Floppy Disk Communication?

Komaru

I've looked through the old posts asking about this, but I'm still not entirely sure about it.
Would it be possible to, as opposed to using an SD memory card or EEPROM cartridge, use a Floppy drive to run programs? As in, build or modify a drive so it connects to the HYDRA and store programs.
To my understanding, it would need a lot of logic to work, but for what I'm doing, a 3½ or 5¼ floppy disks would be the perfect way to store data.
Any help is appreciated, thanks!
EDIT:
I found this on the Parallax store, could I possibly connect a USB Floppy drive (which I have) to it and then write code that accesses it?

Post Edited (Komaru) : 4/5/2010 2:12:33 AM GMT

Sapieha

Hi Komaru

Look On Last Contest Winers Page.

One of them are FD connection on Propeller

Regards

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Nothing is impossible, there are only different degrees of difficulty.
For every stupid question there is at least one intelligent answer.
Don't guess - ask instead.
If you don't ask you won't know.
If your gonna construct something, make it·as simple as·possible yet as versatile as posible.


Sapieha

Komaru

Ah, excellent! I'll make sure to take a look at the documentation, etc. Thanks!

Mike Green

A USB floppy drive is very different from an ordinary floppy drive. The USB floppy drives are USB mass storage devices just like a USB memory stick or USB hard drive. You should be able to use a USB floppy drive with the Parallax Memory Stick Datalogger you mentioned. It's possible you may not be able to use your floppy drive with it. That all depends on details of your floppy drive that may not be available publicly. If it does work with the Datalogger, then you should be able to use any of the sample programs for the Datalogger with the floppy drive.

StefanL38

is there a special reason against using an SD-card or an USB-stick?

heater

Komaru : "...but for what I'm doing, a 3½ or 5¼ floppy disks would be the perfect way to store data"

This is an interesting statement given all the other storage options available. Floppies were 8 inch diameter when I started using them and they have never seemed to be perfect for anything. I don't think I've used one in anger in the last ten years.

What actually are you wanting to do?

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For me, the past is not over yet.

Toby Seckshund

Heater

There have been so many times when I have looked at a 3.5" drive and thought " It still works, it's retro" and it gets put back into a box and survives yet anothet traunch of "WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO GET THAT JUNK TIDIED OUT OF THE GARAGE".Bless.

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Style and grace : Nil point

Patrick1ab

I just remember my time in school:

Wrote a program for a school project (took me all day and half the night)
and the next morning when I arrived at school every computer in the IT class
told me that my disc was "unformatted".
Ever since I carried at least another 2 backup discs with me.

Toby Seckshund

Those are the only two options.

No backups at all, or backups for the backups ....

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Style and grace : Nil point

Trevor dePommeraie

I've always wanted to do the opposite: Emulate a floppy drive's signals so that I could replace floppy drives in old 8 bit computers. Either this, or possibly come up with some sort of simulation of the WD floppy controller chip so that I could put the prop on the system bus in place of the wd chip while the software isn't any the wiser.... ah, dreams.

I did hear once though that someone had done exactly this with an FPGA.