Still got a floppy drive? Here's a solution for when 1.44MB isn't enough Floppy disk sales have, well, flopped but there are still masses of PCs and old embedded PC-based systems out there with floppy disk slots and drives. Now this near-dead space can be made usable again, with a 32GB FLOPPYFlash drive from Solid State Disks Ltd. It's a drop-in replacement for a floppy disk drive and takes …
You seem to miss the point - this plugs into a floppy drive ribbon cable, and looks like a floppy drive to the host (which may well not be a PC). It sits in a floppy drive bay.
It then stores the data on CF cards (for some reason. CF is hardly cheap or convenient. Maybe it's reassuringly floppy-like, and most people won't plug it into a PC or format it to use, like a USB stick).
I run lots of old gear with floppies. They're a pain.
CF cards use the old Compact Memory card I/O, (ROMs, EPROMS and Static Battery RAMs), which also could support other peripherals eventually inc IDE as it's a subset of the old PCMCIA (a CF to PCMCIA can be just a pair of connectors and wire). CF cards support at least two storage modes, one of which is parallel IDE. A USB (USB stack needed) or SD (can be simple) based Flash storage is serial I/O.
I'm a little baffled as to why I'd want this, unless it exactly looks like a floppy drive in SOFTWARE, with no driver needed, to BIOS and DOS. Plenty of things used to plug into a floppy connector and NOT work without an OS driver (Zip Drives, Tape drives, MO drives etc), usually for Windows, rarely for DOS, sometimes only Win NT, or Win95 and later.
Plenty of things used to plug into a floppy connector and NOT work without an OS driver (Zip Drives, Tape drives, MO drives etc)
Unless you can build a device that acts as a floppy as seen by the floppy controller and the BIOS, which would mean something that acts as if it has one or two heads (drive controller limitation), 1024 cylinders and 63 sectors (BIOS limitation), AND reads/writes data in a format compatible with the floppy disk controller, you'll need a driver or TSR to make it appear to the OS as a storage device. And you still had to tell the system, again through some driver or TSR, that there was another 'floppy' drive with an unusual number of tracks and sectors, where the BIOS setup only allowed 40/80 tracks and 8/9/15/18 sectors.
BTW, I've only seen tape drives connected to the floppy controller. ZIP were IDE, hooked up to the parallel port, or (later) USB. MO were predominantly SCSI. LS120 were IDE, and I think those 21MB flopticals were too, but I never saw one of those. In all those cases you wanted a faster interface because of the larger data capacity; with those QIC80 tapes it didn't really matter because the medium was slow
Instead of a $15 version from eBay(I have one of those already) is to 'network' old CnC machines and robots that has a 3.5" drive but a dedicated controller that's not 'smart' enough to handle a network.
That is, if it's easy to make and transfer a 'floppy image' to this drive over ethernet.
But the fact that it seems you have to order it with a fixed IP... sucks if you later reconfigure the network...
Network box that doesn't support DHCP = Fail.
Yep - and you still have to walk over to the machine to press 'start' and watch the first few cycles, so while you're there, plugging a USB stick into a fake floppy drive doesn't seem like a hardship. Hell, you're probably already carrying a job folder with a pocket in it for a floppy.
Dunno what Stuxnet makes of these things when it finds them. Probably just sobs a little, writes a classic virus onto the boot sector and moves on. There's only so much japery you can get up to when every byte is precious.
"Instead of a $15 version from eBay(I have one of those already) is to 'network' old CnC machines and robots that has a 3.5" drive but a dedicated controller that's not 'smart' enough to handle a network."
Those CNC machines are 100% likely to have a serial port. All you need is a PC with serial port(s) and proper software - thus even the ancient 80s CNC machines can load the G-code programs from network as easily as with a floppy drive.
"All you need is a PC with serial port(s)"
...and they are getting harder to find. A lot of "legacy" stuff is getting hard to find now. PS/2 k/b & mouse sockets, parallel ports, IDE host controller, floppy host controller etc. and the converters don't always work well, depending on how the software is trying to access it. A lot of modern boards have SATA, USB and Ethernet and that's it. Nothing else. It's not always fun if you have to deal with older, sometimes quite exotic kit.
Reading a bit more closely, I see it has an edge connector too and with the fully programmable track/sector/encoding methods, this looks like it might work as a drop in replacement drive right back to old 8-bit kit that used "standard" floppies such as an original 1970's era TRS-80 but not the more manufacturer specific ones like variable speed Sirius computer floppies, CBM PETs, Apple ][ etc.
"All you need is a PC with serial port(s)"
...and they are getting harder to find.
They are, but a built-in serial is not really a requirement. There are plenty of PCI/USB/Network solutions that will work just as well since the control software in the PC doesn't use raw I/O ports at fixed addresses (DOS style) but the serial ports provided by the OS.
Half the boards I deal with still have serial port headers internally (all you need is the backplate connector), especially the 24*7 industrial PC ones (fujitsu, etc)
This is a specialist device and I can see huge advantage in having a network port if you can upload floppy images to it (Cover and dustproofing makes it more robust and USB ports on machining devices get crap in them). Serial cables are problematic over long distances.
Other odd stuff you can buy are things like 2.5" PATA to M2 or MSATA adaptors. These work far better (and are much cheaper overall) than attempting to buy a PATA SSD (been there done that). Again it's for specialist work. It's economic to use them in an old laptop but the greater utility is in old (expensive) industrial control stuff like CNC systems where the drive has gone titsup (been there, done that too. Trying to control via the serial port was doable but SLOOOOW)
but not the more manufacturer specific ones like variable speed Sirius computer floppies, CBM PETs, Apple ][ etc.
I don't know about the other ones, but Apple ][ drives didn't use a hardware stepper controller in the drive itself for the head positioner; the controller generated the required signals in software, driving the stepper motors directly from the controller through 4 transistors. Cheaper initially because the drives contained less electronics, but soon the balance tipped as standard drives were produced in ever-greater numbers. Several ][ clones offered floppy controllers that had a standard Shugart interface.
"the controller generated the required signals in software, driving the stepper motors directly from the controller through 4 transistors."
And that allowed various copy protection schemes to work. (Who remembers Aztec?). These would fail spectacularly when they encountered a Shugart drive.
The new motherboard I bought the other week has a serial header, and a PS2 port*, so I think it'll be a while before serial dies off completely.
"The don't make sense if the system can take a USB card"
Actually, these make sense if you have a system dated before about 2005-2006 where the firmware/boot process does not recognize a USB drive (even if the system had usb). Most systems after that time frame had the ability to boot/install from usb.
...though I'll grant you that is a limited market, true. Still, I could build, oh, I dunno. Three or four of them.
Also a couple CP/M-based machines, with a bit of work. The capacity of one of those CF cards seems heavenly compared to a SSSD 8" floppy disc. And the weight and size... Linear power supply, steel enclosure... Holy crap.
But it does reduce the nostalgia factor. Still, nostalgia isn't what it used to be.
I have a floppy still in use holding backup configuration on an ancient legacy bit of kit. My recollection is that it is directly hardwired, soldered and welded to the equipment.
My enthusiasm for attacking the equipment with a circular saw and a soldering iron to upgrade it can be imagined. If it could be done with a couple of extension cables though then I would actually consider this. It's not a horribly bad idea.
But some of those limited markets are very profitable.
An entire city's traffic lights, water/sewage system ?
An air traffic control system
A power station
A couple of million $ worth of production line in a plant running 24x7
All bits of kit that you can't easily "just update to windows 10" and use USB
There was a company making PDP11 on a card to run traffic lights until recently
There was a company making PDP11 on a card to run traffic lights until recently
I was looking at a job for an Assembley language programmer to program PDP-11s recently (last year). These PDP-11s were considered "essential". The only reason I didn't follow through was that I didn't want to relocate to the cold climate.
What were these essential PDP-11s - they were the control systems for Nuclear Power plants. They are expected to be operational for the next 20 years.
These only make sense if the system can't take a USB card. The don't make sense if the system can take a USB card.
It could make sense in both cases, particularly for systems that don't natively support either USB or boot from USB. But then it would make sense for the Ethernet port to be replaced by a USB port. [The built in USB port seems to be for firmware flash and real-time diagnostics only.]
Only problem I can see is the speed of the IDE interface.
Looking through www.ssd.gb.com and www.reactivedata.com websites, it would seem that SSD Ltd have found a lucrative niche market; it is easy to forget with all the hype that the Windows PC architecture isn't the only computer system platform in widespread usage.
If you search for the name of your CNC or industrial sewing machine, you will find advertisements for floppy-emulators individually targeted at each machine. It's mostly just making sure the cables are compatible, but there are also some logical variations. It seems to be a huge market
I still deal with people using CNC machines etc that take their data via a floppy drive, and so have to have a PC with a floppy drive, so I thought for a second this might be an option. However for this to be a solution to that problem, they'd have to be willing to modify all of the machines with one of these drives, as well as putting one in the PC. And that's assuming the drives in the machines use standard PC floppy connectors etc.
What would be ideal for them is something in the physical shape of a floppy disk, that you can put in a regular floppy drive, but which actually stores the data on an SD card, or built in flash memory, doesn't need to store more than 1.44MB. But I guess the potential market for that product would be so minuscule that it would never be worth developing.
@ }{amis}{
Unfortunately that won't work. The form factor is good, but it is not a drop-in floppy disk replacement, and I'm guessing there aren't any drivers I can install on old CNC machines.
From your link; "FlashPath is hardware compatible with all standard 3.5" High-Density Floppy disk drives, but is not a drop-in replacement for real floppy disks. A special software device driver must be installed on the computer that is to access data via FlashPath. Thus, FlashPath is only usable with computers and operating systems for which such a driver exists and can be installed."
Historically interesting device though, I don't recall hearing about those before.
"
A special software device driver must be installed on the computer that is to access data via FlashPath.
"
Pretty useless for the majority of applications it would otherwise be needed in that case. Fortunately there is no shortage of FDD emulators that *are* drop-in replacements.
I wonder how hard it'd be to sense the position of the head. Perhaps have many heads (80 per side) to line up with where the "tracks" would be, and an encoder on the hub to detect what sector is being looked at.
If you could house that inside a floppy enclosure, you could run a thin ribbon cable out to a small panel where you'd have a battery, SD card (or USB) socket, LCD for selecting the image and a small keypad.
@tony72: for your end of the deal, I believe you can still buy USB-connected floppy drives. But such a retrofit as you describe might be advantageous for them, especially considering reliability and availability of the media. And considering a harsh environment and open spinning media.
Not saying they'd agree, just thinking in the abstract.
"
However for this to be a solution to that problem, they'd have to be willing to modify all of the machines with one of these drives, as well as putting one in the PC.
"
In most cases it is trivial to modify a machine, Most CNC machines of that era used standard PC floppy drives, so you simply unplug the FDD, take out 4 screws, and plug a FDD emulator such as this in its place. At most you may need to crimp on a different IDC connector to the existing ribbon cable in the CNC machine. The CNC machine cannot tell the difference and still "thinks" it is connected to a mechanical FDD. No need to do anything to your CAD PC's except plug in a standard USB card reader.
[edit] just saw that this particular device requires a driver. Good luck finding a driver for a bespoke CNC machine OS. Get a cheaper emulator from Amazon that is a drop-in replacement in that case.
What would be ideal for them is something in the physical shape of a floppy disk, that you can put in a regular floppy drive, but which actually stores the data on an SD card, or built in flash memory, doesn't need to store more than 1.44MB. But I guess the potential market for that product would be so minuscule that it would never be worth developing.
Kind of like my idea for a combination MP3 Player/Bluetooth adapter in an 8-Track tape casing. Use a tiny generator to power it off the capstan shaft. It would be akin to those old 8Track-to-cassette adapters that were popular in the 70's. The housing is big enough you could fit a full-size SD/MMC reader (and not just a microSD). For that matter, you could almost fit a RaspberryPI in an 8-Track housing. Would be ideal for your classic/vintage car that had a factory 8-Track player, and you don't want to lose concours status by putting in a modern CD player.
Problem is, it's too much of a niche market to break even on the specialized pieces you'd have to make (like whatever was used for transferring the signal to the tape head).
"However for this to be a solution to that problem, they'd have to be willing to modify all of the machines with one of these drives, as well as putting one in the PC"
1: They don't have to do them all at once
2: Why do you need one in the PC when you can update the things across the network? At that point the CF drive is just a local store.
3: If you float it you might be surprised at how enthusiastic they are. Old floppy drives seem to go on forever but media quality has been manky for a long time (mankier than that of the old SSSD 5inch floppies which never seemed to last long back around 1980) and that slows the drives down even more.
4: If you don't float it, someone else will.
FWIW, it connects to the host via a (parallel) floppy drive connector,
Picking a nit: floppy cables may have 34 conductors (half of them ground), but parallel they're not. There's one serial data signal, plus a bunch of drive control and status signals such as step, direction, drive select, track 0 and write protect.
@ D@v3 - try connecting your 300 in 1 card reader to my 1995 era CNC machine and see how far you get. The machine in question is only capable of reading a new data file from floppy disk (though it accepts both 3.5" and 8" hard-sector floppies). This type of FDD emulator is a godsend now that none of our CAD machines are capable of writing to a floppy, so we had to use a very convoluted method of sending the data to an ancient PC running Windows for Workgroups and transferring it to floppy using increasingly fragile media - usually having to make several attempts because of disk errors. Now ew just write from the CAD machine to a memory card and plug that into the FDD emulator on the CNC machine (though we use a much cheaper emulator from Amazon).
We also swapped the mechanical HDD for an IDE emulator because the CNC machine BIOS cannot recognise a HDD bigger than 528MB, and you cannot buy HDDs that small any longer.
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