SD-FDD

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

In the process of disassembling a DOA Plus Mobo for a hack, I discovered a ready source for the elusive DB-19 connector. From now on, any MoBos blessed with the presence of this connector that have suffered particularly nasty forms of failure, such as irreparable cap leakage, should donate this connector to the cause before being recycled responsibly.

Desoldering is not even necessary, just donate the boards to the cause. Harvesting the SCSI Controller would for re-use would be an excellent organ for transplanting in the case of comrades doing the internal SCSI hack of the Plus.

I've got a bandsaw for rough cutting these parts for storage until requested by other comrades, PM me if you have prospective organ donors on hand. If you have any suggestions for other parts that should be kept in ZipLoc bags until needed, let me know. SIMM connectors come to mind as well.

 

[Bunsen]

Wrong gender.

 

[Trash80toHP_Mini]

OOPSIE! Got that one @$$backwards. :I

 

[bbraun]

Thanks for releasing everything and spending the time on the instructions, it was a huge help!

This is awesome!

 

[bigmessowires]

Awesome! I'm really glad you were able to get yours working! Now there are at least two of them in the world.

If you have Mac 128K or 512K (not 512Ke), I'd be curious to know if it works with those machines, since they only support 400K drives.

 

[Bunsen]

Another option for solid-state storage is the Sharp SmartPath - it's a floppy-shaped adapter for a SmartMedia card that works in floppy drives. Unfortunately it requires a PowerMac, a 1.4MB Superdrive, and drivers - so it's not bootable. They're also kind of rare.

 

[LCGuy]

I remember reading about those in a magazine, many many years ago. Unfortunately, another disadvantage is that SmartMedia itself is an obsolete format, and IIRC it maxes out at 128MB, correct? (in comparison, my LC III came with a 80MB HDD back in the day, and many older Macs came with 160+MB drives, so really apart from the solid state-ness, you're not really gaining anything)

 

[bbraun]

If you have Mac 128K or 512K (not 512Ke), I'd be curious to know if it works with those machines, since they only support 400K drives.

I was able to test with both a 128k and a 512k and they weren't able to boot. After attempting to boot from the floppy, they came up with sadmac error code 0F0062, which doesn't seem to be documented in either the Apple KB or The Dead Mac Scrolls. When investigating, it looks like there's a sense code that determines the number of sides the drive supports? I'm not sure. Looking at the code, am I right in thinking the sense codes are handled by the CPLD?

If you've got time to look at such things, I can send you a 64K ROM 512K machine to test with.

I also hooked it up to a Classic, and it seemed like the Classic didn't recognize that the floppyemu was connected at all. It didn't try to boot from it, and didn't get a disk on the desktop. On the floppyemu LCD, it looked like it never received a seek or read, the tracks/sides never changed.

I hope to investigate some of this, I'm still familiarizing myself with the code.

 

[UNA_Lion]

Slightly off-topic, but someone did manage to do something similar for an old Sinclair ZX-80.

Got one for my old Timex Sinclair 1500.

 

[onlyonemac]

I've seen BBC Micro versions as well.

Also, why is this in the Compacts forum? Shouldn't it be in the Developement forum?

 

[Bunsen]

Moved.

 

[redrouteone]

I had started researching this years ago.

One of my goals was to use commodity so that it would be easy for anyone to build. At the time I was looking at using an Ardunino. That never really panned out as it just did not have the horse power.

I've been thinking about the Raspberry PI. It has plenty of power and memory. Using a Linux Kernel patched for realtime it just might work.

 

[Bunsen]

You can program the R-Pi as a bare-metal board too (ie, no OS, just task-specific code). Pretty hard to beat for ~$30, but if anything it's almost overkill for this kind of application.

 

[dougg3]

Thanks to bbraun for the PCBs, I finished assembling two of them today:



I did something pretty awesome -- plugged one of them into the internal floppy port on my IIci's motherboard, and the other into the external floppy connector. They both worked at the same time just fine, booted from one in System 6.0.8 and ran MacPaint from the other. Cool! Awesome job, bigmessowires! Thanks for releasing the design files and everything for this!

 

[olePigeon]

How much did it cost in total for parts?

 

[CC_333]

Hi,

Now if only it could write as well as read...

Anyone willing to tackle that problem?

c

 

[dougg3]

How much did it cost in total for parts?

For the parts not counting the PCBs, I spent $54.80 from Digi-Key and $23.54 from SparkFun for parts for two. That's including shipping. Also had to buy two DB-19s from IEC for $2.60 each, plus shipping (bought some other stuff too so not sure what the shipping would actually be). So I'd say the parts come out to around $40 per floppy emu not including the PCBs.

Now if only it could write as well as read...

It already can write. I think you have to make sure you have a fast SD card so it can keep up...