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Physically small desktop-type computer, with a floppy connector?

tingo

tingo

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I have a need for a physically small machine with a standard floppy controller and connector.
The reason for the "small size" requirement is that this machine is going to be used a floppy reading machine, and I need to bring it with me in a backpack, together with a small monitor, keyboard, 8 inch (and possibly 5.25 inch) floppy drive and required power supply, cables and so on.
A Pentium 4 class or something like that would be great; but as long as I can run a not-too-old FreeBSD on it I'm good (FreeBSD 8.x works).

Does anybody know if such machines are available somewhere?
 
Some of the early ITX boards definitely have floppy controllers so rolling your own should be a possibility, although I'm not sure about BIOS support for anything but 1.44mb drives. (Although if you're running software that directly pounds on the controller that may not matter.) Buried in the scrap pile somewhere I have a mini-ITX motherboard in a case about the size of a large encyclopedia that actually has a full half-height 5 1/4" bay in it; it has room for that because it depends on an external 12v power brick.
 
Well, building something with a mini-itx motherboard could work. So far, I have been unable to find mini-itx motherboards with an FDD connector locally - everything that's available here seems to be "legacy-free" :-/
And yes, BIOS support is not important; FreeBSD talks directly to the hardware (it only uses bios for booting).
 
tingo said:
I have a need for a physically small machine with a standard floppy controller and connector.
The reason for the "small size" requirement is that this machine is going to be used a floppy reading machine, and I need to bring it with me in a backpack, together with a small monitor, keyboard, 8 inch (and possibly 5.25 inch) floppy drive and required power supply, cables and so on.
A Pentium 4 class or something like that would be great; but as long as I can run a not-too-old FreeBSD on it I'm good (FreeBSD 8.x works).

Does anybody know if such machines are available somewhere?
Click to expand...

There are Thin Clients which you can easily add a floppy drive to:

https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/wyse/9455xl/index.shtml

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Wyse-Thin-...202413?hash=item2879ec03ad:g:SIgAAOSwVbhcausz

Should happily run a 32-bit BSD.
 
tingo said:
And yes, BIOS support is not important; FreeBSD talks directly to the hardware (it only uses bios for booting).
Click to expand...

If you feel like elaborating on the toolchain you'll be using under FreeBSD and what you'll be doing with it I would be very interested to know :)
 
Chuck(G) said:
Exactly how would you hook an 8" or a 5.25" drive to one of those? :huh:
Click to expand...

There is a 5.25' drive bay, you would need to find a quarter height floppy. I did not see that 8" drives were a requirement. In that case the best best is to skip BSD and get an old Ampro mini-system put together and use CP/M...
 
From the OP's original query:

The reason for the "small size" requirement is that this machine is going to be used a floppy reading machine, and I need to bring it with me in a backpack, together with a small monitor, keyboard, 8 inch (and possibly 5.25 inch) floppy drive and required power supply, cables and so on.
Click to expand...

Where is the 34-pin legacy floppy header on this system? The specs don't mention it.
 
What were you planning for a case for the 8" floppy drive? Those things are so huge, even the half-height ones, that I'm not sure the backpack idea will really fly. This sounds more like a suitcase kit to me. (Googling up the datasheet for a Mitsubishi half-height 8" drive gives me dimensions of 8.5" x 12.4" x 2.25" and almost eight pounds.)

rpiguy2 said:
There is a 5.25' drive bay, you would need to find a quarter height floppy.
Click to expand...

I realize now my memory failed me, the "encyclopedia size" ITX boxes I have in the garage look like those thin clients you posted, with space for a laptop CD-ROM drive, not a full bay. (They might even be the same case, and they have some kind of Via C3 board in them, 800mhz I think?) While technically it's arguable that quarter-height floppy drives exist because they made those mutant half-height things combining a 5 1/4" and 3.5" drive in one unit I don't think I've ever seen a real stand-alone floppy that fits in the space of a laptop CD-ROM drive.

Not knowing what the application in play here really is a flux reader (Kryoflux or other, there are a few options out there) does seem like it might be the smarter way to go, given the limits of PC controllers in reading alien disks. (Even single-density, which is pretty common for 8", can be a problem for a lot of them.)
 
Most anythings that are light are not going to handle the range of drives you have in mind. Most of the laptops have chipsets that are restricted to a single type of drive. You'd really want a something with a IDE or a EIDE bus so that you can find a controller that will support the various rates as well as MFM and FM.
You might want something like a Dolch PAC series machines. These have a fold up keyboard and a carry handle. I have one that has a 486 in it but some of the newer ones have Pentiums. I'm not sure if they all have EIDE buses. The newer ones may have PCI only. Mine as a EIDE and I use it for being basically portable and a IDE EPROM programmer. I removed the obsolete internet sniffer board. It boots with an error message that the board doesn't respond ( maybe I'll track that part down some day and change it ). It still works find as a PC. It comes native with a 3.5 inch drive. I see newer ones also have a CDROM drive, as well. My HD uses a IDE interface to the bus. It has an older windows but I just use it for DOS stuff.
Dwight
 
Chuck(G) said:
Teac FD105 is about that height, maybe 1/3 height anyway. It's in my Teac product catalog. Basically, the lower half of a FD 505.
Click to expand...

I can't find a datasheet for the FD-105, but if it's the size of the bottom half of the 505 it looks like 1/3rd height to me. (Is it the same as those 1/3rd heights you mostly see in Compaq machines?) That still probably makes it about a quarter inch too tall for the those cases. I can't check because a cursory look in the shelf where I thought mine still resided suggests I may have lumped them into the last batch of electronic recycling.
 
Look into the Shuttle XPC line. I have an SK41G which has quickly become my favorite Win98 machine. Fully compatible onboard floppy controller, including dual-drive support (I've run a 3.5" & 5.25" together in mine), plus all the other bells & whistles for a great little box. Mine even has a universal AGP slot & PCI slot.

56-101-216-12.jpg


Probably any of the Athlon & P4-based XPCs are going to have full floppy support, maybe later ones too. You can also get dedicated carry bags & backpacks directly from Shuttle for these. I want one. :p

xpc_acc_carry.jpg
 
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