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AFAIK, the cables were identical in 3.5" and 5.25" drives. So this interface probably works for both. I swapped out a 5.25" drive on a BBC Micro for a modern

AFAIK, the cables were identical in 3.5" and 5.25" drives. So this interface probably works for both. I swapped out a 5.25" drive on a BBC Micro for a modern 3.5" drive and even got it to work using HD media (the BBC used SD).

kristopolous 7y ago
They were. The connectors at the end of the drives were different and that was all (adapters were common, probably still available) There's also scsi 3.5" drives out there. Some ThinkPads had them. In fact, those drives were 2.88MB, just like on the NeXT, the 1.44 was common but one of a large number of capacities in that form factor... If you do this, use dd, not cat. Why? dd has this noerror continue after read errors You're going to get errors. Lots of errors! However, 80% or so of the time, most of the disk is still recoverable, but only if you use the right tools. It's going to be slow, real slow. A few minutes a disk with errors. Now that I think of it, you can probably swap the NeXT and thinkpad drives with a little effort. I bet there's a good arbitrage on eBay here if I'm right. There's systems that go the other way, sd card/usb disk to fake floppy but what I really want is usb to fake floppy. In this model the usb exposes itself as a configurable given capacity drive on both ends of the pipe, fake on both ends At the modern computer I copy over the files to the fake drive disk by disk and on the old computer I tap enter accordingly. Then someone can do a 20 disk install or whatever without a bunch of effort. It's not a hard device to make but i checked and i still don't see it
- NegativeLatency 7y ago
  Theres some open source firmware available for these I believe that makes them work with more computers: http://www.gotekemulator.com http://www.gotekemulator.com Found it: https://github.com/keirf/FlashFloppy/wiki https://github.com/keirf/FlashFloppy/wiki
- pronoiac 7y ago
  You might check out the gnu ddrescue; it can use logs and allow repeated attempts with resuming.
deviceside 7y ago
The physical track format is different between 3.5" and 5.25" drives. Our product is intended for use with 5.25" drives only. Please do not purchase our product for use reading 3.5" disks. USB 3.5" floppy drives were commercially available from TEAC and Y-E DATA.

kristopolous 7y ago

They were. The connectors at the end of the drives were different and that was all (adapters were common, probably still available) There's also scsi 3.5" drives out there. Some ThinkPads had them. In fact, those drives were 2.88MB, just like on the NeXT, the 1.44 was common but one of a large number of capacities in that form factor... If you do this, use dd, not cat. Why? dd has this noerror continue after read errors You're going to get errors. Lots of errors! However, 80% or so of the time, most of the disk is still recoverable, but only if you use the right tools. It's going to be slow, real slow. A few minutes a disk with errors. Now that I think of it, you can probably swap the NeXT and thinkpad drives with a little effort. I bet there's a good arbitrage on eBay here if I'm right. There's systems that go the other way, sd card/usb disk to fake floppy but what I really want is usb to fake floppy. In this model the usb exposes itself as a configurable given capacity drive on both ends of the pipe, fake on both ends At the modern computer I copy over the files to the fake drive disk by disk and on the old computer I tap enter accordingly. Then someone can do a 20 disk install or whatever without a bunch of effort. It's not a hard device to make but i checked and i still don't see it

NegativeLatency 7y ago
Theres some open source firmware available for these I believe that makes them work with more computers: http://www.gotekemulator.com http://www.gotekemulator.com Found it: https://github.com/keirf/FlashFloppy/wiki https://github.com/keirf/FlashFloppy/wiki
pronoiac 7y ago
You might check out the gnu ddrescue; it can use logs and allow repeated attempts with resuming.

deviceside 7y ago

The physical track format is different between 3.5" and 5.25" drives. Our product is intended for use with 5.25" drives only. Please do not purchase our product for use reading 3.5" disks. USB 3.5" floppy drives were commercially available from TEAC and Y-E DATA.