Date   : Tue, 14 Apr 2009 14:28:15 +0100
From   : adsb@... (Andrew Benham)
Subject: Writing BBC Disc Images on Linux

Jules Richardson wrote:
> Alex Taylor wrote:
>> My main PC runs Mandriva, and I had a problem whereby the floppy drive
>> only showed up as /dev/fd0. I couldn't therefore send an image to
>> /dev/fd0d720, for example.
> 
> That's interesting - back in the day, Linux always had devices for the 
> different floppy types, and 'fd0' would just be a link to the relevant 
> 'typical' one for the system, rather than a device special file. I'm not sure 
> when that 'went away'...

I was going to reply to the previous message saying that I hadn't seen
the /dev/fd0* device files for years, but then I looked on the CentOS 5.3
box I'm using at work and:

$ ls -l /dev/fd*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root     root       13 Apr  9 11:41 /dev/fd -> /proc/self/fd
brw-rw---- 1 benhaman floppy 2,   0 Apr  9 11:41 /dev/fd0
brw-rw---- 1 benhaman floppy 2,  84 Apr  9 11:41 /dev/fd0u1040
brw-rw---- 1 benhaman floppy 2,  88 Apr  9 11:41 /dev/fd0u1120
brw-rw---- 1 benhaman floppy 2,  28 Apr  9 11:41 /dev/fd0u1440
brw-rw---- 1 benhaman floppy 2,  44 Apr  9 11:41 /dev/fd0u1680
brw-rw---- 1 benhaman floppy 2,  60 Apr  9 11:41 /dev/fd0u1722
brw-rw---- 1 benhaman floppy 2,  76 Apr  9 11:41 /dev/fd0u1743
brw-rw---- 1 benhaman floppy 2,  96 Apr  9 11:41 /dev/fd0u1760
brw-rw---- 1 benhaman floppy 2, 116 Apr  9 11:41 /dev/fd0u1840
brw-rw---- 1 benhaman floppy 2, 100 Apr  9 11:41 /dev/fd0u1920
brw-rw---- 1 benhaman floppy 2,  12 Apr  9 11:41 /dev/fd0u360
brw-rw---- 1 benhaman floppy 2,  16 Apr  9 11:41 /dev/fd0u720
brw-rw---- 1 benhaman floppy 2, 120 Apr  9 11:41 /dev/fd0u800
brw-rw---- 1 benhaman floppy 2,  52 Apr  9 11:41 /dev/fd0u820
brw-rw---- 1 benhaman floppy 2,  68 Apr  9 11:41 /dev/fd0u830

-- 
Andrew Benham           adsb@...       
Southgate, London N14, United Kingdom

The gates in my computer are AND OR and NOT, not "Bill".