4 ms·

A story about USB floppy drives (2004)

74 points by airhangerf15 2y ago

jmclnx 2y ago
Funny, nice short read. I won't spoil it for people.
Lammy 2y ago
I do love having a full complement of matching translucent blue accessories (SuperDisk, PD/DVD-RAM drive, FireWire webcam shaped kinda like Orbb from QuakeⅢ with a human-foot-shaped metal stand, etc) to use with my “Blue & White” G3 tower (PowerMac1,1), so it worked on me! :) Nine 2004-era comments now purged from Microsoft's current site: https://web.archive.org/web/20210125145431/http://bytepointer.com/resources/old_new_thing/20040409_135_a_story_about_usb_floppy_drives.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20210125145431/http://bytepointe...
- mattl 2y ago
  What OS are you running on that B&W? I have Mac OS X Server 1.23 on mine, basically Rhapsody and basically OPENSTEP.
  - Lammy 2y ago
    Same here actually! https://cooltrainer.org/images/original/michiru-rhapsody-20130909.png https://cooltrainer.org/images/original/michiru-rhapsody-201... I love it as a bridge machine — New World but with ADB and an oldschool serial port (from GeeThree, replacing the built-in modem). I use it as a jack of all trades and have partitions to boot 8.6, 9.2, MOSXS 1.2, Tiger, Leopard (mine has a G4).
- wil421 2y ago
  >I’m working on a USB-powered microwave oven. >This USB grill is joke, right ? I mean how much power can you draw from USB port (500mA at 5V = 2.5 Watt) ? Maybe it’s for cooking mini-burgers for the anorexic geeks. Did anyone try a USB grill yet? https://www.amazon.com/Gourmia-GBQ330-Portable-Charcoal-Electric/dp/B01M1SA83B/ref=cm_cr_srp_mb_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8 https://www.amazon.com/Gourmia-GBQ330-Portable-Charcoal-Elec...
  - foobarian 2y ago
    Sounds like electronics are just for fans and maybe ignition? Sounds plausible. But there were indeed some true attempts to cook with USB power alone.[1] [1] https://hackaday.com/2022/12/01/throwback-usb-hotplate-used-30-whole-ports/ https://hackaday.com/2022/12/01/throwback-usb-hotplate-used-...
  - MisterTea 2y ago
    Saw a little USB hot plate at a friends superb owl party last night. Did a good job keeping a bowl of cheese dip warm. Doubles as a wireless charger too.
don-code 2y ago
I once ended up being the beneficiary of Crucial making a gambit on "Mac memory", which was standard DDR memory with a different label on it. The SPD literally showed it as a different, non-Mac-specific SKU. Luckily, few people fell for this, and Crucial later unloaded the "Mac memory" at a discount relative to standard DDR memory.
- goosedragons 2y ago
  Kinda related but less happy end. IIRC there was no difference between Voodoo graphics cards for PC and Mac and they could be used interchangeably. When Nvidia entered the scene they decided they wanted more money and made Mac specific BIOSs and ATI followed suit. I know quite a few people that have paid more for "Mac" USB hard drives where the only difference is the format out of the box and maybe some junk software they never used.
  - duskwuff 2y ago
    > IIRC there was no difference between Voodoo graphics cards for PC and Mac I'm not sure about that. The video BIOS is x86 code; that certainly wouldn't have run on a (PowerPC) Mac system.
    - Lammy 2y ago
      Correct, but they could be cross-flashed: https://web.archive.org/web/20060511060609/http://homepage.mac.com/jswartz/3dfx https://web.archive.org/web/20060511060609/http://homepage.m... I have also cross-flashed a PCI Radeon 9200 but it needed a larger flash chip to hold the larger ROM image.
    - wat10000 2y ago
      Earlier Voodoo cards didn't need to worry about video BIOS because it wasn't the primary video card. It used this wacky passthrough system where you still used your normal graphics hardware for ordinary 2D stuff, and then it switched over to the 3D card when you ran 3D software, which had to take over the entire screen. Nvidia and ATI cards handled normal graphics functions, not just 3D, so they needed to be able to come up at boot time. Later 3dfx cards added 2D and also needed Mac-specific firmware.
mjg59 2y ago
Despite the punchline, the USB floppy spec is actually incredibly restrictive and only supports 720K, 1.25MB and 1.44MB formatted capacities. This means, ironically for a spec partially written by a friend of Raymond Chen's, that you can't read the Microsoft 1.68MB DMF floppies used for software distribution with a USB floppy, but it also means that it's impossible to support the older 400K and 800K Mac formats. To be fair, those formats also require a special drive mechanism (the disk spins at different rates depending on which track you're reading), but there's no way to expose them within the USB floppy spec. There's an entirely justifiable argument for manufacturing a separate Mac drive with different functionality and requiring its own drivers. (Edit to fix capacity)
- mgiampapa 2y ago
  By the end of the floppy disk era, it was very rare to find a 400 or 800k disk that was still working, and Microsoft really didn't make much use of the DMF disks, they were replaced by CDs very quickly. I still have a pair of USB floppy drives hanging around with the hopes of getting some more inexpensive ones at a flea market some day to make a USB based RAID-floppy array. I bet it will sound amazing.
  - foobarian 2y ago
    If you ever do I hope you post it here!
    - mgiampapa 2y ago
      It will never be as cool as this guy, https://silent.org.pl/home/2022/06/13/the-floppotron-3-0/ https://silent.org.pl/home/2022/06/13/the-floppotron-3-0/
  - lexicality 2y ago
    I still have a bunch of 400k and 800k disks that work fine
    - wkat4242 2y ago
rezmason 2y ago
My college campus store sold colorful translucent floppy disks as recently as 2009. They felt anachronistic.
cbm-vic-20 2y ago
As a retro-enthusiast, I've always been dismayed that nobody ever made a USB 5¼" floppy drive. I know there are things like Greaseweazel that read the magnetic flux on the disc, but I just want to read and write PC formatted floppies without all the hackiness. I don't know how good GW is as a plug-and-play solution.
- RandomBacon 2y ago
  I have an internal combo 5¼ & 3½ drive, and I tried with a floppy to USB adapter, but it didn't show up in Ubuntu. The drive worked last time I used it in a Windows 7 machine using a motherboard that had a floppy header. If that drive is valuable, let me know how I should describe it on eBay and I'll give it to a friend with an account. I imagine someone can find a better use for it than sitting in my closet.
- mjg59 2y ago
  The spec doesn't support it. Any USB 5.25" drive is going to either need special drivers or would have to pretend to be a generic mass storage device, which gives you a differently weird set of compatibility issues. Should be possible to make it read/write, but formatting would be a nightmare and it wouldn't appear as a floppy drive at the OS level, just a weird small memory card reader or something.
- snvzz 2y ago
  >I don't know how good GW is as a plug-and-play solution. Better than usb floppy drives, for sure. GreaseWeazle is very capable and easy to use.
fitsumbelay 2y ago
I've got a USB floppy drive from maybe nearly 20 years ago that copied the iMac translucent look but I'm pretty sure I bought it from a tech vendor where I also bought RAM and zip disks ('memba them?) in bulk and not from Home Shopping Network ...
bluedino 2y ago
I worked at Best Buy in those days. EVERYTHING was translucent. But there were some problems. The accessory companies didn't match that Mac Bondi Blue very well. And they didn't match Blueberry, Lime, or Tangerine well either. So you'd have some weird color blue on your mouse, or gamepad, or external hard drive that didn't match up with your iMac. I seem to remember some of the "official" accessories being able to use the right colors, but back then it was such a free for all.
- fredoralive 2y ago
  Beyond colour matching, it felt like lots of companies didn’t get the subtleties of Apple’s design, and it often felt like they just took their existing moulds and did a run in translucent plastic. The pinstriping, use of white as contrast, the organic curves, the patterning on the “IO shield” - it’s all a bit more complex than just “do it in see through blue”.
  - Clamchop 2y ago
    The iMac turned so many gizmos into various fruity colors that there was just no hope for color coordinating them. Our HP DeskJet with translucent blue accents didn't match the Compaq Presario next to it one bit, nor did it match the graphite gray iMac that did eventually make it into our house. So many minitowers of that period had a half-assed splash of color on an otherwise beige box, too. Apple did a good job at it, I still like looking at their fruity period all these years later, but man, the imitators were ugly af.
ivraatiems 2y ago
To this day, lots of cheap and universal accessories - mice, keyboards, optical drives, what have you - come with silly little "compatible with Windows!" stickers. It's sort of a user-facing cargo cult for computing; we have supplied the compatibility incantations, therefore, we shall support your compatible system! If you use a non-compatible system, we shall not help you: this is an offense to the gods.
- wink 2y ago
  To be fair I have 2 mechanical keyboards that work with Windows and Linux but not with Macs. cf https://deskthority.net/wiki/Noppoo_Choc_Mini#Compatibility https://deskthority.net/wiki/Noppoo_Choc_Mini#Compatibility
snvzz 2y ago
Greaseweazle + any old standard floppy drive (3.5"/5.25"/8") is the way to go, for having a usb attached floppy drive. Avoid usb fdds, they are burdened with a controller that do not allow track read/write, making them of very limited usefulness.

74 points by airhangerf15 2y ago

Funny, nice short read. I won't spoil it for people.

I do love having a full complement of matching translucent blue accessories (SuperDisk, PD/DVD-RAM drive, FireWire webcam shaped kinda like Orbb from QuakeⅢ with a human-foot-shaped metal stand, etc) to use with my “Blue & White” G3 tower (PowerMac1,1), so it worked on me! :) Nine 2004-era comments now purged from Microsoft's current site: https://web.archive.org/web/20210125145431/http://bytepointer.com/resources/old_new_thing/20040409_135_a_story_about_usb_floppy_drives.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20210125145431/http://bytepointe...

mattl 2y ago
What OS are you running on that B&W? I have Mac OS X Server 1.23 on mine, basically Rhapsody and basically OPENSTEP.
- Lammy 2y ago
  Same here actually! https://cooltrainer.org/images/original/michiru-rhapsody-20130909.png https://cooltrainer.org/images/original/michiru-rhapsody-201... I love it as a bridge machine — New World but with ADB and an oldschool serial port (from GeeThree, replacing the built-in modem). I use it as a jack of all trades and have partitions to boot 8.6, 9.2, MOSXS 1.2, Tiger, Leopard (mine has a G4).
wil421 2y ago
>I’m working on a USB-powered microwave oven. >This USB grill is joke, right ? I mean how much power can you draw from USB port (500mA at 5V = 2.5 Watt) ? Maybe it’s for cooking mini-burgers for the anorexic geeks. Did anyone try a USB grill yet? https://www.amazon.com/Gourmia-GBQ330-Portable-Charcoal-Electric/dp/B01M1SA83B/ref=cm_cr_srp_mb_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8 https://www.amazon.com/Gourmia-GBQ330-Portable-Charcoal-Elec...
- foobarian 2y ago
  Sounds like electronics are just for fans and maybe ignition? Sounds plausible. But there were indeed some true attempts to cook with USB power alone.[1] [1] https://hackaday.com/2022/12/01/throwback-usb-hotplate-used-30-whole-ports/ https://hackaday.com/2022/12/01/throwback-usb-hotplate-used-...
- MisterTea 2y ago
  Saw a little USB hot plate at a friends superb owl party last night. Did a good job keeping a bowl of cheese dip warm. Doubles as a wireless charger too.

don-code 2y ago

I once ended up being the beneficiary of Crucial making a gambit on "Mac memory", which was standard DDR memory with a different label on it. The SPD literally showed it as a different, non-Mac-specific SKU. Luckily, few people fell for this, and Crucial later unloaded the "Mac memory" at a discount relative to standard DDR memory.

goosedragons 2y ago
Kinda related but less happy end. IIRC there was no difference between Voodoo graphics cards for PC and Mac and they could be used interchangeably. When Nvidia entered the scene they decided they wanted more money and made Mac specific BIOSs and ATI followed suit. I know quite a few people that have paid more for "Mac" USB hard drives where the only difference is the format out of the box and maybe some junk software they never used.
- duskwuff 2y ago
  > IIRC there was no difference between Voodoo graphics cards for PC and Mac I'm not sure about that. The video BIOS is x86 code; that certainly wouldn't have run on a (PowerPC) Mac system.
  - Lammy 2y ago
    Correct, but they could be cross-flashed: https://web.archive.org/web/20060511060609/http://homepage.mac.com/jswartz/3dfx https://web.archive.org/web/20060511060609/http://homepage.m... I have also cross-flashed a PCI Radeon 9200 but it needed a larger flash chip to hold the larger ROM image.
  - wat10000 2y ago
    Earlier Voodoo cards didn't need to worry about video BIOS because it wasn't the primary video card. It used this wacky passthrough system where you still used your normal graphics hardware for ordinary 2D stuff, and then it switched over to the 3D card when you ran 3D software, which had to take over the entire screen. Nvidia and ATI cards handled normal graphics functions, not just 3D, so they needed to be able to come up at boot time. Later 3dfx cards added 2D and also needed Mac-specific firmware.

mjg59 2y ago

Despite the punchline, the USB floppy spec is actually incredibly restrictive and only supports 720K, 1.25MB and 1.44MB formatted capacities. This means, ironically for a spec partially written by a friend of Raymond Chen's, that you can't read the Microsoft 1.68MB DMF floppies used for software distribution with a USB floppy, but it also means that it's impossible to support the older 400K and 800K Mac formats. To be fair, those formats also require a special drive mechanism (the disk spins at different rates depending on which track you're reading), but there's no way to expose them within the USB floppy spec. There's an entirely justifiable argument for manufacturing a separate Mac drive with different functionality and requiring its own drivers. (Edit to fix capacity)

mgiampapa 2y ago
By the end of the floppy disk era, it was very rare to find a 400 or 800k disk that was still working, and Microsoft really didn't make much use of the DMF disks, they were replaced by CDs very quickly. I still have a pair of USB floppy drives hanging around with the hopes of getting some more inexpensive ones at a flea market some day to make a USB based RAID-floppy array. I bet it will sound amazing.
- foobarian 2y ago
  If you ever do I hope you post it here!
  - mgiampapa 2y ago
    It will never be as cool as this guy, https://silent.org.pl/home/2022/06/13/the-floppotron-3-0/ https://silent.org.pl/home/2022/06/13/the-floppotron-3-0/
- lexicality 2y ago
  I still have a bunch of 400k and 800k disks that work fine
  - wkat4242 2y ago

rezmason 2y ago

My college campus store sold colorful translucent floppy disks as recently as 2009. They felt anachronistic.

cbm-vic-20 2y ago

As a retro-enthusiast, I've always been dismayed that nobody ever made a USB 5¼" floppy drive. I know there are things like Greaseweazel that read the magnetic flux on the disc, but I just want to read and write PC formatted floppies without all the hackiness. I don't know how good GW is as a plug-and-play solution.

RandomBacon 2y ago
I have an internal combo 5¼ & 3½ drive, and I tried with a floppy to USB adapter, but it didn't show up in Ubuntu. The drive worked last time I used it in a Windows 7 machine using a motherboard that had a floppy header. If that drive is valuable, let me know how I should describe it on eBay and I'll give it to a friend with an account. I imagine someone can find a better use for it than sitting in my closet.
mjg59 2y ago
The spec doesn't support it. Any USB 5.25" drive is going to either need special drivers or would have to pretend to be a generic mass storage device, which gives you a differently weird set of compatibility issues. Should be possible to make it read/write, but formatting would be a nightmare and it wouldn't appear as a floppy drive at the OS level, just a weird small memory card reader or something.
snvzz 2y ago
>I don't know how good GW is as a plug-and-play solution. Better than usb floppy drives, for sure. GreaseWeazle is very capable and easy to use.

fitsumbelay 2y ago

I've got a USB floppy drive from maybe nearly 20 years ago that copied the iMac translucent look but I'm pretty sure I bought it from a tech vendor where I also bought RAM and zip disks ('memba them?) in bulk and not from Home Shopping Network ...

bluedino 2y ago

I worked at Best Buy in those days. EVERYTHING was translucent. But there were some problems. The accessory companies didn't match that Mac Bondi Blue very well. And they didn't match Blueberry, Lime, or Tangerine well either. So you'd have some weird color blue on your mouse, or gamepad, or external hard drive that didn't match up with your iMac. I seem to remember some of the "official" accessories being able to use the right colors, but back then it was such a free for all.

fredoralive 2y ago
Beyond colour matching, it felt like lots of companies didn’t get the subtleties of Apple’s design, and it often felt like they just took their existing moulds and did a run in translucent plastic. The pinstriping, use of white as contrast, the organic curves, the patterning on the “IO shield” - it’s all a bit more complex than just “do it in see through blue”.
- Clamchop 2y ago
  The iMac turned so many gizmos into various fruity colors that there was just no hope for color coordinating them. Our HP DeskJet with translucent blue accents didn't match the Compaq Presario next to it one bit, nor did it match the graphite gray iMac that did eventually make it into our house. So many minitowers of that period had a half-assed splash of color on an otherwise beige box, too. Apple did a good job at it, I still like looking at their fruity period all these years later, but man, the imitators were ugly af.

ivraatiems 2y ago

To this day, lots of cheap and universal accessories - mice, keyboards, optical drives, what have you - come with silly little "compatible with Windows!" stickers. It's sort of a user-facing cargo cult for computing; we have supplied the compatibility incantations, therefore, we shall support your compatible system! If you use a non-compatible system, we shall not help you: this is an offense to the gods.

wink 2y ago
To be fair I have 2 mechanical keyboards that work with Windows and Linux but not with Macs. cf https://deskthority.net/wiki/Noppoo_Choc_Mini#Compatibility https://deskthority.net/wiki/Noppoo_Choc_Mini#Compatibility

snvzz 2y ago

Greaseweazle + any old standard floppy drive (3.5"/5.25"/8") is the way to go, for having a usb attached floppy drive. Avoid usb fdds, they are burdened with a controller that do not allow track read/write, making them of very limited usefulness.