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(The Register)   Good news everyone: Linux has finally fixed that pesky floppy disk bug. Your desktop will soon be unstoppable   (theregister.com) divider line
18
    More: Followup, Floppy disk, floppy disks, Linux kernel, USB flash drive, floppy drives, Operating system, floppy diskettes, high-density  
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848 clicks; posted to STEM » on 08 Dec 2022 at 8:06 PM (15 weeks ago)   |   Favorite    |   share:  Share on Twitter share via Email Share on Facebook



18 Comments     (+0 »)
View Voting Results: Smartest and Funniest
 
LurkerSupreme [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2022-12-08 8:19:52 PM  
Linux kernel 6.2 should contain fixes for some problems handling floppy disks, a move which shows that someone somewhere is still using them.

Whoever that is has my sympathies. If there is anything I don't miss from the early days of computing, it's working with floppy disks.

/About as much data integrity as words written in sand on the beach
 
mrmopar5287 [TotalFark]
2022-12-08 8:29:52 PM  

LurkerSupreme: data integrity


First lesson given to me when working with floppies was to have a backup of any data saved on the computer hard disk. I was all but told that floppies were unreliable and only existed for immediately transporting data from one computer to another, and when you found the data was corrupted or otherwise inaccessible you could then format another disk and try again.
 
RealXavori
2022-12-08 8:34:02 PM  

mrmopar5287: LurkerSupreme: data integrity

First lesson given to me when working with floppies was to have a backup of any data saved on the computer hard disk. I was all but told that floppies were unreliable and only existed for immediately transporting data from one computer to another, and when you found the data was corrupted or otherwise inaccessible you could then format another disk and try again.


First lesson I gave myself cuz I was  just a kid was that floppies were the only way to save data since it was a TRS-80 Model III, and it didn't have a hard drive.

/Yes.  I'll kindly ask you to refrain from remaining on my lawn.
 
Fursecution [BareFark]
2022-12-08 8:49:56 PM  
That is a nice concise history of the 90mm floppy.

/Has a NeXTstation with the 2.8MB "ED" drive...
//Never got any disks for it.
///A local office supply store wanted $50 per disk, back in 1997.
 
akallen404
2022-12-08 8:53:38 PM  
Any minute now Linux_Yes is gonna pop out of a bush and tell us how this proves that blockchain technology is the the future.
 
VictoryCabal
2022-12-08 9:01:29 PM  
Is a hard wallet a 3.5" floppy or a 5.25" floppy?
 
chitownmike
2022-12-08 10:13:42 PM  

VictoryCabal: Is a hard wallet a 3.5" floppy or a 5.25" floppy?


Depends, just kinda hard or fully hard
 
Wine Sipping Elitist [TotalFark]
2022-12-08 11:11:22 PM  

mrmopar5287: LurkerSupreme: data integrity

First lesson given to me when working with floppies was to have a backup of any data saved on the computer hard disk. I was all but told that floppies were unreliable and only existed for immediately transporting data from one computer to another, and when you found the data was corrupted or otherwise inaccessible you could then format another disk and try again.


It was super fun loading the 10+ Windows 95 disks onto a new hd. It was super fun when one disk couldn't extract a cab file due to corruption, maybe it was Pinball but it didn't matter because it would kill the entire install process. Then isos and disc burners came around and changed the game. I recall having to use a specific rom burner program (Nero?) to get around the copy protection.

Having a MSDN account around the time of Win98se made you an IT God.
 
Ghastly [TotalFark]
2022-12-08 11:45:24 PM  
Now if they'll just fix the audio latency issues.
 
dyhchong
2022-12-09 1:29:16 AM  

Ghastly: Now if they'll just fix the audio latency issues.


I vote 4k60p DisplayPort issues first. One can only withstand so much flickering before they go on a murderous rampage.
 
My Sober Alt
2022-12-09 4:28:06 AM  
For some reason this made me want to install Linux on an Osborne, but I don't have an Osborne.  I found one online that sold for $75 in August.  I just saved $75 + shipping.  I don['t need to try to install linux on an Osborne, but if I took one on an airplane and used it there would be a viral video, I just know it.

The ad said it "turns on", but it didn't say it actually booted up.
 
sensitive yet dangerous
2022-12-09 4:49:03 AM  

Fursecution: That is a nice concise history of the 90mm floppy.

/Has a NeXTstation with the 2.8MB "ED" drive...
//Never got any disks for it.
///A local office supply store wanted $50 per disk, back in 1997.


The ED floppies were big in Japan to a degree. At least, more computers sold there had the drives in them vs. models sold elsewhere. Not so sure the disks themselves had as much market penetration.

IBM and Sun tried to make them a thing in the States but nobody appeared to buy into them. At least, the USG didn't, because if they did the disks would probably still be in production somewhere.

NeXT used them probably because they had a lot of involvement with Japanese suppliers, including Sony for floppy drives, Canon for the MO drives, and Quantum (built by MKE in Japan) for hard disks.
 
thrasherrr
2022-12-09 9:21:24 AM  

Wine Sipping Elitist: mrmopar5287: LurkerSupreme: data integrity

First lesson given to me when working with floppies was to have a backup of any data saved on the computer hard disk. I was all but told that floppies were unreliable and only existed for immediately transporting data from one computer to another, and when you found the data was corrupted or otherwise inaccessible you could then format another disk and try again.

It was super fun loading the 10+ Windows 95 disks onto a new hd. It was super fun when one disk couldn't extract a cab file due to corruption, maybe it was Pinball but it didn't matter because it would kill the entire install process.


CSB from the day:  The first IBM Windows 98 system preloads came on 70ish floppy disks.  We had an bug report that after restore, hearts.exe could not run.  We tracked this down to a difference in CRC between it and the working MS file.  Yet the file and disk were always perfectly fine when extracted by itself. After testers installing different disk sets about 200 times, we found that there was always exactly one CRC error on the 44th disk.  It turns out a register overflow would occur in the floppy disk controller code only after a really large amount of reads with no writes.  The team cumulatively spent over 3000 hours just sticking floppy disks into systems one after another to figure out the problem and test the fix.

I don't know if other OEMs had the same bug. it was in the original FDD controller code from the IBM AT and had been around in IBM computers for at least 13 years.

/never want to see another floppy disk after that misery
 
Linux_Yes
2022-12-09 9:51:01 AM  

akallen404: Any minute now Linux_Yes is gonna pop out of a bush and tell us how this proves that blockchain technology is the the future.


Nope

Just that my MSI x570s carbon max MB, Ryzen 5700X cpu, 1TB samsung 980 pro nvme, and 16GB of ram running debian testing w/ MATE desktop is very very fast indeed.
And runs cool as a cucumber too.
 
Linux_Yes
2022-12-09 9:53:28 AM  

thrasherrr: Wine Sipping Elitist: mrmopar5287: LurkerSupreme: data integrity

First lesson given to me when working with floppies was to have a backup of any data saved on the computer hard disk. I was all but told that floppies were unreliable and only existed for immediately transporting data from one computer to another, and when you found the data was corrupted or otherwise inaccessible you could then format another disk and try again.

It was super fun loading the 10+ Windows 95 disks onto a new hd. It was super fun when one disk couldn't extract a cab file due to corruption, maybe it was Pinball but it didn't matter because it would kill the entire install process.

CSB from the day:  The first IBM Windows 98 system preloads came on 70ish floppy disks.  We had an bug report that after restore, hearts.exe could not run.  We tracked this down to a difference in CRC between it and the working MS file.  Yet the file and disk were always perfectly fine when extracted by itself. After testers installing different disk sets about 200 times, we found that there was always exactly one CRC error on the 44th disk.  It turns out a register overflow would occur in the floppy disk controller code only after a really large amount of reads with no writes.  The team cumulatively spent over 3000 hours just sticking floppy disks into systems one after another to figure out the problem and test the fix.

I don't know if other OEMs had the same bug. it was in the original FDD controller code from the IBM AT and had been around in IBM computers for at least 13 years.

/never want to see another floppy disk after that misery


You need to stop playing w ur floppy then
 
bingethinker [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2022-12-09 12:59:56 PM  
The bug I remember with older Windows computers was that they would always try to boot from the floppy drive if there was a disk in there. This was long after you could fit that OS onto a floppy. So you had to make sure to eject any floppies before you booted up, or the computer would just sit there, looking for Windows on the floppy and not finding it.
 
Quantumbunny
2022-12-09 6:12:57 PM  

bingethinker: The bug I remember with older Windows computers was that they would always try to boot from the floppy drive if there was a disk in there. This was long after you could fit that OS onto a floppy. So you had to make sure to eject any floppies before you booted up, or the computer would just sit there, looking for Windows on the floppy and not finding it.


That, like today, is a bios boot order thing. That's not a "Windows computer" thing.

If you mean fallback wasn't very graceful/non-existent in terms of "found drive, will load first, then stop", that's fair. But not a Windows issue.
 
I hereby demand that I be given a Fark account [TotalFark] [OhFark]
2022-12-09 8:36:38 PM  

mrmopar5287: LurkerSupreme: data integrity

First lesson given to me when working with floppies was to have a backup of any data saved on the computer hard disk. I was all but told that floppies were unreliable and only existed for immediately transporting data from one computer to another, and when you found the data was corrupted or otherwise inaccessible you could then format another disk and try again.


You didn't learn the right lesson.

Don't do backups.

Do restores.

Backups are just a step in what you need to do.
 
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