wait for it guys, a scsi floppy drive!

[ayoub_ibrahim]

No kidding! A company called Winstation Systems has introduced a SCSI-based floppy drive. Why? So that OEM's who need a floppy won't have to provide a separate floppy controller for imbedded architectures.
The HYDRA drives are available in the standard 25.4-mm (one inch) high form factor for all industry 3.5" bay applications. It is also available in 32-mm (1-5/16") height when 5-1/4" applications are required or the O.E.M. has an extra high 3.5" bay.

HYDRA SCSI floppy drives use the same standard 1.44 Mbyte 3.5-inch diskette and are 100% compatible with the recording media that has originated from standard connected FDDs and been formatted or written using any other interface such as IDE, SCSI and FDD. Also is well-suited for use with 1.44mb diskettes used in conjunction with the SuperDisk.

The SCSI floppy disk drive utitilizes SCSI I and SCSI II technology and is compatible with most industrial software plus Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Windows 98, NT, Windows 2000, Linux and Unix, BSO and Wind River operating systems.

"The Winstation SCSI FDD is perfect for the imbedded server market which is migrating towards more space saving footprints," said Jill Colee, Marketing Vice President at Winstation Systems. Colee continues, "It makes economic sense not having to incorporate costly and useless interfaces such as the FDD when all storage can be handled with one interface. This technology opens the door for hundreds of OEM and Industrial applications that otherwise would have had to imbed two interfaces when the more superior SCSI technology can be incorporated for all rotating media.
If you feel the need for the best gear, the Winstation HYDRA SCSI floppy disk drives are shipping today and are available in O.E.M. quantities starting at $135.00. For more information on the HYDRA SCSI FDD, visit http://www.winstation.com.

[dZeus]

a bit expensive, don't you think?

I remember that Adaptec 1542CF adapters already had SCSI floppy connectors (not 50 pins, but some odd formfactor)... I guess these are normal SCSI (i.e. narrow or wide) instead?

[Pace]

Cool, I'll be ordering one of those, well, maybe, if I win any money soon

btw, is SCSI considered 'legacy' hardware by the PCXX team?

Paul.

[High_Jumbllama]

Why don't they just use LS-120? I disabled my floppy controller because I had this and it reads and writes them better and faster anyway.

[spoogenet]

BTW, SCSI floppy drives have been around for quite some time. When I first got my SCSI stuff (about 2-3 years ago) I thought about getting a SCSI floppy drive, but they were too expensive.

Pace: I'm pretty positive that SCSI is not considered legacy. Legacy for the PCXX team is RS232 serial port, parallel port, ISA, and I'm not sure what else.

Also, don't be surprised when the floppy drive is considered legacy and is removed from computers, a la iMac. The PC industry is going to be moving away from floppy drives in the near future and new computers won't be sold with them.

b

[thecurse]

the nextstep cubes used an external scsi floppy drive.

the adaptec cards mentioned earlier if i remeber correctly you used a normal floppy drive on. those old scsi cards where from a time and place far far away where ide/floppy was not on the motherboard and you had to have an ide/floppy controller card (that also ussually had the serial and parell on it also).

[Pace]

Spoogenet: Yea, I think the floppy is considered to be legacy! That's why I was asking, because a SCSI floppy then might not be

Just a little curio,

Paul.

[xortam]

SCSI is alive and well!!! The newest storage technologies are still using SCSI (iSCSI, SoIP, SAN).

I briefly considered a SCSI floppy on my old 486 PC but the cost didn't justify the whim. One thing to be concerned about is whether the floppy requires drivers to operate. I would assume (and hope) not.

P.S. Had to make two attempts to get this posted because you guys changed the forum name on me ... sneaky. But I forced it in anyway.

[Ant]

Just testing

[xortam]

Ant ... Not a fair test on this thread since I already posted with the new forum name.

[spoogenet]

Well, with BIOS support for LS120 and Zip (shudder) drives, there really isn't much need for a standard floppy in the near future. While floppies are sometimes convenient now, I must say that I used mine the other day for the first time in well over a year. Of course, 10baseT provides a, err, nice, substitute.

The only drawback to something like the LS120 or Zip (shudder) drives is that they aren't really a standard at this point. The good thing about the floppy is that it's a standard. However as net connections for the home speed up, there becomes less of a need for a floppy. And really if you need to transfer a 780 KB file from one computer in your house to another, shouldn't you already be running a LAN anyways?

b