External Floppy Drives - Q630 & Alike

[Floofies]

I recently started a Quadra 630 project, and one of the main project goals is to convert the internal floppy drive to external. Someone mentioned: "you could always plug in an external floppy", but (since the Q630 lacks a floppy port) I have not found any external floppy drives that would work with a Quadra 630 or similar Mac.

My question is: DO external floppy drives exist for 68k Macs without a floppy port?

If they do exist, what were the manufacturers? Did they use SCSI?

 

[olePigeon]

Yes, there were SCSI based floppy compatible drives, but I'm unaware of any of them that were compatible with 400k/800k disks.  You could only use HD disks.

I sold an Iomega Flopitcal drive to a fellow member here not too long ago.  It was a SCSI drive with its own floppy style disks, but it could also read regular floppies.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

Some FDDs used SCSI, for example this one or the DAYNAFILE.

I can't see why a powerbook floppy drive (if used with the HDI to proper SCSI adapter) won't work.

Have you tried using an adapter like the one on the Floppy EMU? 

There's no difference between the external floppy drive and the internal one, but the cable is different. The circuitry is the same, right? Maybe the pinout's a tad different for the Mac to differentiate the two?

 

[olePigeon]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SGI-Insite-I-325VM-3-5-Floptical-Drive-50-Pin-SCSI-PN-9490811-013-8744-001-6A-/111976869091

So here's the original Insite SCSI Floptical drive.  Lucky it's up there, you don't see too many of them, and these guys have 4.

You'll need to get the Iomega Floptical driver.  I have a copy if you need it.  Now, I'm assuming it'll work because I'm pretty sure Iomega and 3M simply rebadged the Insite drive.

 

[olePigeon]

Oh, Insite has their own System 6 & 7 extensions.  So either way, you'd be all set with that one.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Still gotta have an external case for that Floptical. I like the suggestion to hook up an old PowerBook FDD. If you're not using the TV/Radio tuner box in its slot, that backplane cover/opening of the 630 would be the perfect spot for additional I/O connections.

Hacking the connector from a DOA 'Book to a header connector to plug into the FDD cable on the harness would be easily enough done.

Than there's the EVIL approach!  }    I keep my bare nekkid 6360 chassis backwards in the HackHutch™ in order to get to the I/O connectors a/o pull the MoBo drawer out without much hassle. The FDD ribbon cable is squeezed up and out the crack between the fan and edge of tits opening in the lid. Instant, bare nekkid, "backwards" FDD!

 

[Floofies]

Hmm, I hadn't considered using a Macintosh DB19 floppy drive. Here's a passive DB19 to IDC20 adapter: http://a2heaven.com/webshop/index.php?rt=product/product&product_id=125

(I'm already making DB25 to IDC20 adapters for the conversion, since I already had DB25 cables.)

After doing some research, I don't know if it will work. The Quadra 630 has a SWIM 3 chip to control floppies, which lacks an IWM. I think it is needed to operate such drives, and SWIM 3 is programmed completely differently, as it's based off a PC chipset. Only SWIM 1 chips have an IWM. I do, however, have an old 800k floppy drive from a Macintosh SE. The SE has a SWIM 1 chip. If the internal drive is anything like the externals, it would be a good tester, so I'll give it a try and hope I don't make magic smoke.

I don't think I want to hack a PowerBook FDD like that, since it just uses SCSI; I may as well just buy a DB25 SCSI drive at that point.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

PB FDD doesn't use SCSI, it's another of Apples ridiculous PB connectors, sort of a high tech version of the DB-19, but for superdrives. Yoy wouldn't be hacking a PB FDD, you'd be scavenging the female connector from a DOA PB MoBo to adapt to your cable harness.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

According to BMOW's website, the Floppy EMU is compatible with powermacs with floppy ports on the logic board.

So there shouldn't be any problems with external floppy drives connected to the mainboard header of an 040 mac... It's worth to try.

 

[Floofies]

Ohh, I see. I got it wrong. It's actually HDI20, not HDI30 (which is for scsi).

Comparing these two pinouts, it looks like the HDI20 connector on those drives is not electrically compatible with a DB19 floppy port.

http://old.pinouts.ru/HD/macfloppy2_pinout.shtml

http://old.pinouts.ru/HD/MacExtDrive_pinout.shtml

I spent the morning freezing my butt off testing that 800k drive. I am pretty sure the servo is jammed (the freezing probably doesn't help), but the system is still able to detect disks and eject them. I will call this a success! It would appear that SWIM 3 possibly is backwards compatible with drives used in SWIM 1 systems, which means (any?) external floppy drives for use with Compacts might work with the Q630 and alike.

Now, if I want to use 1.4MB disks, that is another story! The Apple FDHD External will not operate in 1.4MB mode unless the host has a SuperDrive controller (and FDHD ROM). There are too many unknowns for me to blow money on experiments. In the face of all this, the most efficient option for me right now is still to simply build my own external drive.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

You might want to explain the point of having an external FDD for your project and where you actuall want it located in reference to your case.

 

[Floofies]

Put simply, the custom case I'm building won't have space for any internal drives, just a CF card. All drives would either use the DB25 SCSI port, or the custom DB25 Floppy port I'm making now. They would sit off to the side of a custom vertical case.

Why? My Quadra has an 8p8c Ethernet card and is very much an "internet Mac", with enough server/network infrastructure in place to further support it. I've invested a lot in making it very internet-capable, so 99% of the time I never actually need to use any removable disks. For me, it will be convenient to only connect drives on an as-needed basis, and keep my desk cleaner when I'm not using them.

A little insight into my thought process about that: I had actually considered making a Quadra 630 laptop before I posted the main thread. I didn't like the possible cost associated with that, though; so I decided to create an HTPC-like case instead that would offer just as much mobility and size reduction.

 

[Cory5412]

My understanding has been that electrically, pretty much all Mac floppy drive connectors are alike.

If you can build a cable that goes from the internal 20-pin connector to an external db-19 connector, at which point you can just connect a normal desktop external SuperDrive.

If the enclosure will be big enough to allow it, it may be possible to build in a PowerBook floppy drive. Could be worth investigating, but there's no particularly good reason to do it unless you can't find the (apparently uncommon, alas) DB19 port.

 

[BadGoldEagle]

BMOW has a lot of these DB19 connectors, he actually had some made last year because the original stock was running out.

 

[Floofies]

It looks like DB19 Floppy drives are uncommon and expensive, especially Superdrives. Is that true?

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

Why? My Quadra has an 8p8c Ethernet card and is very much an "internet Mac", with enough server/network infrastructure in place to further support it. I've invested a lot in making it very internet-capable, so 99% of the time I never actually need to use any removable disks. For me, it will be convenient to only connect drives on an as-needed basis, and keep my desk cleaner when I'm not using them.

Very cool, a Quadra 630 (WGS) blade server!

I was unaware that there was a DB-19 external FDD in the lineup.Since you're only hooking your FDD up temporarily as occasion requires, I have a different approach to suggest:

To simplify things to the barest minimum, why not make an access panel at the bottom of the front bezel of your case so you can simply pull the 630's IDC connector out. Plug that ribbon cable connector into its original FDD sitting in front of your Blade right there and bare nekkid' on the desktop. }

 

[BadGoldEagle]

It looks like DB19 Floppy drives are uncommon and expensive, especially Superdrives. Is that true?

The Superdrives are ludicrously expensive. 800k drives aren't necessarily: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Macintosh-Floppy-Drive-Lot-800K-3-5-Drive-/252668140596?hash=item3ad431dc34:g:j8EAAOSwal5YKKF8

But you can just take any casing and stuff a FDHD drive in there. It works.

 

[Floofies]

Well, jt, that certainly would be functional, but I don't wanna see that stuff naked. I'll take your advice from before and use one of the rear blanks, or just make a new hole. Also, "blade server" really gets my brain going. That edge connector definitely does mimic how a blade server would interface with it's chassis. Who knows, maybe there's a future project there...

I see, BadGoldEagle... No one is making new drives, either, which also seems weird to me. I'm going to go ahead and make a new thread about that.

As far as this thread goes, all of you have been extremely helpful. Thank you all for the great advice!

 

[Bunsen]

I would suggest simply running the internal floppy connector out to an identical case-mounted socket, and using a bare internal drive as an external.