A floppy disk is a wonderful thing and sometimes even necessary. I remember well how the rescue boot floppy sometimes helped me when checking the computer or setting up software (for example, I constantly used the Memtest program, which was written on the floppy, to test the RAM). And in ancient times, this old format was the main source for storing and transferring data. It's a pity, but those days are already gone ... Now all people use flash drives for these purposes, but few people remember floppy disks. But, given the current moment in time, I decided to talk in detail about one important problem, which is very relevant.
The 1.44 MB floppy once held an important place in computer history.
Many owners of modern computers have such a problem: there is a situation when you need to copy some information from a floppy disk or you need to write something down. Today, few people will do this, but still ... Of course, it is not difficult to get a drive for 3.5-inch floppy disks now, since it is cheap (you can even get it for free), but the user may be faced with the fact that there is no socket to connect it. And you can forget about reading / writing information. I myself ran into this problem: I needed to create a boot floppy, but there was no such possibility. My computer turned out to be too modern to connect old devices, and the old one was not working. I wondered: “So how can you get the opportunity to connect a disk drive? How to be?" As a result, I found several solutions to this problem.
External drive
The most obvious way to get floppy access is to buy an external drive. Many people know that USB-FDD drives are on sale. Of course, they very easily solve the problem of reading / writing such an old media on modern devices, especially on laptops, where you can’t connect a floppy drive in any other way than via USB. If the USB bridge is connected to the drive through a standard interface, as on 34-pin connectors, then even a 5.25-inch drive can theoretically be connected.
An external USB-FDD drive can solve the problem of reading from a floppy disk, but the quality of such devices may vary
But there is one caveat. The fact is that today it is quite problematic to find a normal USB-FDD, at least, only Chinese-made drives can be found on sale. I do not argue that this device is able to function normally and will not be able to spoil old media, but you yourself understand that the likelihood of a fake or marriage is high. I find that classic old floppy drives (not modern day consumer goods) will work much better. You can, of course, try to develop an adapter for an external interface yourself, but this is fraught with great difficulties and requires a lot of experience and knowledge in the development of such devices.
There is also such a device as KryoFlux. It allows you to connect any standard drive (5.25 and 3.5) to your computer via USB. Its price is quite high, but if you need to constantly copy information from floppy disks, then this is the best option.
Controller
Another solution to the problem is to use a special controller. Well, if there is a place on the motherboard for an ISA controller (of which there are plenty), then everything will be fine. But where did you see a modern board with an ISA bus? Strange as it may seem, such boards also exist (iBASE MB970 is an example), but they are extremely rare and intended for specific use (industrial computers, etc.), and the price of such boards will be far from low. I have not seen other options for FDD controllers, for example, for the PCI bus (although I seem to have seen photos of these boards on the Internet, but I don’t remember where), and finding one for PCI-E is generally unbelievable. And at what price will such a thing be sold? Therefore, finding such a rare controller can be considered great luck. Again, you can try to develop it yourself.
IDE and FDD controller for ISA bus. It will not work for a modern computer: ISA is outdated in the last century
superdisk
There is a somewhat exotic, but very effective way. It is suitable for almost any, even the most modern system. Of course, for this option it is necessary to find some rare equipment, but, nevertheless, this method has the right to life. The main conditions for implementing the method are the presence of an IDE connector (in the absence of one, we either use a PCI-IDE controller, or, if there are SATA connectors, a cheap IDE-SATA adapter), and the presence of an LS-120 drive. I'll tell you briefly what kind of drive it is. The LS-120, or SuperDisk, is one of the planned floppy killers. The standard was developed by Iomega in 1995. This technology made it possible to record and store data on special media with a capacity of 120 MB (later - 240 MB) and was planned as a replacement for obsolete floppy drives and floppy disks. Sometimes it was called a floppy disk, because. combined technologies of magnetic and optical recording. Connected to the computer via the IDE interface. After the proliferation of cheaper media such as CDs and DVDs, this standard failed to catch on and became obsolete very quickly.
Drive LS-120. It supports both its own non-standard floppy disks and regular 720 KB and 1.4 MB floppy disks. However, it's hard to find
LS-120 drive on the front. At first glance, it practically does not differ from a conventional drive
However, what was the SuperDisk chip? And the trick was that such a drive could read and write not only its non-standard media, but also classic 720 KB and 1.4 MB floppy disks, which made it possible to use it as a standard floppy drive. It is the combination of read/write floppy disks and IDE connectivity that allows you to work with outdated media even with the most modern hardware. By the way, I checked this on my computer with a Gigabyte GA-H77-DS3H rev.1.1 motherboard with an Intel Pentium G2030 processor and Windows 7 operating system installed. installing drivers, and after that I could immediately start working with the ancient storage medium. Reading from a medium that is already 30 years old, using modern technology, is an amazing feeling. The only thing: for proper operation, I recommend setting the jumper on the drive to the MASTER position. Oh yes, SuperDisk also existed in SCSI, LPT and USB versions.
A floppy disk is being formatted on a modern computer using the LS-120
Use SCSI? This is also an option. More specifically, you can find a floppy drive that will connect to SCSI directly or through an adapter card. But where to find such a rare device? However, if you find one together with the controller, then as a bonus you will also receive support for connecting a large number of additional devices due to the SCSI interface.
SCSI controller. Supports various devices: hard drives, streamers, CD-ROMs, scanners and… floppy drives!
Second system unit (laptop)
And finally, the last option, the easiest. Nothing rare or expensive to look for. Find yourself another, old system unit, which will already have normal disk drive support. This is the most efficient option for working with floppy disks. Transferring data from one computer to another can be done in various ways: via a local network, via a null modem cable (in the absence of network equipment or with extremely ancient hardware), via a flash drive (if USB is available) or CD, DVD blanks. The only critical drawback of this method for some users is the need for free space for a second system unit (although many may have several of them). For those who, for some reason, cannot have two computers, they will have to use only the previous options. Although no, there is still hope to use an old laptop with built-in FDD :)
Old system block. It is ideal for working with old media
But what about 5.25-inch floppy disks?
If you need to read information not from an ordinary 3.5-inch floppy disk, but from an older and rare 5.25-inch floppy disk, then it will be more difficult. Here the LS-120, of course, will no longer help, it does not fit in size :) However, all other options will do, although the most optimal of them is to use the second system unit specifically for such purposes. And if someone wants to read something from an 8-inch "monster", then only one option comes to my mind: assembling a special adapter and catering for a huge floppy drive (if my memory serves me right, the motors were powered like at least 127 volts!). But in fact, this is not so unrealistic, there would be a desire ... and a floppy disk from which you need to throw off valuable information.
5.25 inch drive. There are no special problems when connecting ...
... well, you can’t connect this “monster” without alteration
Conclusion
Well, I would like to conclude this article, but I will say a few more words. Of course, any of these options will help anyone to make a copy of data from old floppy disks or continue working with them in the presence of outdated equipment, where, except for floppy disks, no other means will be able to transfer information. In general, I recommend using an old computer. This allows us not only to fully work with floppy disks, but also allows us to save computer history to some extent, since we thereby find a use for old equipment and save it from oblivion. On an old computer, you can not only make copies of floppy disks, but many other interesting things ...
Additional links:
English-language reading of data from floppy disks in our time;
The site of the developer of the adapter board for connecting a 5.25-inch drive via USB, where it can be ordered from the USA.
Thank you for your attention!
Text, photos - Alexander Antyushenya
Iron Ghosts of the Past - 2015
Additions or amendments to
Floppy Disk
Floppy disk 3.5″
Floppy disk 5.25″
3.5″ floppy device:
1 - stub "write protection";
2 - disk base with holes for the driving mechanism;
3 - protective shutter of the open area of the body;
4 - plastic floppy case;
5 - anti-dust cloth;
6 - magnetic disk;
7 - recording area.
The pu_1700 driver also allowed for formatting with a shift and interleaving of sectors - this accelerated sequential read-write operations, but deprived of compatibility even with a standard number of sectors, sides and tracks.
Finally, a fairly common modification of the 3.5″ floppy disk format is their formatting to 1.2 MB (with a reduced number of sectors). This feature can usually be enabled in Japan and South Africa. As a side effect, activating this setting
One of the main problems associated with the use of floppy disks was their fragility. The most vulnerable element of the floppy disk design was a tin or plastic casing covering the floppy disk itself: its edges could bend, which led to the floppy disk getting stuck in the drive, the spring that returned the casing to its original position could be displaced, as a result, the floppy disk casing was separated from the case and no longer returned to starting position. The floppy plastic case itself did not serve as sufficient protection for the floppy disk from mechanical damage (for example, when a floppy disk fell on the floor), which put the magnetic media out of action. Dust could get into the gap between the floppy case and the casing.
The massive displacement of floppy disks from everyday life began with the advent of rewritable CDs, and especially flash-based media, which have a much lower unit cost, orders of magnitude greater capacity, a greater actual number of rewriting cycles and durability.
An intermediate option between them and traditional floppy disks are magneto-optical media, Iomega_Zip, Iomega_Jaz and others. Such removable media is sometimes also referred to as floppy disks.
Once upon a time, I made a machine for dressing and sharpening small drills out of an old "Winchester", but it has a too high minimum rotation speed and usually when you are in a hurry, the drills overheat. I tried to somehow reduce the speed, nothing good happened and therefore I left everything as it was, just forcing myself to take my time. And then recently familiar computer scientists came and with the question “look, can something useful be done from this?” began dumping a lot of three and a half inch disk drives on the table ( fig.1). And for some reason, the first thought was - and not to try to assemble a new low-speed "edit" ...
Without postponing this matter indefinitely, we immediately remove the covers from several drives of different brands and see what's inside.
And inside everything is different and for different models of the same brand, motor control can be assembled on one or two microcircuits ( fig.2).
We examine the details on the boards in more detail and give preference to the option with two microcircuits ( fig.3) - it can be seen from the tracks and suitable wires that the right ALPS-R SD705A chip (among other things) is responsible for the operation of the stepper motor for moving the reading head, and the left LB11813 is only for the operation of the disk rotation motor.
It can also be seen that both microcircuits are connected by only two signal tracks - pins 33 and 34 of a large microcircuit go to pins 10 and 11 connected together and to pin 12 of LB11813, respectively.
To be honest, I have already dealt with disk drives and already have some idea of the principle of their operation, therefore, having said for greater importance “now we will cut something off here ...”, I carefully cut both of these tracks ( fig.4).
We leave pin 12 of the LB11813 chip alone, and the clock signal CLK must be applied to the 10th and 11th. Since its repetition rate should be about 1 MHz, and the amplitude is standard for microcircuits of the five-volt series, we assemble a rectangular pulse generator on a K555LN1 chip on a piece of textolite that has turned up under the arm. We put a variable resistor to control the frequency and, with its middle position, by selecting the capacitance of the capacitor, we adjust the output frequency to 1 MHz. Then we connect the generator output to the LB11813 pins ( fig.5), solder the drive and generator power buses and turn on the PSU. We hear that the engine began to rotate. This is good ... Turning the knob of the variable resistor, we hear how the engine speed changes. And this is good…
The guests, joyful and inspired by the prospects that opened up, rushed home, thinking on the go how to use this “miracle of technology”, and I returned to the scheme to see what should be left and what should be removed, and how to ennoble all this in the building ...
First, armed with a tester, a pencil and a piece of paper, I copied a diagram from the board ( rice. 6). Here, the numbering of the element piping related to the LB11813 chip is left old, i.e. the one that was on the board.
Then I looked at some specifications. The current consumed from the five-volt power supply at idle is 0.22 A, with an average “load” on the motor shaft, it varies from 0.5 A to 0.7 A. Before the rotation stops, the current reaches 0.85 A. Heating temperature case of the LB11813 chip depends on the load, but in any case does not exceed 50-70 degrees.
The minimum frequency of the generator, at which the engine is still rotating, is about 0.45 MHz, the maximum is about 4.6 MHz.
Now I completely disassemble the drive, leaving only two boards connected by 4 colored wires - the LB11813 chip controls the engine through them ( fig.7). A white eight-wire cable is also not needed - what was interesting on the board with the engine was not either a choke, or some other element, but very similar to a choke and most likely responsible for controlling the engine speed (i.e. performing the functions Hall sensor) - so you can unsolder it, everything works without it. The remaining conductors of the loop are a common wire, supply voltage, as well as signal transmission from limit switches from the motor board (we solder them too).
I “blow off” all unnecessary elements from a large board with a hot air gun and cut it so that the mounting holes remain ( fig.8).
I didn’t find a ready-made one that was suitable in size, I took a piece of 16 mm chipboard, a thin plastic sheet and a piece of fiberglass from an old printed circuit board. I sawed a little, drilled and fixed everything so that it didn’t “stick out” very much and didn’t take up much space on the table ( fig.9, fig.10, fig.11, fig.12).
I spread the printed circuit board for the pulse generator, but have not yet etched it out - it’s reluctant to breed the “bodyagi” for the sake of one or two small boards. In the meantime, I installed a mock-up version in the case and glued it and the board with the engine drive chip with hot glue. The PCB file in the program format is in the appendix to the article (the view is made from the side of the installation of parts - the picture must be “mirrored” when it is necessary).
I didn’t cover the case with any decorative panel on top - I left the screw heads in plain sight. The plastic from which the top cover is made came across very successful - no adhesives from the Moment or BF series adhere tightly to it, and it practically does not scratch or smear. From the part that remained when cutting a hole for the rotating surface of the engine, I cut out a ring, which I glued from above to this rotating surface. Sandpaper rings can be glued onto this ring ( fig.13), which, if desired, are quite easy to tear off and almost no glue remains on the plastic surface of the ring. And what remains is scratched with a fingernail.
As a power supply, I used a pulse converter that outputs 5V / 1A from some old office equipment. The power wire is soldered directly into the circuit - maybe this is not very correct, but the power supply is never lost and then, when it is replaced with a new one, you don’t have to figure out where the “plus” and where the “minus” are in the connector.
There are no switches on the case, no indication of voltage supply either. The speed control resistor engine is displayed on the side. Considering that over the past month I had to correct the drills twice and sharpen several broken ones of different diameters once, and during this time there was never a need to reduce the speed, it turns out that it was possible not to make smooth adjustment. Set the generator to 4 MHz - and that's it.
Of course, I checked the operation of the circuit with the engine from the "hard drive" - everything works the same, but with noticeably less power compared to the control from the "native" controller. This is understandable - the engine from the HDD requires a higher supply voltage.
Out of academic interest, I looked at the shape of the signals in the engine power circuits. The figures below show the states on the "phases" U and V with respect to common wire at a clock frequency of 4.6 MHz ( fig.14), at 1 MHz ( fig.15) and on one of the "phases" and the output, indicated on the boards as N ("neutral", presumably) ( fig.16):
The signals were “removed” through resistor dividers, so the levels do not correspond to the voltage scale readings, but since the division coefficients were the same and did not change, then the ratios of the levels relative to each other are correct. The time intervals are correct.
Andrey Goltsov, Iskitim
| Designation | Type of | Denomination | Quantity | Note | Score | My notepad | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| List of additional items | |||||||
| DD2 | Chip digital | K555LN1 | 1 | To notepad | |||
| R1, R2 | Resistor | 470 ohm | 2 | ||||
Floppy Disk
Floppy disk 3.5″
Floppy disk 5.25″
3.5″ floppy device:
1 - stub "write protection";
2 - disk base with holes for the driving mechanism;
3 - protective shutter of the open area of the body;
4 - plastic floppy case;
5 - anti-dust cloth;
6 - magnetic disk;
7 - recording area.
The pu_1700 driver also allowed for formatting with a shift and interleaving of sectors - this accelerated sequential read-write operations, but deprived of compatibility even with a standard number of sectors, sides and tracks.
Finally, a fairly common modification of the 3.5″ floppy disk format is their formatting to 1.2 MB (with a reduced number of sectors). This feature can usually be enabled in Japan and South Africa. As a side effect, activating this setting
One of the main problems associated with the use of floppy disks was their fragility. The most vulnerable element of the floppy disk design was a tin or plastic casing covering the floppy disk itself: its edges could bend, which led to the floppy disk getting stuck in the drive, the spring that returned the casing to its original position could be displaced, as a result, the floppy disk casing was separated from the case and no longer returned to starting position. The floppy plastic case itself did not serve as sufficient protection for the floppy disk from mechanical damage (for example, when a floppy disk fell on the floor), which put the magnetic media out of action. Dust could get into the gap between the floppy case and the casing.
The massive displacement of floppy disks from everyday life began with the advent of rewritable CDs, and especially flash-based media, which have a much lower unit cost, orders of magnitude greater capacity, a greater actual number of rewriting cycles and durability.
An intermediate option between them and traditional floppy disks are magneto-optical media, Iomega_Zip, Iomega_Jaz and others. Such removable media is sometimes also referred to as floppy disks.
Hello, friends.
Today we will discuss the ancient piece of iron :-) and plunge into history a little.
Many of you have seen or even have a second drive in your old computer.
Usually it is located just below the middle of the system unit. The purpose of the device is to read and write floppy disks.
Despite the fact that many other storage media have now appeared, floppy disks can sometimes come in handy (for example, for flashing a BIOS). But there is no place for them in the modern computer.
In this article, I will tell you in more detail what an FDD drive is and how to connect it to a new computer.
First of all, I propose to figure out what an FDD drive is.
From English, the abbreviation stands for Floppy Disk Drive, which means a floppy disk drive. Like the optical drive familiar to us, this device reads and writes information. But it only works not with optical disks, but with flexible magnetic ones.
It has 2 motors: one is responsible for the speed of rotation of the drive, the other moves the read and write heads. How fast the first engine runs depends on the performance of the floppy disk: they vary between 300-360 rpm.
The second motor is stepper, and moves the heads in discrete intervals along a radial path from the edge to the middle. Unlike the heads of a modern drive, these do not move over the floppy, but along it.
The principle of operation of the device when it records data is similar to a tape recorder, that is, the head is in contact with a magnet. The only difference is that the drive records without high-frequency bias. He remagnetizes the material.
The first company to manufacture floppy disk drives was IBM.
The start was given in the late 1960s by Alan Shugart, who was the leader of the disk drive design group at this company.
The first such devices were 8 inches in size. In 1969, Shugart left this enterprise, followed by more than 100 employees.
After 7 years at his own company Shugart Associates, he developed a miniature 5.25-inch drive, which was the standard for computers.
Sony, these dimensions seemed large, and in 1983 she released a 3.5-inch drive. Hewlett-Packard was the first company to dare to install them in its computers only a year later. At the same time, Apple also “tasted” them, and after 2 years - Apple.
The first 5.25-inch drives had a flexible casing that looked like an envelope. You could easily bend them with your hands. This drawback was eliminated in 3.5-inch floppies equipped with a plastic case and, in addition, a special metal shutter that protects the slot for the read head.
Despite the reduction in size, the volume of diskettes has increased. The maximum capacity of the 5.25" variant was 1.2MB, while the standard 3.5" was 1.44MB.
Another difference: to insert large floppy disks into the drive, it was necessary to turn the lever to fix it, smaller disks drove into the slot automatically.
The interface for FDD that interacts with IBM products is the SA-400 (Shugart Associates). Its controller is connected by a 34-pin cable. Devices with a 5.25-inch form factor are equipped with a printed connector. Are you interested in connecting 3.5 inch drives? Then you will be dealing with a simple pin-plug.
To connect different drives, you can use a combo cable with four interfaces arranged in pairs. When connecting, keep in mind that the order of the drive (A: or B:) in the BIOS is determined by its location on the cable.
Since current computer models are not designed to use floppy disks, they do not have devices for them. Do you really need information from a floppy disk?
There is a way out - usb floppy drive.
As you guessed, it connects via a USB port. Plus, not only in the possibility of connecting with any modern computer, but also in the fact that you can take an external drive with you anywhere.
You yourself probably guessed that FDDs are no longer used due to the emergence of newer technologies. First, the volume of floppy disks is extremely small in comparison with modern drives. Secondly, their data transfer speed also leaves much to be desired.
But there are also less obvious reasons. One of them is the short life span of floppy disks. They quickly demagnetized when interacting (not even the closest) with metal objects. For example, you could drive with a floppy in a tram, subway or trolleybus and lose all the information.
Another reason is the vulnerability of the floppy disk design. The edges of the case, even those made of tin or plastic, could bend. Because of this, the disk sometimes got stuck in the drive hole. Moreover, plastic is an unreliable material and can easily break.
Consequently, due to the many disadvantages of disks, the need for floppy drives has disappeared.
Despite the exit from widespread use, nevertheless, floppy disks, and, accordingly, devices for them, are still used. In our country, not all organizations have yet switched to a new type of technical equipment, therefore, in industrial, medical, measuring enterprises, you can still find floppy drives. They are also used in the music industry.
But such a drive can also come in handy at home, of course, if you are the owner of an old hardware. With help, you can boot the operating system or run self-loading diagnostic tools. After all, early versions of operating systems do not allow this to be done from optical discs.
Maybe you want to find outdated information in the archives? Then you also probably need a floppy drive.
Basically, that's all you need to know about the fdd drive.
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Goodbye friends!
