visible in windows. It's visible in the SCSI setup program before it goes into windows and device manager sees something as a "type 47 floppy drive" but no new drive letters are available. I currently have A: 1.44; B: 1.2; C: IDE HDD; D: IDE Optical; G: ZIP750 IDE.
I'm sure i'm screwing up somewhere here, so any advice is appreciated.

Finally solved my problem with the SCSI interface for the 2.88 MB floppy drive. But instead decided to dig out my precision tools and found one that matched the funny screw heads so I could disconnect the drive from the SCSI tray and install it on the standard floppy interface.

I have it connected to a different machine for now, and I just tested a 2.88MB floppy disk successfully. 😁