Talk:Floppy-disk controller

message: This is a confusing article. The introduction speaks of FDCs in general, but the article launches into a detailed description of a particular FDC - which the article does not identify - and also a particular FDC IC, which again the article does not identify. Mirror Vax 07:34, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Confusing

message: The vast majority of FDCs are compatible from a coding perspective, they use the same ports for the same purposes (and provide the same problems). For those interested, more in-depth information is located here.
Kemp 09:14, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OSfaq have moved, now at here, but are in migration from phpWiki to MediaWiki; if in a future not work, check this. --Museo8bits 11:36, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Not So Confusing

message: I have to disagree. While the NEC uPD765 floppy disk controller and it's clones (Super I/O, etc.) are the standard for IBM PCs, the Western Digital WD179X chipset was used in many types non-PC home computers in earlier years. Also the custom FDCs found in the Amiga and Apple / Macintosh computers deserve mention, especially due to their design and innovation at the time.
If the article was made more general, and then listed specific data on the other types of FDCs I've mentioned, it would be possible to then add useful information about the history of their development (from multi-chip designs spanning two or more PCBs to single IC devices) and how many of them work with an external VCO as well as the CPU-controlled FDC. Alone, the origins of the IBM PC-specific FDC and implementation details are rather dull. ;)
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.110.2.237 (talk • contribs) 18:45, 29 June 2006
:A more general article is quite appropriate.  Feel free to extend it. -R. S. Shaw 21:12, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Or is it?

message: I think that there's something missing in this article: The article doesn't mention what floppy controllers look like in 2014. I mean, in the beginning, there were ISA floppy controllers which were later followed by on-board floppy controllers. Today, floppy controllers have started to disappear from MBs which makes it difficult to use floppy drives if you really need to. I happen to have a floppy drive in my computer but it doesn't work because I can't connect the drive to the MB because the MB has neither an on-board floppy controller nor is there a floppy connector to connect the floppy wire to. Fortunately, I don't need the drive. But if I really needed to use it - what would I do? Buy a PCIe floppy controller? (That is, do PCIe floppy controller exist at all?) -- 2001:A60:21A5:7801:213:3BFF:FE04:1EE (talk) 01:36, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: You buy a small computer like RPi that is capable of making measurements of 500 kbit/s pulses and connect it to the read output from the floppy. The computer needs to measure the time between the pulses with a precision of at least 0.6 µs. The rest is a software processing business. Bytesock (talk) 00:10, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Floppy controllers today 

message: So, "1.44 MB" is/was used everywhere – but it's nonsense. 2880 sectors make exactly 1474560 bytes capacity, equivalent to 1.47456 MB (M=10002) or 1.40625 MiB (Mi=10242). "1.44 MB" were created when people mixed binary 1440 KiB (Ki=1024) with decimal M=1000K, so it's actually 1.44 × 1000 × 1024 bytes which is neither decimal M nor binary Mi. Can we please just use K or Ki for 1024 without reiterating this nonsense? --Zac67 (talk) 20:24, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: In almost all markings on brochures, hardware, software etc. The 3.5 inch "HD" drive was labeled "1.44MB" regardless of the mathematical truth. The recognition and name comparison factor for people that stumble on these devices should not be underestimated. KB has always been an abnormality because the "K" factor doesn't exist and become inconsequential for M and higher prefixes. Whenever storage size has been discussed for computers, base 2 has been implied. Harddisk manufacturers were the ones that started to confuse people by using base 10 to inflate their numbers. Thus to be consistent, base 2 is used even if the SI system is based on base 10 and not let self interest marketing department confuse the units. A similar story can be found with "DB-9" connectors that actually don't exist. The correct name is "DE-9", DB-9 is missnominer. Bytesock (talk) 21:44, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  Does it mean WP:MOS, WP:COMPUNITS and such do not apply when something is common practice? I'd be fine using KiB btw – using k for 1024 is pretty strange because the world doesn't even do that. In storage, binary prefixes are not used conherently – they are only used in software; datasheets and hardware documentation use decimal prefixes. --Zac67 (talk) 21:57, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  WP:COMPUNITS etc may not have taken into account all the fractional decimals and the confusion that causes when you actually starts to make calculations on encoding, bytes, sectors, tracks, discs, filesystems etc. Not too rarely there's a need to get it right to the bit to be sure the fractions are not because one missed to take encoding into account etc. This comes into play when trying to rescue old floppies. One can put a footnote k=1024, or use units of 160 * 2^10 bytes etc. Bytesock (talk) 00:02, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  Took a look around: List of floppy disk formats has an extra column Marketed capacity and a footnote on this issue. Would you agree to moving the "1.44 MB" to the comment column? --Zac67 (talk) 19:10, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  Make an extra column between Format and Capacity to indicate "marketed" format. One thing to keep in mind is that many IBM drives had "1.44" inscribed into the eject button. So anyone that hasn't ever used these devices would most likely more easily orient themselves with a such hint. Btw there's data missing like rpm for the 160 kB format and others, if you can find those, it would be a good thing. The point with these tables is that they are useful when rescuing data from floppies before the bit-rot and to get a grasp of what possibilities that were available at the time. Bytesock (talk) 22:23, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  "1.44 MB" 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: In the "Format Data" section, there are references to SD and DD as in "Single Density" and "Double Density".
The C64 1541 is Single SIDED, not Single DENSITY.
I have changed SD to SSDD (as in Single Sided, Double Density).
Other "SD" entries may be incorrect too. Please check.
If you think I am incorrect, please let me know.
Chris Fletcher (talk) 08:24, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Format Data Section inaccuracies 

message: AFAIK Apple had Shugart Associates remove most of the electronics from the drive they purchased and included Apple's own version on their controller card so that the drive interface looked nothing like the figure in this article.  The Apple FD interface for example directly accessed the stepper motor as opposed to the step and direction conventional interface.  Likewise, Apple implemented GCR in the controller as opposed to FM/MFM in conventional FD.  IBM on the other hand bought a "stock" FD for the PC with the drive interface corresponding to the figure in this article.  I suppose I could dig up some RS's if anyone can dispute this but to me it is blue sky :-) Tom94022 (talk) 21:50, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Apple vs IBM FD interfaces. 

message: ::::If this is now going to be an article about floppy interfaces of all kinds, I have a weak opinion that it would be best for readers if we merged the content into Floppy-disk controller. These are both fairly esoteric topics that are not appropriate to merge into Floppy disk but, do they each need their own stand-alone article? Probably not. ~Kvng (talk) 01:39, 3 January 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with merging Floppy disk drive interface into Floppy-disk controller. The "interface" page has barely four paragraphs worth of core content, and the giant tables at the end could be collapsed. It's mostly IBM PC related anyway, so incorporating it into this article could encourage folks to come forward and add some non-IBM info too. DraugTheWhopper (talk) 17:02, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge [[Floppy disk drive interface]] article into this article

message: i know a bit about computers, but i couldn't even start making sense of these sources in 5 minutes.
they have no table of content, they start with endless numbers of pages of weird diagnostics error messages.
they require a weekend's worth of special training in IBM idiosyncrasies even for an educated person.
add some minimal amount of context, like page numbers. or better yet, find a human readable document on this controller.
with a reference like this you can claim almost anything. Nowakki (talk) 06:09, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually there is a table of content on page 1 and then at the beginning of each section.  The specific pages relied upon are listed in the reference. While you may not understand IBM MLM's, there are many who do and can validate or correct the statement in this article regarding the information on those pages.  Tom94022 (talk) 18:03, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  IBM manuals as reference