Talk:Floppy disk hardware emulator

State of the art
Article had almost been stubbed due to edit warring. Restored to last stable revision and contents. Moving the previous sections to Talk:Floppy_disk_hardware_emulator/Archive_2 (already created) has been blocked by automated filter. Another authorized user should retry. 137.204.148.73 (talk) 13:02, 14 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Done . That was probably down to me. The move looked like a mass delete because of the (lack of) edit summary mentioning archiving. Ho-hum - fixed now.  Velella  Velella Talk 13:06, 14 October 2011 (UTC)


 * The user has also conveniently archived the recent discussion of why most of the content they just re-added was removed in the first place. Rwessel (talk) 18:09, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Re-additions of low level interface details
Frankly, I don't see the value of including pin-outs and low-level signal descriptions in this article. They are far to detailed and low level for an encyclopedia. They should be removed (basically the table, and most of the misnamed "Solid state storage" section). This topic deserves only a short article. Rwessel (talk) 18:09, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Edit warring memories
Hoping this article will not fall into the edit-warring downward spiral again... 137.204.148.73 (talk) 22:21, 24 November 2011 (UTC)


 * WP:BATTLEGROUND & WP:POINT - no further comment needed. 137.204.148.73 (talk) 08:49, 25 November 2011


 * "plan of attack..." "pizza connection..."  "I'm going to allow..."  - no further comment needed. 137.204.148.73 (talk) 09:38, 25 November 2011 (UTC)


 * WP:HUNT - next misbehaviour reported WP:ANI. 137.204.148.73 (talk) 14:09, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Stateless Emulators
I am having trouble understanding exactly what this means:

"The emulator saves the data written to the floppy in either local storage (stand-alone emulators), or in a remote storage device or data exchange module (stateless emulators)."

I do not believe that a floppy disk hardware emulator can be stateless. It needs to keep track of rotational state of the "disk" and the position of the "head".

Are we just talking about the difference between a board or box you install locally and a cable to another computer? --Guy Macon (talk) 06:55, 26 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm unhappy with the section as well, but was struggling to incorporate the terms stateless and stand-alone, which appear to have some currency in the area (although I'm not fully convinced). In either case the emulator is attached to the system in question.  The difference is where the floppy image is stored, more-or-less locally vs. remotely.  It's stateless in the sense that the floppy in not part of the device's state - IOW, you could replace the physical emulator, tell the new box on which network share to find the image, and away you'd go.  The flip side is that the stateless versions can't work without the external storage.  The "remote" scenario also makes it easier for the supporting system to update the floppy.  But it's definitely a grey line.  I'd be OK with changing that to something like "The emulator saves the data written to the floppy in either local storage, a remote storage device or a data exchange module."   Rwessel (talk) 07:40, 26 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Nice rewrite. No grey line left after little rework. 137.204.148.73 (talk) 13:14, 26 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Good points. I am still thinking about the best way to present the information. I am hoping we can make it clear without using the terms "stateless" "memoryless" or "data exchange module" (which sound like something you would install in a Jefferies tube on the Starship Enterprise --Guy Macon (talk) 05:10, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Low-Level Interface Details
I have been thinking about the direction that this article should be moving toward. In my opinion, it should be a short, clear treatment of the topic that covers all kinds of floppy disk hardware emulators without delving too deep into things like tracks, sectors, and pinouts. Floppy Emulators are wildly popular among Commodore 64 users, (the original disks wear out and drift out of alignment a lot) but that kind of floppy disk hardware emulator is completely different from the kind that replaces a FDD on a PC. The C64 drive has an onboard CPU that handles all the details like tracks and sectors and the interface to the C64 is a simple serial (serial, but not RS232) link. The Apple II has a completely different scheme, as does the Atari. That's why I think we need to move away for the kind of low-level details that only apply to one kind of floppy disk hardware emulator. There is a place on Wikipedia for all of those low-level details, but they properly belong in separate articles about the different interfaces (often merged with the articles about the different kinds of drives). Agree? Disagree? Comments are always welcome. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:22, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Is this for real?
Is this even real? There is no link to any external sites describing it or where you can purchase... Fedor (talk) 06:35, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The article has quite a number of references. Wikipedia isn't a shopping site or referral site, though, which is why you don't see links to places you can buy them. Qwyrxian (talk) 09:11, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately Fedor is correct - there don't appear to be any actual references for FDEs, just for the other stuff in the article. Little is available other than from a couple of manufacturer's web sites.  We've had a couple of rounds of this page being turning into an advert for one of those, but perhaps some linkage is appropriate.  But these are most definitely real.  Rwessel (talk) 16:00, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see. I didn't notice that the bulk of those refs all support a single statement...hmmm. Remembering the fights here before, they're most certainly real, given the effort people spent trying to support individual brands. Haven't these ever been discussed in a textbook, or some sort of article about updating equipment to handle legacy devices? I don't know any details about this subject at all, but it does seem obvious to me that 1) they must exist (because if they didn't someone would invent them, since the need is obvious), and 2) that someone must have written about them somewhere that's at least a little bit neutral.  Hmmm...  Qwyrxian (talk) 23:16, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I've not seen anything past some blog posts. Unfortunately, these are fairly specialized equipment, and not something that's going so see much end-user installation.  Certainly no one is installing these in PCs, they go into other (almost all non-consumer) equipment that was built with a floppy to make them easy to update *from* a PC.  And they're fairly binary devices - either they're going to work, or not, and if they do, they should be near plug-and-play.  If you're an end user with a CNC milling machine with a floppy, you're probably going to get the FDE from the milling machine vendor, probably not replace it yourself.  So what's to write about, and for what audience?  We should have something, though. Rwessel (talk) 23:39, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

fields of application
in other articles in wiki, such explanations of technical devices contain example apps, where benefits are shown. here this could be noise reduction, cost saving (mechanical drives fail), security. A discussed subject are replacements for technical machines and measurement devices. 87.184.231.222 (talk) 20:39, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
 * This appears to be covered in the history section. Rwessel (talk) 01:10, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Any possibility to this 'technology' or some variant providing a hard disk equivalent to non disk computer ?
Put succinctly

Aware of the limitations whether os specific or other resources (hardware) but does the possibility exist for a version of this hardware that could emulate a disk drive i.e. something > the standard floppy content size? And by extension: would anyone provide it to a very limited purchase base? If answers are forthcoming perhaps elaboration on both levels (technical vs commercial) would be the complete (best?) answer. And something more than just one word (NO Yes) answers.

Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.184.218.187 (talk) 20:48, 27 September 2019 (UTC)