ToToTEK.COM

NorQue · Joined: 08 Jul 2006 Posts: 62

Look what I just found in a recent Slashdot thread: http://www.floppytousb.com/ - has anyone tried using that to replace copier floppy drives?

Sorry if that's a dupe, I can remember having seen a CF <-> Floppy adapter here, but not something like that one yet.

EDIT:
DAMN, that thing is expensive: http://www.embroiderybids.com/cart/product.php?productid=17458&cat=331&bestseller - 275 USD!

MottZilla · Joined: 08 Sep 2004 Posts: 765

They work in most copiers but you have partitions of Disk images basically as I recall. So if loading a multi disk game you will still have to do something to change the active disk image. It's not ideal. Also the GDSF copier series tends not to work as it keeps the floppy drive semi-active while you are asked to change disk and these devices see this as the disk is being accessed and will refuse to change.

SpooNMan · Joined: 31 Oct 2007 Posts: 89

It's too bad they are so expensive. For say $25-$50 I would consider buying one of these for my SWC DX. It would be neat to have every game on a 16GB PICO chip and pop it onto the end of this.

So do the games load any faster than being transferred by a standard floppy? Or does the emulation throttle the data transfer to maintain compatibility?

MottZilla · Joined: 08 Sep 2004 Posts: 765

I would imagine transfer speed would be whatever the peak floppy transfer speed can reach. As you said, they likely didn't do anything that would break compatibility.

For the SWC DX, or maybe its just the DX2, you can use the DiskDual and a CF/IDE adapter to have mass storage. But really if you want that you are best off with the SNES PowerPAK.

SpooNMan · Joined: 31 Oct 2007 Posts: 89

madman · Joined: 07 Jul 2006 Posts: 598

Pick up a Libretto and docking station from Ebay. Super small and will get the job done. They are limited in terms of HD space, but you can get a PCMCIA CD-ROM also for dirt cheap.

sonofx51 · Joined: 15 Jan 2008 Posts: 49

The floppy emulatros are on ebay shipping from CHINA for $50

SpooNMan · Joined: 31 Oct 2007 Posts: 89

sonofx51 · Joined: 15 Jan 2008 Posts: 49

There is a thread on assemblergames that talks about someone using it on an SF7 but had to wire a switch to disable the floppy emulator while switching files. I read somewhere else that using it with a Super UFO it did not have the problem and switching pages worked fine.
Yeah 100 x 1.44mb images on the USB drive and you flip through the pages to load up the game. This really would have been awesome some years ago before the SNES Powerpak or the Super Everdrive.