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I have recoded serdrive.exe in Python3. It can run on GNU/Linux. This program is a serial server for XUB (XT IDE Universal BIOS). XUB is an extended ROM with functions for using an XT-IDE ISA Card for boot process on old computers (mainly IBM PC or IBM XT).

One part of XUB is the ability to use a serial port of the computer to access floppy disk images from another computer (the server)

You need the following:

• An IBM PC/XT or AT Computer with no hard disk or boot floppy disk.
• An EPROM or EEPROM with XT IDE Universal BIOS burned on it.
• A way to put the EPROM in the machine: a network card with a boot ROM socket.
• An internal serial port or an ISA serial card.
• A recent machine with a serial port in it.

For the demonstration, I will use an old PC/XT clone: The COPAM PC401A.

Once you have an old computer, on need an EPROM or an EEPROM with XUB burned on it.

One way to put the EPROM on the computer, even if you don't have a dedicated socket on the motherboard, is to use a Network card with a boot rom socket. Boot ROM contains code that is launched at boot (after BIOS initialisation) to u

Then you need a valid serial interface.

For the "server" machine, I will use one of those Lenovo M812 from 2011. They got a physical serial port (DB-9) and you can run Linux on them.

Once the hardware part is handled, we need to work on the software part.

First you need floppy disk image files. You can easily find them on the web.

Then, install xt_ide_serial_server from it's repository and install dependencies.

On the server, launch xt_ide_serial_server with the adapted parameters.