5-1/4' drive on modern PC

[Dwight K. Elvey]

>From: "Gene Ehrich" <gehrich at tampabay.rr.com>
>
>Is there anyway that it can be attached external to the PC through serial, 
>parallel or USB ports
>
>

Hi
 Yes and No. Of course, one can make some hardware to
handle the drive and connect it to anything. There
are 3-1/2 inch drives for the USB. It might be that
the software would see a 5-1/4 drive as it is through
one of these interfaces. Remove the 3-1/2 and wire it
to the 5-1/4.
 For the parallel, I have some hardware someplace
that can connect an IDE drive to the parallel port.
I don't think I've seen anything for a floppy.
Although, I've seen tape drives that connect to
the parallel port. These normally connect to
a floppy port. One might be able to do something
with one of these interfaces.
 One of the catalogs that I've seen recently had
a USB experimenters kit. One could most likely use
one of these with a PIC and a controller chip to
interface to just about any drive.
 Does anyone recall if the ZIP drives were on the floppy
ports? If so, one could take a parallel ZIP dive and
remove the drive part to connect a floppy drive. One
still needs to create some software.
 It is still just a problem of hardware and software.
A better idea might be to locate an older machine
at one of the second hand stores and use that.
Dwight