# floppy

&Alexander.Neundorf;
&tde-authors;
&tde-release-version;
Reviewed: &tde-release-date;
2010 &Alexander.Neundorf;
&tde-copyright-date; &tde-team;

This handbook describes the floppy protocol.

TDE floppy protocol

The floppy ioslave gives you easy access to the floppy disk drives installed on your system.

The drive letter becomes the first subdirectory in the floppy &URL;. Let's say there is a file `logo.png` on your floppy disk in drive A, then the &URL; will be ``floppy:` /a/logo.png`

If you want to access drive B, ``floppy:/b`` will do it. `floppy:/` is a shortcut for `floppy:/a`.

Note that `floppy:/logo.png` means you have a disk drive named `logo.png`.

To use it you need to have the mtools package installed, and the floppy ioslave supports everything the various mtools command line utilities support. You don't have to mount your floppy disks, simply enter `floppy:/` in any &tde; 3.x app and you will be able to read from and write to your floppy drive.

It also works with USB sticks, ZIP and JAZ drives. You can use `floppy:/u` for the USB stick and `floppy:/z` for the zip drive, for example. To make this work, you might need to adjust your `/etc/mtools` file. Read the manpage for documentation.

The ioslave gives read and write access to the floppy drive, but not simultaneously. While you can read and write to the floppy during the same session, reading and writing have to happen one after the other, not at the same time.