External 5.25" Floppy Drive

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Rickles

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#280575 24-Dec-2020 16:48

A tale of two cities .... I have a friend north of Auckland (his abode, not mental state 😬) who has a heap of 5.25 in floppies stored away. I suggested MoTaT mind loan him a 1980's PC with floppy drive.

Here in Wellington I spotted an external floppy drive in a charity store ... couldn't see any brand name on it, but weighed a tonne and had a cable with what looked like a 'super' version of the old style parallel port with well over 40-pins. No provision for power plug so assume it is all-in-one for both power and floppy controller.

Any ideas what the connector might be, and could it be connected to a modern desktop using an adapter?

Behodar

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#2626439 24-Dec-2020 16:52

Possibly a DD-50? I'm not sure what you'd connect it to, but it's the first thing that came to mind for "well over 40 pins".

Rickles

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#2626441 24-Dec-2020 16:56

@Behoder ... sorry, should have said that the pins were in two rows ... the thing must have been 60 - 70mm in length.

Someone suggested that it may have been for an Amiga back in cave days 😋

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#2626443 24-Dec-2020 17:03

First thought was a centronics connector for something like the Amstrad CPC, PCW, or PC's but more likely a SCSI connector

xpd

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#2626502 24-Dec-2020 17:52

Amiga -

Could get 5.25" drives for the Amiga, but were not common in NZ.

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Rickles

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#2626508 24-Dec-2020 17:59

@xpd ... I'm pretty sure the connector was twice the length of that.

jpoc

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#2626597 24-Dec-2020 23:34

5.25" only covers the physical size of the diskettes.

You need to know the format of the diskettes in order to make sure that you get the correct drive.

IBM PCs supported 360K and 1.2M disks.

A 1.2M drive will support 360K diskettes but not the other way round.

fe31nz

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#2626602 24-Dec-2020 23:56

Maybe an external SCSI?

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Rikkitic

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#2626636 25-Dec-2020 09:05

jpoc:

5.25" only covers the physical size of the diskettes.

You need to know the format of the diskettes in order to make sure that you get the correct drive.

IBM PCs supported 360K and 1.2M disks.

A 1.2M drive will support 360K diskettes but not the other way round.

In my experience the larger disks were fairly uncommon. I think the odds favour 360k.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

Behodar

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#2626639 25-Dec-2020 09:22

If I recall correctly, 360 KB drives had the door on the left, and 1.2 MB had it on the right. There were probably third-party drives that didn't conform to this though!

Rickles

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#2626641 25-Dec-2020 09:24

Not SCSI ... definitely pins.

Will revisit store next week and take closer look, but I feel it is from an Amiga or similar proprietary device and probably not compatible with modern PC.

fe31nz

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#2626766 26-Dec-2020 00:44

The drive inside may well be compatible though. Even back then, there was a standard for floppy drives.

I still have two double sided 5.25" floppy drives stored away under my flat in Lower Hutt that I used with my TRS-80. Last time I tried them (12??? years ago), both of them worked on an old Dick Smith System-80 someone had given me.

raytaylor

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#2626767 26-Dec-2020 00:55

Just look for something like this https://www.amazon.com/KOOBOOK-1-44MB-Floppy-Connector-Adapter/dp/B07WCRF9H3/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=floppy+to+usb+converter&qid=1608897212&sr=8-3

There should be some that support 5" drives. Or buy a second hand computer with a motherboard that still has a floppy interface and hook up an old drive long enough to get the project completed.

Ray Taylor

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