Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with 5.25

saying goodbye to my IBM PCjr

toftk — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 12:22:21 -0800

I have an old IBM PCjr 4860 that once upon a time we added a jrCaptain Tecmar extension piece onto it so we could attach a printer. I have three questions. I want to get rid of this beast but I want to print everything off the disks (I was quite the prolific writer as a kid). Unfortunately we lost the jrCaptain power transformer and cable (power supply) for this extension piece so we think that's why every time we turn on the printer it stops the computer from doing anything (no keyboard, no running of whatever it was running) and then upon turning off the printer it suddenly is back to normal. Where can I get my hands on that power supply or what could I use in it's place that wouldn't kill the extension. (voltage?) Second question: what about a way to transfer the big floppies onto a modern storage device? What are the options out there? Anything I can do at home? Any places that do this for you? Third question: what do I do with an old IBM PCjr when I want to toss it? IBM PCjr: How to save the old floppies to modern storage? And where do I dispose of the computer?

How to make an external 5.25" floppy drive?

-harlequin- — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 12:24:56 -0800

Does anyone know (or can think of) any way to make an external 5.25" floppy drive? (preferably USB or wireless, for use with PC/Windows systems). I'm quite at home with a soldering iron, but I don't know much about what is compatible with these old drives.

I'm not after "make an extension of the PC internal floppy cable" answers, as I'm looking to make an external drive that can be plugged into a computer or laptop that has no special hardware, and without the use of a screwdriver.
Likewise, "put a miniature pc with a wireless card in the external enclosure with the drive" is a useful solution if you know of any uber-miniature dirt-cheap PCs to do it with, but currently I don't. (Let me know if you do :-))

Does anyone know if the adaptor inside a USB external 3.5" floppy drive would work if swapped out with a 5.25" drive? (I'm guessing the adaptor chip wouldn't have 5.25 detection or specs, but it seems the closest thing to a chance)

Is there anything like the IDE-to-USB adaptors that would work for floppy drives?

Any other ideas?

Thanks