Emax

Hola ALL!

SO, it took some doing, but I have figured out how to make a laptop  
slim floppy drive work in Emax. So to those of you who wish to put in  
the CF (that fits into a floppy drive bay size slot), and still have  
a floppy in front-

you need to buy a laptop floppy drive. I dunno if brand matters. I  
got a used Teac FD05HG "used" for about $5, new they are around  
50.... I used this seller and bought 2 drives - at $5 plus ship, how  
do you lose????....

http://stores.ebay.com/DataStar-Computers_Laptop- 
Parts_W0QQcolZ4QQdirZ1QQfsubZ16QQftidZ2QQtZkm

You need to get a itx floppy drive adapter to normal floppy....
I got mine from this seller---

http://stores.ebay.com/Teknagen-Electronics

$.0.99 + $4.99 shipping.

Now- what to do:

I am going to upload an image to the website in the files- slimfdd01.jpg
Cut the trace marked with the red x on the adapter that connects the  
4th pin in from the right on the itx to pins 12 & 14 of the floppy  
connector. You will need to zoom in to see it, it is pretty small  
(400X). I didn't want to mark that you should cut more traces than  
you should!

Connect the itx pin you just disconnected (on the flipside of the  
adapter the 2nd pin in  the row CLOSEST to the circuit board edge  
(now from the left as we flipped the circuit board over).
Connect that pin to the 5th pin from the left in that CLOSEST row  
with a wire.

Voila- it should work!

The whole issue with floppies not working is not that the EMAX is  
that special. It is that it uses the Schugart floppy interface which  
is a predecessor to the normal IBM floppy interface. So there are a  
couple of caveats to working with it.

I am so happy I finally got this to work :-) Now to make some  
brackets so I can mount that bad boy and I am done!

Regards ALL!

Ted






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