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> These are people who use floppy disks as a way to get information in and out of a machine. Imagine it’s 1990, and you’re building a big industrial machine of

by biggc 4y ago

> These are people who use floppy disks as a way to get information in and out of a machine. Imagine it’s 1990, and you’re building a big industrial machine of one kind or another. You design it to last 50 years and you’d want to use the best technology available. At the time this was a 3.5-inch floppy disk. This quote had me wondering if you could build a hardware emulator layer that would allow you to use a USB-drive with an IDE floppy drive interface. A quick Google search revealed that someone already builds this! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwL65rtjuBQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwL65rtjuBQ

NoGravitas 4y ago
Yeah, this kind of thing is not exactly uncommon in the retrocomputing scene, though it's often an SD card rather than a USB drive.
dleslie 4y ago
You can get floppy emulators on Amazon. https://www.amazon.ca/Emulator-SFR1M44-U100-Install-Industrial-Equipment/dp/B094TR5GDS/ https://www.amazon.ca/Emulator-SFR1M44-U100-Install-Industri...
acomjean 4y ago
There is the "Woz" file format for the apple2 (and others). It takes a disk image (flux?) and makes the file bootable in some emulators. https://applesaucefdc.com/woz/ https://applesaucefdc.com/woz/ the images it creates are sometimes stunning and interesting depending on copy protection. https://archive.org/details/ApplesauceImages/Age%20of%20Adventure%20%28Electronic%20Arts%29/Age%20of%20Adventure%20-%20Disk%201%2C%20Side%20A.png https://archive.org/details/ApplesauceImages/Age%20of%20Adve...
gattilorenz 4y ago
The most common/cheap solution is the Gotek floppy drive, easily found on Aliexpress or eBay, and with the FlashFloppy firmware [1] for expanding the capabilities of the hardware. Since I'm nitpicking, it's not an IDE interface, as there's no IDE floppy drives :) [1] https://github.com/keirf/flashfloppy https://github.com/keirf/flashfloppy
- toast0 4y ago
  > Since I'm nitpicking, it's not an IDE interface, as there's no IDE floppy drives :) Well, LS-120 were available in ATAPI, which is at least IDE adjacent, if you don't want to call it IDE.
  - gattilorenz 4y ago
    Iomega’s stuff was also available in SCSI and USB (and possibly firewire) variants, but probably not on industrial machinery, and it’s hardly a prototypical floppy… we’re stretching definitions here
mprovost 4y ago
I worked for a network storage company that originally wanted to call themselves "Arraid" but discovered a small company already using that name, making replacement flash-based disk/floppy/tape drives for old mainframes and minis. Looks like they're still around in case you need something for your PDP-11! https://www.arraid.com/ https://www.arraid.com/

by biggc 4y ago

NoGravitas 4y ago

Yeah, this kind of thing is not exactly uncommon in the retrocomputing scene, though it's often an SD card rather than a USB drive.

dleslie 4y ago

You can get floppy emulators on Amazon. https://www.amazon.ca/Emulator-SFR1M44-U100-Install-Industrial-Equipment/dp/B094TR5GDS/ https://www.amazon.ca/Emulator-SFR1M44-U100-Install-Industri...

acomjean 4y ago

There is the "Woz" file format for the apple2 (and others). It takes a disk image (flux?) and makes the file bootable in some emulators. https://applesaucefdc.com/woz/ https://applesaucefdc.com/woz/ the images it creates are sometimes stunning and interesting depending on copy protection. https://archive.org/details/ApplesauceImages/Age%20of%20Adventure%20%28Electronic%20Arts%29/Age%20of%20Adventure%20-%20Disk%201%2C%20Side%20A.png https://archive.org/details/ApplesauceImages/Age%20of%20Adve...

gattilorenz 4y ago

The most common/cheap solution is the Gotek floppy drive, easily found on Aliexpress or eBay, and with the FlashFloppy firmware [1] for expanding the capabilities of the hardware. Since I'm nitpicking, it's not an IDE interface, as there's no IDE floppy drives :) [1] https://github.com/keirf/flashfloppy https://github.com/keirf/flashfloppy

toast0 4y ago
> Since I'm nitpicking, it's not an IDE interface, as there's no IDE floppy drives :) Well, LS-120 were available in ATAPI, which is at least IDE adjacent, if you don't want to call it IDE.
- gattilorenz 4y ago
  Iomega’s stuff was also available in SCSI and USB (and possibly firewire) variants, but probably not on industrial machinery, and it’s hardly a prototypical floppy… we’re stretching definitions here

mprovost 4y ago

I worked for a network storage company that originally wanted to call themselves "Arraid" but discovered a small company already using that name, making replacement flash-based disk/floppy/tape drives for old mainframes and minis. Looks like they're still around in case you need something for your PDP-11! https://www.arraid.com/ https://www.arraid.com/