RWAP Software

[RWAP]

There are plenty of floppy disk drive adaptors around for retro computers, either new or second hand. On the Sinclair QL, a Trump Card is standard, but a Gold Card or Super Gold Card will bring you to the top of the range. On the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, the most commonly used floppy disk interface is a PlusD.

Having found a suitable interface, the problem comes with sourcing appropriate disk drives.

Most interfaces (other than the Sinclair QL's Gold Card and Super Gold Card) can only address DSDD (720K disks). Ideally therefore you need DD disk drives and DSDD disks. If you use a standard 1.4MB HD (High Density) disk drive, your computer will still try to format a disk to Double Density, which should work, provided you are not using HD disks. If you use HD disks, you need to cover up the HD detection hole and be aware that other people may not be able to read them.

So now comes the problem of connecting a disk drive.

PC drives are shipped configured as DS1 (the slave drive), which is fine on a PC system, but not with a retro computer, which will expect one drive to be DS0 (the master). Some disk drives have jumpers which can select drive or master, but this is increasingly rare. If you are lucky, there may be a pad of pins which can be soldered together (marked DS0 DS1 etc), but this is not always easy to find. Finding a suitable small power supply is secondary to how you connect the disk drives (actually Maplins sell a suitable power supply).

We do sometimes have spare external disk drive systems (cased with a power supply), however, if you need to build your own, there is an option - if you purchase two drives of the same make and model, you may get away with twisting some of the cable - see:
http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/35disk/Disk.htm

Hope this helps !

[RWAP]

There is now a much more readily available and easy option for anyone who needs to replace a disk drive on an old computer, or even industrial equipment.

The HxC Floppy Disk Drive emulator connects to any standard Shugart compatible floppy disk controller (as used on most floppy disk drives since the mid 1980s) and allows you to store floppy disk images on an SD memory card.

So far as the equipment is concerned it is simply talking to a standard floppy disk drive. The interface can even replicate having two disk drives attached at the same time.

The interface needs an external floppy disk drive power supply connector (5V only) and the cable from your computer disk interface. You will also need any SD memory card (64MB to 32GB). Software is provided which can run under Windows to allow you to convert various disk image formats into the special disk image files used by the emulator card.

Tested on a range of computers and industrial equipment, this interface is known to work successfully with the following:

* Any computer / piece of equipment that uses PC formatted floppy disks (3.5", 5.25" or even 8" drives)
* Atari ST/STF/Falcon
* Amstrad CPC6128
* Commodore Amiga (currently write only)
* Dragon 32 / 64 (VDK or JVC disk format, which should also therefore work with the Tandy CoCo)
* Emax and Emax II Sampler
* Ensoniq Mirage Sampler
* Korg DSS-1 Synthesizer
* MSX2
* Oberheim DPX1 Sampler
* Oric Computer (with MicroDisk)
* PC
* PC88
* SAM Coupe *.MGT and *.SAD formats
* Sinclair QL raw disk images
* Sinclair ZX Spectrum +3 or Sinclair ZX Spectrum with PlusD disk Interface
* Super Wildcard DS-SWC3201
* Thomson TO8D
* TI99/4A
* x68000

Best of all, it is a low cost solution, with the The HxC Floppy Disk Drive emulator costing just over £70 - compared to other solutions which cost over £200 !!