SFR1M44-U100 3.5 Inch 1.44MB USB SSD Floppy Drive Emulator Grey

Works great on an old Tandy 1000 I've been tinkering on.

Recently I've gotten very involved in retro computing. But in 2020, messing with tiny floppy disks is absolutely no fun. Bad sectors, dirty drives, it's just not a great experience. Enter this thing. It allows you to easily turn any old USB drive into 1000 floppy disks, and just push a button to swap between them. It works on any old PC or other devices that use floppy disks for storage (synths, etc). Some notes about the default firmware that's on the device: * The software to use the device is... interesting and a bit annoying. * It's Windows only. * It will only work with DOS and devices that support DOS. With that said, it's trivial to flash a replacement firmware onto this device that turns it into an absolute POWERHOUSE (FlashFloppy, Google it). It just requires VERY minor soldering skills (my toddler could probably do it) and a USB-A to A cable like this: https://www.amazon.com/Rankie-Cable-Type-1-Pack-Feet/dp/B01KRO8D20/ With the replacement firmware you get: * WAY easier to manage from basically anywhere, Mac, Linux, Windows, etc. * Able to use it with other old devices like Amigas. * Can easily replace the simple LCD with a full-featured OLED screen, again with MINOR soldering skills. In all, a massive value for the money even if you just keep the stock firmware.

Performance is overall really good in comparison to using a floppy drive connected to a floppy 34-pin cable/controller. For example, using Microsoft Windows 98 with the Gotek multiple floppy disk images and a Flashfloppy FF.CFG file with host defined (host=pc98), wait times are within seconds, versus the default minute for floppy disk detection times! Opting for Flashfloppy firmware rather than the default Gotek firmware, is not a simple task, however is relatively still somewhat easy while noticing several sporadic documentation omitted instructions . (eg. Specific enumerated jumper pins for programming mode; Formatting adding at least one FAT32 partition, rather than formatting entire flash device FAT32; Documenting all flashing methods of the Artey AT32F415 chip, just use simple USB-A to USB-A cable DFU flash/upload method; And initially add floppy images to root directory only, no sub-directories.) Successfully using the Gotek flashed Flashfloppy device with a Verbatim 32GB flash nano thumb USB storage media. Flashfloppy firmware is stated as creating a more easily handled Gotek device, rather than resorting to the Gotek foreign software for formatting and storing floppy images to USB storage media. Flashfloppy firmware mostly generic FAT32 format, then copy floppy images to USB media. (eg. drag-drop or copy-paste) Installing Flashfloppy 1) Requires purchasing a unique USB-A male to USB-A male cable, for flashing using the DFU bus. (eg. dfu-util) 2) Jumper two pins (eg. Boot jumper and 3v pins), enabling programming mode for the Artey chip. I opted for soldering header pins, rather than unsafely using a piece of wire. (eg. 2.54 mm single row male header, could likely use double row header.) Subsequently requires using female to female header jumper wires. 3) Attach one USB-A male end to preferably a USB hub port, the other end of the USB-A male to the front Gotek device USB-A female port. Watch activity logs for proper USB port logging. 4) Get Flashfloppy download compressed (eg. zip) file, unzip, verify the dfu sub-directory with at415 image exists. 5) Linux, install dfu-util, check the Gotek device is connected and properly detected using "dfu-util -l" incantation. Augment the following command arguments if connecting more than one device, otherwise one device should use the following incantations. 6) Linux, un-protect the Artey chip, will exit with error, wait a good several seconds to minute afterwards, # dfu-util -D /home/roger/src/flashfloppy/flashfloppy-3.44/dfu/flashfloppy-at415-st105-3.44.dfu -a 0 -s 0x08000000:unprotect:force 7) Linux, upload flashfloppy firmware, # dfu-util -D /home/roger/src/flashfloppy/flashfloppy-3.44/dfu/flashfloppy-at415-st105-3.44.dfu -a 0 8) Repeat commands as necessary, until dfu-utils indicates uploading firmware. 9) Disconnect the Gotek device and disconnect the jumper wires, and attach regular power, verify F-F display confirms a good upload. 10) Format a USB flash removable media with FAT32, so that the device has one partition. (eg. /dev/sde1) Enable the boot and LBA flags! Copy a 1.44 MB floppy disk image to the root directory of the USB flash media. (eg. Microsoft DOS or Windows 98 DOS boot disk image) 11) Connect the Gotek device to a motherboard, attach the USB flash media; if a "Rib" displays, power-off and re-attach the floppy cable, ensuring not upside down. 12) As of this stage, the device should be working. If using on a PC platform, for quicker accesses, create a DOS formatted FF.CFG file and add "host=pc-dos" option for indicating PC platform image file types, or other platform type. As of this stage, likely will notice the absolute uneasy silence of the Gotek device (eg. no floppy disk drive sounds, aside from dancing two digit LED display, and will be likely desiring adding a speaker. (eg. piezo transducer/disc) May also opt for installing an ordinary white OLED 0.96 display for more descriptive feedback for floppy image file names and a rotary switch for fast forward/backward while navigating many floppy images. I'll likely most certainly install the piezo disc/speaker, and possibly OLD 0.96 screen, not sure about the rotary dial switch as I only have few floppy images. People having 100s of floppy disk era games usually opt for the rotary dial switch.

I've used this emulator for loading startup disks for installing Windows 95 & 98. You can format a flash drive (the older the better) as a 1.44Mb floppy disk and you'll be able to go back and forth between a modern PC and the GoTEK easily.

this item does not come with any software, so you have to download it from the manufacturer's site. to be perfectly honest, the software is pretty bad. however, once you get around that, and you update the firmware, and you change the display from 3-digit to OLED, and you install a rotary switch, it's a really good drive and easy to use. i can't imagine storing 1000 images on a USB stick, and then having to push buttons to address them all.

Bought 2 of these emulators to replace the failing floppy drives in my Prototrak CNC mill. You'll also need a floppy to USB harness to set it up. They are all over Amazon for cheap. Downloaded the program from Gotek site to format the USB sticks then installed the SWI software just like I was making a new disk. Really pretty slick. Boots up and runs perfect plus have pretty much unlimited storage now for saving programs.

My floppy failed in my last 80s pc. So I shopped. Found this. Fast delivery. About 15 minutes to physically install. I plugged in a stuck to the usb and it didn’t work. Back to the instructions that are way above my skill set . But then , I plugged in a new unused memory stick and formatted . Bingo , worked immediately. It’s slow but I’m sure that’s because my old machine is slow . But wow , breathing a little more life in this old machine . Great value , great idea , thank you

Getting images onto the USB stick was a bit fussy, I found that letting the GoTek format the USB stick was the easiest way to get it in a state I could transfer images to it. It would be a TREMENDOUS improvement if they added an OLED display that would show the volume name of each "disk", so you don't have to rely on more draconian means to keep track. It works, but is surprisingly just as slow as a normal floppy. The 1.44MB drives require the more advanced controller that can do 500Kbit/s, I can tell you that this does not come close to achieving that speed. The fastest floppy drive I ever used was an old Toshiba 1.44MB drive back in the 90's, there was something magical about that drive and it transferred data very fast, faster than the typical 22KB/s.