[lug] Anyone still have a 5.25" floppy drive?

[Matt James]

I've got access to a 486 dx2 66 machine with a _DIAMOND VIPER_ graphics
card, Kurta IS/ONE digitizing tablet, and 40MB!! of RAM.  This was a CAD
machine back in the day and still runs AutoCAD version 6 or 8 (can't
remember which - been a while since it's booted up.)

In any case - it has both 3.5" and 5.25" floppy drives.  It's also got a
NIC so I can offload stuff somewhat painlessly.

We keep this machine around more for nostalgia than anything else - but
maybe can't let go of the thought of just how much money was spent on this
screaming machine back in the day.

Its last useful mission was to reference how the software (Acad plugins)
used to work and now no longer have the same functionality.  It's kinda fun
to argue with a developer who swears that the software _never_ did that
only to have proof that indeed it did.

Now a days, I keep a Dos PXE boot image available in our lab for running
BIOS / Firmware utilities on HBAs that don't seem to have "modern" utility
packages. :-)  Some times the older stuff "just works"

FWIW,

Matt

On Fri, Jul 13, 2018 at 8:24 AM BC <bcarr at purgatoire.org> wrote:

>
>
> On 7/13/2018 8:20 AM, Jed S. Baer wrote:
>
> On Fri, 13 Jul 2018 08:03:44 -0600
> Bear Giles wrote:
>
>
> I was digging through my clutter backlog and came across the floppies
> for MS-DOS 5. I remember holding onto them since many embedded systems
> were still using it. I don't know if that's still the case since
> Arduinos and Raspberry Pis are so much more capable. I don't even know
> if I can run it in a virtual machine.
>
>
> I have FreeDOS running in a VirtualBox. Why? Because I can. I know a guy
> who keeps an old DOS instance running for nostalgic gaming, and I think
> it's a physical machine. Other than that, I can't think of a use for one.
>
> But I long ago tossed out all the floppy stuff. I might have a controller
> cable around somewhere.
>
>
> I have VMs for MSDOS v6.22, Win95b, Win98SE, Win7 and Win10.  Haven't
> looked at the first three in many years.
>
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