Getting CPC stuff and write CPCdisks on Win3.1/win95/win98

[MacDeath]

Hi guys, I will soon go to Alchimie X.



http://triplea.fr/alchimie/pages/index.php
(sorry, in french only)

It is a nice Demoparty actually.

I'll bring some CPC of course.
Last edition 2 years ago, I went there and found out no one there had a PC with Floppy disk drive on it.
So I simply couldn't write disks.

This year I plan to get there with enough stuff to write disks.

But i won't bring my big towering Desktop.
So I may have to rely on older laptop PCs with internal floppy disk drive.


Sad part : those venerable old piece of (not so)retrojunk are all running on Win98 at best.

I may have one with Win95 perhaps, even a 486 in Win3.1 but this one wont be used as no USB port at all.


So.

What solution can I get with what I have ?



I have an USB external floppydiskdrive, but it seems it doesn't work.


Also I found out the CPCwiki is quite badly organised concerning pages on "how to write real disks"



= is it possible to find something to use external USB floppyDiskDrive to write CPC 3"1/2 floppies ?

= are there nice tools like CPCDiskXP more likely named CPCDiskWin98/95/3.1 ?

= Please I don't want to pull out some MsDos tricks...



Any links or ideas welkommen.


on another notice, are there emulators for those older yet nice PCs ?



Ok, found the page...
Category:Emulation Tools - CPCWiki

somewhat empty IMO...

[MacDeath]

Ok I bypassed the problem.


I actually installed WinXp on my old Sony VAIO, it runs à360Mhz and had 64Meg RAM...
actually the RAM was the bare minimum, my brother even told I was stupid.


It's like running SymbOS on a 464/664 actually, lol...


but I managed to find a 128Meg RAMstick compatible on another old Compaq Armada (this one running at 233mhz, even worse) so I now maxed the RAM of my VAIO... Xp runs a bit better.


So now I can certainly use CPCdiskXp on it, will try if the disk drive can write properly.
Hope it will work, it is always better to go to a demoparty with something able to write real Disks if you come with old stuffs.

[redbox]

I actually installed WinXp on my old Sony VAIO, it runs à360Mhz and had 64Meg RAM...
but I managed to find a 128Meg RAMstick compatible on another old Compaq Armada (this one running at 233mhz, even worse) so I now maxed the RAM of my VAIO... Xp runs a bit better.

I was going to say aim for XP but with a minimum of 192mb of RAM

I did this with an old ThinkPad laptop and it was okay just for downloading some files and copying them to 3.5" discs.

[MacDeath]

Those laptops from a certain era with both disk drive and almost enough to run WinXp service pack2 are really a thing to keep preciously I guess.


As I told my brother : this would only serve as a dsk bank and writing machine...
Still can be tricky to find such computer and found out you can't fill the RAM slot because you can't find anything.

Batteries are always dead as well, or powersupply missing, and those internal disk drive could often be removed, but you can"t find replacement easily as all manufacturers were into their stuff designed to fit only this model.


Problem is WinXp is so much better if you are to use USBkeys or whatever... And CPCdiskXp of course.

[Munchausen]

A little while ago I had similar problems. I ended up using a pentium 90 laptop with an external floppy drive and writing files from DOS. It also has a bunch of DOS cpc emulators and I put on loads of old DOS games too, so it's pretty nice really.


You can use a USB floppy drive, but you need a DOS on the CPC that can read FAT12 disks.


I guess it's one reason to get a kryoflux. But they are out of my price range really.