Stuff and Things.

[mrbombermillzy]

@PhilC What do you need for transferring to the ThinkPad?

Will something like a PCMCIA USB interface card do the trick or is there something else?

[rubber_jonnie]

@rubber_jonnie id usually be fine at getting floppies transferred over, have greaseweazel etc but these softpaqs come as an exe file that then writes the disk itself. So the problem has been with running the exe and it being able to use a real floppy drive, DosBox runs the exes but then can't access the floppy from the exe.

I'll be fine once I can get the stuff on to my old Thinkpad.

Can you connect the Thinkpad to your network and set up a share and connect your Mac to that and transfer the files?

I do that sort of thing pretty regularly.

[PhilC]

@alexh oh I got it for peanuts and wanted to learn how to fix it and similar laptops. The LTE is much better quality, so no big deal if it doesn't work.

@mrbombermillzy I have to get the softpaqs onto the Thinkpad to use the floppy drive to write the disks.

@rubber_jonnie it doesn't have a network interface built in unfortunately. I do have a couple of pcmcia cards and the laptop does have one USB 1 port but it's getting the drivers over to it to get them to work.

The Thinkpad does have a cdrom, so worst case I can write the files to a CD if U can find one

I've got a laplink cable, may see if I can get a copy of that program on to a floppy.

[PhilC]

Hopefully sorted now but had to remove the HDD from the TP and put it into my newer Thinkpad and copy the files directly to it.

I do need to backup that drive too, so will do that before I put it away again.

EDIT:

Amusingly after all that I'm able to write the disks just fine, the Contura can load them but the HDD interface is dead The drive from the Contura works fine when used with my USB adaptor.

Oh well, all a learning opportunity.

[rubber_jonnie]

Hopefully sorted now but had to remove the HDD from the TP and put it into my newer Thinkpad and copy the files directly to it.

I do need to backup that drive too, so will do that before I put it away again.

EDIT:

Amusingly after all that I'm able to write the disks just fine, the Contura can load them but the HDD interface is dead The drive from the Contura works fine when used with my USB adaptor.

Oh well, all a learning opportunity.

Ahh the joy of old tech...

TBH I do keep a USB<->IDE interface handy and one of my olde worlde laptops actually has 2 drive bays so I can drop a drive in if necessary for that sort of thing.

[PhilC]

@rubber_jonnie the old Thinkpad has one of those swappable drive bays and can do anything from floppy to CD drive in it, it'll do a second IDE drive as well.

And I tempted fate earlier, the Thinkpads drive is now dying, do busily trying to clone it if it'll stay alive long enough.

[rubber_jonnie]

@rubber_jonnie the old Thinkpad has one of those swappable drive bays and can do anything from floppy to CD drive in it, it'll do a second IDE drive as well.

My old Dell has a bay like that too, it's brilliant what they used to do in terms of functionality BITD.

And I tempted fate earlier, the Thinkpads drive is now dying, do busily trying to clone it if it'll stay alive long enough.

And here is where a Mac or Linux is good, DD is great for drive cloning.

[PhilC]

@rubber_jonnie I use Balena Etcher for most things Windows compatible file systems.

[rubber_jonnie]

@rubber_jonnie I use Balena Etcher for most things Windows compatible file systems.

I also use Etcher for some things.

[mrbombermillzy]

@rubber_jonnie the old Thinkpad has one of those swappable drive bays and can do anything from floppy to CD drive in it, it'll do a second IDE drive as well.

I think I have a 'TP only' floppy drive, if its any use to anyone?

And I tempted fate earlier, the Thinkpads drive is now dying, do busily trying to clone it if it'll stay alive long enough.

Oh dear. Is it an IBM 'DeathStar' drive by any chance?