Having attempted to relocate a Flopy Drive from a SPARC-5 to an Ultra-2,
and encountered all sorts of misfeatures, bugs and incompatibilities, I
have written it all up on my website at
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl/floppy-muddle.html
Hopefully, this will provide a general guide to how SPARCs and Solaris
(mis)handles floppies.

Comments will be welcomed.

Share and Enjoy!

--
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133 Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: chl@clerew.man.ac.uk Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
PGP: 2C15F1A9 Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5

Charles Lindsey wrote:
> Having attempted to relocate a Flopy Drive from a SPARC-5 to an Ultra-2,
> and encountered all sorts of misfeatures, bugs and incompatibilities, I
> have written it all up on my website at
> http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl/floppy-muddle.html
> Hopefully, this will provide a general guide to how SPARCs and Solaris
> (mis)handles floppies.
>
> Comments will be welcomed.

I suspect few people now are going to be using floppies in Suns.

Dave wrote:
> Charles Lindsey wrote:
>
>> Having attempted to relocate a Flopy Drive from a SPARC-5 to an Ultra-2,
>> and encountered all sorts of misfeatures, bugs and incompatibilities, I
>> have written it all up on my website at
>> http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl/floppy-muddle.html
>> Hopefully, this will provide a general guide to how SPARCs and Solaris
>> (mis)handles floppies.
>>
>> Comments will be welcomed.
>
>
> I suspect few people now are going to be using floppies in Suns.

I found that an external USB floppy drive 'just works' with Solaris 10,
though haven't done anything beyond showing that it works. FWIW, I
bought the external drive to help make a recovery floppy for her laptop.

- Erik

In comp.sys.sun.hardware Dave <foo@coo.com> wrote:
> Charles Lindsey wrote:
>> Having attempted to relocate a Flopy Drive from a SPARC-5 to an Ultra-2,
>> and encountered all sorts of misfeatures, bugs and incompatibilities, I
>> have written it all up on my website at
>> http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl/floppy-muddle.html
>> Hopefully, this will provide a general guide to how SPARCs and Solaris
>> (mis)handles floppies.
>>
>> Comments will be welcomed.
>
> I suspect few people now are going to be using floppies in Suns.

or using floppies anywhere at all.

On Tue, 27 May 2008 23:29:09 -0700, erik magnuson wrote:

> Dave wrote:
>> Charles Lindsey wrote:
>>
>>> Having attempted to relocate a Flopy Drive from a SPARC-5 to an Ultra-2,
>>> and encountered all sorts of misfeatures, bugs and incompatibilities, I
>>> have written it all up on my website at
>>> http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl/floppy-muddle.html
>>> Hopefully, this will provide a general guide to how SPARCs and Solaris
>>> (mis)handles floppies.
>>> Comments will be welcomed.
>> I suspect few people now are going to be using floppies in Suns.

If you have a PC-DOS floppy you should be able to make an image of it
and net that over and use lofiadm to mount the iso

> I found that an external USB floppy drive 'just works' with Solaris 10,
> though haven't done anything beyond showing that it works. FWIW, I
> bought the external drive to help make a recovery floppy for her laptop.

Since when is an Ultra 2 a laptop?
Its an SBUS based SPARC machine - where are you going to
plug in the external USB drive?

AGT wrote:
> On Tue, 27 May 2008 23:29:09 -0700, erik magnuson wrote:
>
>
>>Dave wrote:
>>
>>>Charles Lindsey wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Having attempted to relocate a Flopy Drive from a SPARC-5 to an Ultra-2,
>>>>and encountered all sorts of misfeatures, bugs and incompatibilities, I
>>>>have written it all up on my website at
>>>> http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl/floppy-muddle.html
>>>>Hopefully, this will provide a general guide to how SPARCs and Solaris
>>>>(mis)handles floppies.
>>>>Comments will be welcomed.
>>>
>>>I suspect few people now are going to be using floppies in Suns.
>
>
> If you have a PC-DOS floppy you should be able to make an image of it
> and net that over and use lofiadm to mount the iso
>
>
>>I found that an external USB floppy drive 'just works' with Solaris 10,
>>though haven't done anything beyond showing that it works. FWIW, I
>>bought the external drive to help make a recovery floppy for her laptop.
>
>
> Since when is an Ultra 2 a laptop?
> Its an SBUS based SPARC machine - where are you going to
> plug in the external USB drive?

My comment about the laptop was in reference to my wife's laptop, NOT
the OP's Ultra 2 (accidentally edited out the reference to my wife).
Since almost all new laptops (and quite a few desktops) lack a floppy
drive (not a big loss), having an external USB floppy can be handy. The
point I was trying to make was that the external USB floppy drive 'just
works' with Solaris 10 on a box recent enough to support a USB port.

- Erik

On Wed, 28 May 2008 22:15:38 -0700, erik magnuson wrote:

> AGT wrote:
>> On Tue, 27 May 2008 23:29:09 -0700, erik magnuson wrote:
>>>Dave wrote:
>>>>Charles Lindsey who has far too much time on his hands wrote:
>>>>>Having attempted to relocate a Flopy Drive from a SPARC-5 to an Ultra-2,
>>>>>and encountered all sorts of misfeatures, bugs and incompatibilities, I
>>>>>have written it all up on my website at
>>>>> http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl/floppy-muddle.html
>>>>>Hopefully, this will provide a general guide to how SPARCs and Solaris
>>>>>(mis)handles floppies.
>>>>>Comments will be welcomed.
>>>>I suspect few people now are going to be using floppies in Suns.

Ditto - although I have a couple still on OLD SPARCs

>> If you have a PC-DOS floppy you should be able to make an image of it
>> and net that over and use lofiadm to mount the iso
>>>I found that an external USB floppy drive 'just works' with Solaris 10,
>>>though haven't done anything beyond showing that it works. FWIW, I
>>>bought the external drive to help make a recovery floppy for her laptop.
>> Since when is an Ultra 2 a laptop?
>> Its an SBUS based SPARC machine - where are you going to
>> plug in the external USB drive?
> My comment about the laptop was in reference to my wife's laptop, NOT
> the OP's Ultra 2 (accidentally edited out the reference to my wife).
> Since almost all new laptops (and quite a few desktops) lack a floppy
> drive (not a big loss), having an external USB floppy can be handy. The
> point I was trying to make was that the external USB floppy drive 'just
> works' with Solaris 10 on a box recent enough to support a USB port.

It was off-topic AFAICT : > optimistic as well. x86 on Solaris has
a way to go yet. Many things are still problematic on my laptop
that shouldnt be. Im at b83 something too. My suspicion is that
SOME USB floppies would work - not all : <

And a waste of money since Solaris only reads/writes/mounts ancient PC-DOS
FAT disks you can simply 'iso' a floppy and use lofiadm to mount it.

>
> - Erik

On 2008-05-29, AGT <usenetpersongerryt@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 28 May 2008 22:15:38 -0700, erik magnuson wrote:
>
>> AGT wrote:
>>> On Tue, 27 May 2008 23:29:09 -0700, erik magnuson wrote:
>>>>Dave wrote:
>>>>>Charles Lindsey who has far too much time on his hands wrote:
>>>>>>Having attempted to relocate a Flopy Drive from a SPARC-5 to an Ultra-2,
>>>>>>and encountered all sorts of misfeatures, bugs and incompatibilities, I
>>>>>>have written it all up on my website at
>>>>>> http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl/floppy-muddle.html
>>>>>>Hopefully, this will provide a general guide to how SPARCs and Solaris
>>>>>>(mis)handles floppies.
>>>>>>Comments will be welcomed.
>>>>>I suspect few people now are going to be using floppies in Suns.
>
> Ditto - although I have a couple still on OLD SPARCs

The only floppies I have are 8" ones....


--
"Be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain
and presumptuous desire for a second one."
[email me at huge {at} huge (dot) org <dot> uk]

In <g1ohe4$g3s$1@anubis.demon.co.uk> Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> writes:

>On 2008-05-29, AGT <usenetpersongerryt@gmail.com> wrote:

>>>>>>I suspect few people now are going to be using floppies in Suns.
>>
>> Ditto - although I have a couple still on OLD SPARCs

>The only floppies I have are 8" ones....

AFAICT, the Intel Chip and the Solaris driver are still quite capable of
handling shuch floppies, if you can find a suitable drive for them.

--
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133 Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: chl@clerew.man.ac.uk Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
PGP: 2C15F1A9 Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5

Charles Lindsey wrote:
> In <g1ohe4$g3s$1@anubis.demon.co.uk> Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> writes:
>
>> On 2008-05-29, AGT <usenetpersongerryt@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>>>>> I suspect few people now are going to be using floppies in Suns.
>>> Ditto - although I have a couple still on OLD SPARCs
>
>> The only floppies I have are 8" ones....
>
> AFAICT, the Intel Chip and the Solaris driver are still quite capable of
> handling shuch floppies, if you can find a suitable drive for them.
>


And you can be bothered to fit it!