On 19 May 2012, at 17:33, w.james.meagher@gmail.com wrote:
Arrrggghhh... I wish I'd known about this 6 months ago when I replaced the drive on my SQ80.
Well, 6 months ago the floppy-drive-shaped one didn't exist; that one is only now entering volume production. You'd have had to either fit it externally (leaving cables exposed and visible) or mount it internally (making holes in the case of your SQ-80).
Plus, having a known-working floppy drive is not a bad thing!
Oh, and for people looking for something the other way around - reading floppy disks in potentially strange formats, on a computer that may not currently have floppy drives or a floppy controller - there's the KryoFlux: http://www.kryoflux.com/ which is described as "KryoFlux is a USB-based floppy controller designed specifically for reliability, precision, and getting low-level reads suitable for software preservation."
KryoFlux connects to a physical floppy drive on one side and a computer through USB on the other, and it reads low-level flux transitions - which can be stored for archival purposes or can be interpreted into a number of common-or-not floppy disk formats, including Ensoniq's ones.
This would probably be useful for someone who has a bunch of floppies form which they'd like to rescue some data, but where the original device and/or its floppy drive might not be in usable condition any more. I'm guessing that might include a few people on this list.
It costs €95 (about US$121) and requires a working floppy drive as well – the kryoflux store specifically mentions '3.5" Samsung SFD-321 and 5.25" Newtronics D509 drives and compatibles'. These seem to be fairly readily available on eBay - for instance, a 3.5" Samsung SFD-321B drive is available at http://www.ebay.com/itm/290700799523 with a 'buy it now' price of US$8; a 5.25" Newtronics D509V3 at http://www.ebay.com/itm/150818161992 for US$34.
I might do it again anyway - this looks great!James
// Christian
Sent from my iPhoneThanks for info, I knew about it and want to buy. Great idea.Daniel ForroOn May 19, 2012, at 8:27 PM, Christian Brunschen wrote:Hi all,Floppy drives wear out and even floppies are becoming scarce. Fortunately, there's now an alternative / replacement that's available and not horribly expensive: a floppy drive emulator that emulates a standard IBM-PC or Shugart floppy drive, storing multiple disk images on an SD card, allowing read/write operation, and with verified support for Ensoniq keyboards ... and now that's available in the same physical form factor as a 3.5-inch floppy drive, making it a straight slot-in replacement for a floppy drive:Discussion forum:Software, including firmware updates:I just thought this might be useful.// Christian