Think about for a second that you simply need to copy some knowledge onto a 3.5” floppy disk. Perhaps that’s some software program for a classic pc or perhaps the corporate you’re employed for nonetheless makes use of historic techniques and that you must import new knowledge. How would you do this? It has been a few years since motherboard producers even bothered together with floppy disk drive (FDD) controllers and connections. USB floppy drives exist, however they’re usually unreliable and compatibility is way from constant. That’s why Adafruit is growing an thrilling new resolution for floppy disk drive use.
Adafruit’s engineers appear to be struggling to give you terminology to explain this system, as a result of it might truly carry out a couple of completely different features. At a elementary stage, it acts as an adapter between a “normal” FDD (extra on that in a second) and a contemporary PC. That lets customers again up the info on floppy disks for archives and likewise write new knowledge to floppy disks. This system also can again up floppy disk knowledge to an SD card with out bringing a pc into the combination in any respect.
These features are very helpful to these of us concerned in retrocomputing. Floppy disks are infamous for being very inclined to knowledge corruption, so archiving their contents onto extra strong media can — fairly actually — forestall the entire lack of probably irreplaceable data. Writing knowledge is much less dramatic, however arguably extra useful when tinkering with outdated computer systems.
This system’s PCB has a 5V/12V Molex connector, a 34-pin IDC connector, and a 26-pin FPC connector. Between these, customers ought to have the ability to join nearly any 3.5” FDD, most 5.25” FDDs, and perhaps even some 8” FDDs. Adafruit’s engineers are even contemplating including a Disk ][ connector for the Apple crowd—something that I’d love to have when working with my Apple ][c.
A Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller interfaces with the FDD to read and write data. The PCB contains an optional SD card slot for computer-free backups and a 1.3” color TFT screen for status information. The power supply is 12V and there is a buck converter to bring that down to 5V for that power rail. If 12V isn’t necessary, power can come entirely from the USB-C port.
But before you get too excited, you should know that this is just a prototype at the moment. If you want Adafruit to start selling their floppy adapter/archiver thing, you should let them know that you’re interested by commenting on their YouTube video or blog post.