I now know something about 'modprobe'.
I issued "sudo modprobe floppy -v" to receive verbose messages;
entered password; response was;
insmod /lib/modules/2.6.27-11-generic/kernel/drivers/block/floppy.ko
entered "fdmount"
response "fdmount () Must run with EUID=root (seemed strange)
then entered "sudo fdmount"
response was;
fdmount (/dev/fd0): Can't access /fd0: No such file or directory
End of Session
Any suggestions for my next step?