Make me a 5.25 Floppy?
Hello! I just got my hands on my favorite childhood computer, the Sharp PC-7000. She's a beauty.
Anyway, I have all the boot disks and games I need, except a copy of the beloved Microsoft Word 4.0 for DOS. I spent hours exploring those menu options and had so much fun as a kid. I'd love to get my hands on install disks for them, but right now I'm not ready to invest in a full 5.25 USB Floppy Drive Setup to make them myself.
Would anyone be able to make me the six disks found on this WinWorld download?
I'm definitely willing to compensate you for the time and resources. If you aren't able to do this but know of another online service or person that does this for people, I'd really appreciate the information.
Regards,
Tim
Comments
Where about are you located?
California, USA. Good question.
I have a lot of IBM PC (original 5150/5160/5170/8530) and dumping machine with both 5.25" and 3.5" floppy drives and Hard Disk (CPU : N80286-12, 286 clone)
Also I use Super Card Pro on Windows PC if I need to backup copy protected disk.
(with 5.25" 360KB/300rpm Drvie, 5.25" 1.2MB/360rpm Drive, 3.5" 1.44MB/300-360rpm Drive)
I copies a few of disk images to run on old IBM PC by using SCP or dumping 80286
@ibmpc5150 Sounds like you have all the hardware needed to make disks like this then. Would you be able to do this for me and mail them to the USA?
I'll be moving soon to Boulder, Colorado USA from Germany within the month, so I too can send you some floppies as well in the future.
I have a t3100SX with a Teac FD-55BR external drive for DD disks, and I can swap it out with my FD-55GFR for HD disks if you're into that sort of thing. It has an internal 3.5" HD drive as well. I don't do dumps as often so ibmpc is better for that realm.
Don't know if you have a preference for disks, but I have Kodaks/Verbatims and 3ms. I also have a box of unused Wabash disks, but I don't think you'll want those.
Winworld is sort of a low traffic forum, you should be able to find someone closer on the Vintage Computing forums: http://www.vcfed.org/forum/ - just one thing to look out for - if you ask there, just generically say that you want some disks copied until you contact someone via private message. The moderators there can get a bit uptight about copyrights.
Once you get playing with it, you might want to try out all kinds of other, even new, things. (Like NyanCat 360k, Magiduck, running Windows 1.01 off of dual 360k floppies, Commander Keen CGA off of dual 360k, and so on). You might want to set up a more permanent solution for getting data over to it. I think an easy way would be to use Laplink. Laplink can "bootstrap" itself over a serial cable. The only catch is you must already have a DOS boot disk - which it sounds like you do - and, must obtain or create a "null modem" serial cable (or laplink parallel cable), and hardware compatible serial ports at both ends (USB serial won't work).
Anyway, I'm on the other side of the US (Georgia - get me out of here!)
... Now I want to play with one of those Sharp PCs
@yourepicfailure How exciting for the change up. I’ve heard so many great things about Boulder. I’m a bit new to the details of this realm so don’t even know much about how one goes about getting blank 5.25 disks these days. If you want to make copies for me maybe message me with a rough estimate of what it would cost to do it all.
@SomeGuy that is some amazing info. I’ll look into that forum. Also if you want to get your hands on a Sharp PC-7000 let me know. There are only two main sites that post details on it and I’ve had a post on each saying I’m looking for one for a couple years. So I’ve been getting an email or so each month with people all over the world selling them. The stars finely aligned and I got one but I know of quite a few other people that were also selling them that I didn’t buy. There was one on Craigslist a couple months back in Florida and one in great condition with the original box up in Quebec Canada. They were selling for $100-150 + shipping. Message me any time if you want to chase one down. I’d love to have a knowledgeable person I can chat with that’s also playing around with one. Same goes for anyone that comes across this thread.
The most common places to find NOS floppies are ebay or people on vcfed offering to sell some.
One key thing to note is what your drives are capable of. 99% chance your sharp could probably read up to 360k DD disks. Many DD/2D drives don't like HD disks and vice versa. So it's always best to know what drives your computer has. Or if you're feeling techie, you could spend some quid for a newfangled floppy emulator and swap one of your drives with it.
Also, while poking around there I'd check the cmos battery. If it's the original battery, replace it regardless if it holds a charge. Those old batteries are ticking timebombs waiting to spill corrosive battery guts all over the board. May take some light soldering if it's not socketed.
Another key thing to look for is leaky capacitors. Looks like black solid or clear liquid around the capacitor. Bulging or not, capacitors can and will leak corrosive electrolyte. And if they don't, they have a tendency to sway out of limits risking electrical damage. My t3100sx's power board is on its second recapping after it failed yet again. (give it credit, lasted 15 years since my father recapped it and the computer itself is nearing 30 years old)
If you don't trust your soldering skills, again there is someone on vcfed willing to do it for a fee.
Thanks for the advice on what to look for @yourepicfailure. I hadn't even thought of those maintenance things to look for yet but definitely makes sense. Also thanks for the intro on the floppy emulator. I hadn't seen one of those yet.