I’m trying to buy a vintage computer from that brief period (1990s?) when they had both a floppy drive and USB ports. A store here in Phoenix is offering me a Dimension 4500S, and I was trying to look it up. I was looking at some reviews, and one complained that it was really slow. But doesn’t that mostly refer to internet connections? This one isn’t intended for internet.
Any enlightenment would be appreciated. But I’m not a techie, so please keep it simple.
By the way, I’m planning to install the vintage WordPerfect WP5.1, and although people have said only certain computers can deal with it, it seems to be more related to the Windows system, not the machinery, right?
Pretty much any desktop computer that has USB also supports having a floppy drive, as long as there’s an IDE controller / connectors on the motherboard. As far as I know, even modern machines still allow you to connect floppy drives (although I haven’t bought a new motherboard in a long time, so something might have changed in the last few years).
On the other hand, if your motherboard doesn’t have a USB controller, you can add one with an expansion card as long as you have a free PCI slot. (That’s how I gave USB to my first - Windows 98! - machine back in the late `90s.)
Basically, you don’t have to track down any special or rare specific computer model to get what you want.
On the other hand, depending on what your project is, your simplest route might be to just use an emulator. That would be my choice if you just need to run some vintage software, for example.
?? But surely the floppy connector is quite different from an IDE connector? (If a motherboard has a 34 pin IDC header, then that should be fine. Whereas a PATA connector is 40 pin.)
I’m sure the 4500S will be fine. Of course it can’t possibly have modern performance, but you wouldn’t expect it to. (User Guide here implies that this model does also support a USB-connected floppy drive.)
If they’ve found “the one” computer, then I’m genuinely happy for them. Not sure how well media most recently made in the early 2010s is going to last, but Tom’s still in business at floppydisk.com, so hope springs eternal …