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GeneralRe: I just figured out how to do code synthesis (i think)! Pin
Eddy Vluggen26-Oct-21 12:19
professionalEddy Vluggen26-Oct-21 12:19 
GeneralBlast from the past Pin
Mike Hankey26-Oct-21 5:09
mveMike Hankey26-Oct-21 5:09 
GeneralRe: Blast from the past PinPopular
Greg Utas26-Oct-21 5:13
professionalGreg Utas26-Oct-21 5:13 
PraiseRe: Blast from the past Pin
Eddy Vluggen26-Oct-21 12:26
professionalEddy Vluggen26-Oct-21 12:26 
GeneralRe: Blast from the past Pin
PIEBALDconsult26-Oct-21 5:15
mvePIEBALDconsult26-Oct-21 5:15 
GeneralRe: Blast from the past Pin
dandy7226-Oct-21 6:15
dandy7226-Oct-21 6:15 
GeneralRe: Blast from the past Pin
Mike Hankey26-Oct-21 7:42
mveMike Hankey26-Oct-21 7:42 
GeneralRe: Blast from the past Pin
trønderen26-Oct-21 11:27
trønderen26-Oct-21 11:27 
Win95 was available on a CD-ROM as well.

When I replaced my old PC with a floppy-less one, I bought an external USB floppy drive. It won't read all my old 5.25" real floppies (the 3.5" ones in a stiff plastic shell won't flop at all!) - but one problem is that since Windows XP, the driver insists on finding a format code in the boot sector indicating whether this is a 360K, 720K, 1.44M or 2.88M disk.

I guess that all official Windows releases were written to floppies with a proper format code, but several of the major blank floppy vendors sold 'preformatted' disks, which had the proper sector layout written to the disk, but without writing the format code to the boot sector. DOS and earlier Windows versions then tried reading the disk, assuming one format after the other, until it came upon one that worked. With XP, MS said 'This is silly - if there is no format code, we are not going out on a hunt, but treat the disk the way it claims to be: Unformatted!

So your major reason for keeping a pre-XP machine alive is to read old floppies that you bought as 'preformatted' but without the proper format code in the boot sector. There might possibly be some 3rd party USB floppy driver out there that can read those half-formatted floppies, even under Win 10, but I never heard of any. (If you can point me to one, I will ditch my old Win95 machine tomorrow!)
GeneralRe: Blast from the past Pin
Eddy Vluggen26-Oct-21 12:24
professionalEddy Vluggen26-Oct-21 12:24 
GeneralRe: Blast from the past Pin
Mike Hankey26-Oct-21 13:32
mveMike Hankey26-Oct-21 13:32 
GeneralRe: Blast from the past Pin
Eddy Vluggen26-Oct-21 13:54
professionalEddy Vluggen26-Oct-21 13:54 
GeneralRe: Blast from the past Pin
Mike Hankey26-Oct-21 14:12
mveMike Hankey26-Oct-21 14:12 
GeneralRe: Blast from the past Pin
Eddy Vluggen26-Oct-21 14:58
professionalEddy Vluggen26-Oct-21 14:58 
GeneralRe: Blast from the past Pin
Mike Hankey26-Oct-21 17:34
mveMike Hankey26-Oct-21 17:34 
GeneralRe: Blast from the past Pin
BryanFazekas28-Oct-21 3:18
BryanFazekas28-Oct-21 3:18 
GeneralSome things never change.... Pin
charlieg26-Oct-21 4:58
charlieg26-Oct-21 4:58 
GeneralRe: Some things never change.... Pin
Greg Utas26-Oct-21 5:05
professionalGreg Utas26-Oct-21 5:05 
GeneralRe: Some things never change.... Pin
charlieg26-Oct-21 5:20
charlieg26-Oct-21 5:20 
GeneralRe: Some things never change.... Pin
Nelek26-Oct-21 8:08
protectorNelek26-Oct-21 8:08 
GeneralRe: Some things never change.... Pin
obermd26-Oct-21 8:22
obermd26-Oct-21 8:22 
GeneralRe: Some things never change.... Pin
charlieg26-Oct-21 11:27
charlieg26-Oct-21 11:27 
GeneralHi Pin
phil.o26-Oct-21 3:44
professionalphil.o26-Oct-21 3:44 
GeneralRe: Hi Pin
Greg Utas26-Oct-21 3:46
professionalGreg Utas26-Oct-21 3:46 
GeneralRe: Hi Pin
phil.o26-Oct-21 5:23
professionalphil.o26-Oct-21 5:23 
GeneralRe: Hi Pin
OriginalGriff26-Oct-21 4:07
mveOriginalGriff26-Oct-21 4:07 

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