[HN Gopher] Greaseweazle
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       Greaseweazle
        
       Author : mikerg87
       Score  : 44 points
       Date   : 2024-04-07 15:06 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (retrocmp.de)
 (TXT) w3m dump (retrocmp.de)
        
       | metadat wrote:
       | Is this needed because motherboards no longer include any floppy
       | drive channels?
       | 
       | I'm not yet grasping why Greaseweazle is better than a standard
       | cheapy USB floppy drive.
       | 
       | Greaseweazle is undisputable an awesome name for a project,
       | though.
       | 
       | Edit: Thanks for the clarifications :)
        
         | NovemberWhiskey wrote:
         | This isn't a standard floppy drive controller; it's a low-level
         | device that allows you access the disk at the raw, magnetic
         | domain kind of level. This means it can read or write all kinds
         | of formats that are typically not accessible on standard floppy
         | controllers like "variable speed" systems used on old 400/800KB
         | Mac disks.
        
         | bilegeek wrote:
         | > Is this needed because motherboards no longer include any
         | floppy drive channels?
         | 
         | Yes, partially.
         | 
         | > I'm not yet grasping why Greaseweazle is better than a
         | standard cheapy USB floppy drive.
         | 
         | 1.) Support for non-standard formats.
         | 
         | 2.) Ability to capture raw flux images, bypassing the
         | limitations of actual floppy controllers, and allowing for
         | weird formats to be preserved and written (ex. of flux images
         | bypassing rare hardware restrictions:
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCU4xbHFb58&t=1538s)
         | 
         | 3.) Can allow for drives with weird quirks.
        
         | renaudg wrote:
         | A typical use case for it is to dump Amiga disks, which are
         | physically 3.5" disks but whose 880KB format is unreadable by a
         | standard PC floppy controller.
        
           | duskwuff wrote:
           | And to preserve old copy-protected floppy disks which used
           | strange formats and/or deliberate errors to thwart copying
           | tools.
        
         | zdw wrote:
         | I have an greaseweasel and 3.5" floppy mounted internally in a
         | system used for utility tasks.
         | 
         | It's pretty handy to have it all ready to go for unusual
         | floppies.
        
           | bilegeek wrote:
           | If it's a modern case, how do you deal with dust?
        
       | actionfromafar wrote:
       | A local shop wanted my help - a customer had old documents on a
       | Mac floppy. It had been years and years since I had my sights on
       | a Mac with a floppy drive.
       | 
       | I figured I could help anyway. First, I checked that the floppies
       | weren't in DOS/Windows format. A long shot, but for a short while
       | it was not unheard of to use DOS floppies as the lingua franca
       | between Macs and PCs.
       | 
       | Nah, that wasn't it. It was a real Mac floppy. No PC could read
       | it.
       | 
       | A Greaseweazle to the rescue! Created a floppy image. But how to
       | read it? Turns out there's a Mac emulator on the web you can just
       | drop a floppy image into, complete with MS Word 5 for Mac to read
       | the document, export it to RTF and Bob's your uncle!
        
         | duskwuff wrote:
         | > Turns out there's a Mac emulator on the web you can just drop
         | a floppy image into...
         | 
         | For the record: I think you're talking about
         | https://infinitemac.org/ - right?
        
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       (page generated 2024-04-07 23:00 UTC)