Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2000 10:27:17 -0500 From: Network Administrator <admin@scls.lib.wi.us> To: Marc van Woerkom <marc.vanwoerkom@science-factory.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: mount alien floppy? (Brother word processor) Message-ID: <4.2.2.20000807101457.07b0e100@mail.scls.lib.wi.us> In-Reply-To: <20000807131654.3FF161EE7@nil.science-factory.com> References: <4.2.2.20000804073716.03e5d190@mail.scls.lib.wi.us> <4.2.2.20000804073716.03e5d190@mail.scls.lib.wi.us>
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At 08:16 AM 8/7/00 , Marc van Woerkom wrote: >Is there no way to link the brother hardware to a FreeBSD box? >Seraial link or such? > >If those floppies are readable at all on PC hardware you might have >luck hunting for a converter in old MS DOS file collections (like >FIDO mailbox systems :) No linkage is possible. The Brother unit has an integrated daisy wheel printer. There are no output ports of any kind. The floppies are truly alien. I tried dd with if=/dev/fd0 and it aborted when fd0 didn't find what it expected. Their web site indicates that their oldest models use a 240K proprietary format, and I think that is what I'm up against. Pretty sure I'm near the end of this line of inquiry, as it seems the only thing to do now would be to attempt connecting their floppy drive hardware to a Wintel motherboard and writing a custom FreeBSD driver for it. I'm not seriously considering trying it myself, and (since it seems notably unprofitable and masochistic) I don't expect anyone to leap forward and volunteer. Thanks to everyone who offered info. ----------------------------------- Greg Barniskis <admin@scls.lib.wi.us> Network Administrator Library Interchange Network (LINK) South Central Library System (SCLS) <http://www.scls.lib.wi.us/>; To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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