The first version of the Aster consisted of four " Eurocard's ", one Z80 CPU card with 64KB memory, one Motorola MC6845 based video card, one double density floppy disk controller card and one " keyboard / RS232 / cassette interface " card.

The aster was chosen for Dutch schools by the Dutch ministry of education, in a set-up with eight disk-less Asters, and one Aster with high capacity floppy drives all connected by a LAN based on the Asters high-speed serial port hardware, and special cables that permitted that any single computer on the LAN could broadcast to all other computers.

Due to cartridge storage limitations, the Nintendo 64 version is based on the original PC floppy version and lacks the FMV scenes and Redbook audio music introduced in the CD-ROM version, although it has new narrative introductions to the levels.

Amstrad launched two new variants of the Spectrum: the ZX Spectrum + 2, based on the ZX Spectrum 128, with a built-in tape drive ( like the CPC 464 ) and, the following year, the ZX Spectrum + 3, with a built-in floppy disk drive ( similar to the CPC 664 and 6128 ), taking the 3 " disks that many Amstrad machines used.

All Tandy 1000 computers featured built-in Tandy video hardware with color graphics ( CGA compatible with enhancements ), enhanced sound ( based on one of several variants of the Texas Instruments SN76496 sound generator ), game ports compatible with those on the TRS-80 Color Computer, an IBM-standard floppy disk controller supporting two drives, and a parallel printer port, all integrated into the motherboard.

The ST-506 interface between the controller and drive was derived from the Shugart Associates SA1000 interface, which was in turn based upon the floppy disk drive interface, thereby making disk controller design relatively easy.

The first Sorcerers sold in the UK were imported direct from the US by a small company based in Cornwall called Liveport Ltd. Liveport also eventually designed and built extra plug-in ROM-PAC cartridges and eventually an add-on floppy disk drive ( based on Micropolis units ) that did not require the S-100 chassis.

The introductory sequence is displayed in text on the screen on the floppy disk based Amiga versions, but a slightly modified version is narrated with a voiceover on the Amiga CD32 version, together with some scene-setting animations.

The MITS 8-inch floppy disk system was about to be released as was the MITS 680B computer based on the Motorola 6800.

FREESCO is a floppy disk based router, which means that the entire system will run from a 1. 44 MB floppy disk.

Disk swapping refers to the practice of inserting and removing, or swapping, floppy disks in a floppy disk drive based computer system.

The system also had an administrative processor ( based on a Motorola 68000 ) that loaded the microcode from an 8 " floppy disk when the system was started.

The fifteen minutes taken to read a nearly-full 16MB card-directly to hard disk-via Flashpath using the slowest ( 128kbit / s ) PC floppy controller was still simpler and slightly faster than the quickest reliable ( 115. 2kbit / s ) serial link, without the need for connection, synching and thumbnail previewing, and only beaten by expensive parallel-port based external card readers that could do the same job in two minutes or less ( 1000kbit / s-plus, comparable to USB 1. 0 ) when connected to a compatible high-speed ECP or EPP port ( and ~ 5 minutes using a basic PPT in failsafe mode ).

Several variants were built ; the first system was based on an Intel 80386SX processor running at a clock speed of 16 MHz, with the option of adding an 80387 FPU, featured one or two megabytes of RAM ( with a possible maximum of 64 MB ), one or two 3. 5 " floppy disk drives and a single-speed CD-ROM drive.

can load, edit, and write one or more sectors from a floppy or hard disk based on the BIOS.

This machine was about the size of a portable sewing machine, contained a MC68000 processor, ROM based HP-UX, 3½ inch floppy drive, inkjet printer, a keyboard, mouse, and a plasma display.

Commodore's most notable contribution to the C64's gaming lore in this early period was perhaps its cartridge based game " International Soccer ", which stood the test of time-even being converted to floppy disk and republished later to more sales.

* http :// www. brazilfw. com. br Fork of the floppy based version of Coyote Linux

In 1989, it was produced for Activision as CD-ROM version based on that floppy disc game.

It was released for DMA-capable 8 " floppy, extended memory addressing hardware ( software controlled 4KiB paging of up to 768 KiB RAM ), Motorola 6809 based computers.

Because the WD1770 is capable of single density mode and uses the same IBM360 derived floppy disc format as the Intel 8271 found in the BBC Micro, it was also possible to run a DFS filing system with an alternate ROM, such as the P. R. E. S AP4 interface.

Because the original designer had left the company another employee completely redesigned most of the system, ( adding a display snow remover circuit, true 80 / 64 column text mode support, ( with different size letters for TRS-80 and CP / M mode, so that in TRS-80 mode the full screen was also used, not just a 64x16 portion of the 80x25 screen ) with an improved font set ( adding " gray scale " version of the TRS-80 mozaik graphics and many special PETSCII like characters ), and a more flexible and reliable floppy disk controller and keyboard interface plus many other small improvements ), also an enclosure was developed for the main computer system, ( in the form of a 19-inch rack for the Eurocards ) and for two floppy disk drives and the power supply.

With special software it's possible to read C1581 disks on a x86 PC system, and likewise, read MS-DOS disks in the C1581 ( Big blue reader ) provided the PC floppy handles the " 720 kB " size format.

Such software is referred to as a disk operating system when the storage devices it manages are made of rotating platters, such as floppy disks or hard disks.

* The DOS operating system was the primary operating system for the Apple Computer's Apple II family of computers, from 1979 with the introduction of the floppy disk drive, until 1983 with the introduction of ProDOS ; many people continued using it long after that date.

Regardless of type, the file system of all floppy disks ( under DOS ) was FAT12.

The memory issue was also flagged by Crash magazine, which pointed out that the floppy disk format meant that games had to be loaded into the machine's RAM ( originally intended to be 128k ) in turn requiring the system to be constantly accessing the disk drive.

The cost savings were due to the lack of a hard drive, floppy drive, keyboard, mouse, monitor ( a standard television was used ), and less operating system software.

On the Apple II, unlike modern computers that use standardized device drivers to manage device communications, the operating system directly controlled the step motor that moves the floppy drive head, and also directly interpreted the raw data called nibbles read from each track to find the data sectors.

For example, the Microsoft Pascal system consisted of two compiler passes and a final linking pass ( which could take minutes on systems with only floppy disks for secondary storage ).

To allow system customizations, accessories, and other support software to be loaded automatically, the Atari's floppy drive was read for additional components during the boot process.

There was a timeout delay that provided time to manually insert a floppy as the system searched for the extra components.

MS-DOS / PC DOS versions 4. 0 and earlier assign letters to all of the floppy drives before considering hard drives, so a system with four floppy drives would call the first hard drive E:.

Starting with DOS 5. 0, the system ensures that drive C: is always a hard disk, even if the system has more than two physical floppy drives.

In Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP and OS / 2, the operating system uses the aforementioned algorithm to automatically assign letters to floppy disk drives, optical disc drives, the boot disk, and other recognized volumes that are not otherwise created by an administrator within the operating system.

This features a localization of the operating system in several languages and has a " CrossDOS " driver providing read / write support for FAT ( MS-DOS ) formatted media, such as, floppy disks or hard drives.

The second incarnation was a much smaller unit the width of two 5¼ " floppy drives stacked on top of each other, and the third incarnation looked like a flattened Apple with a built-in keyboard.

A third mode was entered with a special boot floppy which turned the Aster into a Videotex terminal with a 40x25 display and a Videotex character set, The software used the built in RS232 interface of the Aster to control a modem through which it could contact a Prestel service provider.

But these needed the infamous TRS-80 expansion interface, which was very expensive, and had a very unreliable floppy disk controller because it used the WD1771 floppy disc controller chip without an external " data separator ".

The display logic and resulting display ' snow ' was irritating, as was the missing lower case support, the CPU speed could be improved, the quality and layout of the keyboard was bothersome, and the floppy disk capacity and reliability was low.

In past years, the Factbook was available on CD-ROM, microfiche, magnetic tape, and floppy disk.

The Commodore 1541 ( also known as the CBM 1541 and VIC-1541 ) is a floppy disk drive ( FDD ) which was made by Commodore International for the Commodore 64 ( C64 ), Commodore's home computer.

The Commodore 1570 was a 5¼ " floppy disk drive for the Commodore 128 home / personal computer.

The Commodore 1571 was Commodore's high-end 5¼ " floppy disk drive.

A C128 in CP / M mode equipped with a 1571 was capable of reading and writing floppy disks formatted for many CP / M computers ; specifically, the following formats:

The Atari OS only offered low-level disk-access, so an extra layer called DOS was booted off a floppy that offered higher level functions such as filesystems.

The microNOVA was later re-packaged in a PC-style case with two floppy disks as the Enterprise.

CP / M's quick success took Kildall by surprise, and he was slow to update it for high density floppy disks and hard disks.