1/n
thinking about #retrocomputing as a concept - there is a line when it comes to hardware mods where you are leaving the realm of QoL / keeping things alive and entering into 'you should probably just emulate/get a MiSTer' territory
for example, with my machines, I always try to use legacy storage media - IDE HDDs, floppy disks, etc. I do have CF/SD adapters but this stuff is mostly used for backups or because a period-correct solution is unobtainable.
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2/n
I have an SD2IEC and a Pi1541 for my C64, because my actual 1541 doesn't work and I haven't found a reasonably priced replacement unit yet. I'll also load .tap files from an SD card to test functionality, but the ones I keep get recorded to an actual cassette and loaded from my actual tape drive. Yeah it's slow but that's part of the C64 experience. If I just wanted to run C64 software while using a terrible keyboard there are much simpler ways to go about it.
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3/n
similarly, my x86 machines all have CF card readers but this is to facilitate backups - most boot off of actual IDE hard drives. The Tandy 1000TX is the exception, because I don't have a hardcard or anywhere to put an IDE drive, it boots from an XT-to-IDE internal CF card. I could (and did, for a while) boot from floppy, and that's kind of what has me thinking about the line between QoL and 'just emulate it' - booting from floppy is miserable.
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4/n
I justify it to myself because if I were in the position in 198X to buy a hardcard for my Tandy vs boot from floppy, I would buy the hardcard, and the only reason I don't go that route now is that hardcards just don't really exist like that anymore.
Unlike the situation with my 1541 though, my Tandy functions perfectly as originally intended.
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5/n
Which brings me to what kicked off this whole train of thought: The early Atari STs had single-sided 3.5" floppy disk drives, so most commercial software was released in that format, meaning some software needed like a dozen disks you had to constantly swap between. Folks have now modified some of this old software to support loading from hard drive instead. Atari ST hard drives existed in the 80s/90s but would have been ruinously expensive for most home users.
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6/n
ST hard drives were generally just SCSI drives attached to a power supply and an adapter board to convert it to ACSI. Late in the ST's life, some folks would use IDE drives instead, either adapted direct to ACSI or through a chain of adapters ACSI to SCSI to IDE. Supposedly, there were hobbyist-built adapters for SCSI and IDE drives right up until someone figured out how to use SD cards as storage instead. Now, those old HDD adapters are apparently hard to find and expensive when you do.
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7/n
I found this annoying when I first learned of it - I don't have a viable path to using a spinning rust HDD with my near-future ST, I'll be missing out on a part of the experience!
But that wasn't the experience - the experience was swapping all those disks, and unlike my Tandy 1000, at the time no one had the option to bypass the disk swaps by spending ludicrous money on a HDD - the hobbyists only modified the software to make it HDD compatible in recent years.
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8/8
So is that crossing the line into 'just emulate it' or is that simply a QoL improvement that everyone would have taken if it were an option in 198X?
I suppose I'll bust out a stack of 40-50 DD floppies and see how I feel about it in a few months.
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