How can I get application to ST with these constraints?

[+Ripdubski]

I have a 520ST, SF354, and. SX212. I have 0 (zero) program disks.

 

Is there any wy to get a program to it so it can be written to disk? Im thinking i need a terminal program to start with at the very least. I was thinking about an SD interface but not ready yet.

 

Some way to write to the 360K floppy? Connect the drive mech up to PC even it would even work?

 

Just out of luck for now?

 

Any help wouold be appreciated.

[Kylev]

Ripdubski,

 

If you have an old PC with an internal floppy drive (3.5"), then ppera has a program that will write .st disk images to real disks. This will not work with USB connected drives, though.

The program is called floimage, as I recall.

 

To be safe, format the disk on the ST and then use that disk in the PC drive as the destination for the .st disk image write. Sorry if the instructions seem a bit sparse, but it has been a couple of years since I last had access to a floppy equipped PC.

 

Perhaps someone else with more recent experience can add more detail and supply the correct program name, if i have that wrong.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Russ

[eightbit]

I use an older Dell GX270 and Floimg (google for the application). I purchased a pack of ten DS/DD disks for testing and initially tried to use Floimg to write .st images using my MSI motherboard's floppy controller on a newer AMD based machine. Nothing but errors. When I acquired the GX270 (for free!) and tried it there, it worked without a hitch.

 

Basically, get an older Pentium 4 era PC with a working floppy drive, Floimg, and some blank DS/DD disks and pray

 

The disks do not need to be formatted in the ST at all with the setup I am using. They write fine using the Dell machine and popping them into the ST. No fuss no muss.

Edited February 6, 2014 by eightbit

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Possible problems with FloImg: if motherboard has some exotic floppy controller it may be that used driver (fdrawcmd) can not work well with it. But it is very rare case. More likely there is difference in head position (setting) between floppy drive in PC and Atari. If it is bigger, then reading on Atari will be very unreliable, so useless. Then replacing or adjusting one of drives is solution. If difference is smaller then is useful to format floppies on Atari and write data on PC - will be better readable on Atari. And if diff. is near to 0 it is fine to format on PC. Difference is actually pretty crucial, because PC drives are HD, with narrower heads. For best result DD drive in PC would be ideal.

[Rybags]

Doing the technique of taping over the hole of a 1.44 Meg disk to make the drive format it to 720K can work.

 

Generally it's hit/miss and often the data will be short-lived but it can be used to get the essentials going, e.g. a terminal program or something that allows file transfer by null-modem.

 

Also, if you've got an Amiga it can be of help. Earlier WB versions you need something like Dos2Dos, but you can do read/write of ST files there.

[+Ripdubski]

Thanks for the input. Ill look into floimg.

[eightbit]

The HxC floppy emulator is a great thing, but you would have to open the ST and replace the floppy drive with it (or very minimum leave the drive in there and just unplug the floppy cable and power and connect it to the HxC). It is a great alternative to floppies, unless of course you are going for complete nostalgia/real feel

[+Ripdubski]

Im not reallly going to use it on a regular basis. I just want to be able to show it off from time to time, but cant do squat without any software.