5.25 Floppy emulation

[EdGs]

I posted awhile back about an E-mu Emulator sampler I have that uses an old MPI Floppy drive. The info I have says that the drive is supposed to be a Shugart SA400L.

This machine has a whopping 128K of memory and you load the operating system and sound samples off the same disk.

Is there any kind of emulation program that would allow a computer to be hooked to the ribbon cable for the original floppy drive and communicate with the machine?

This way the machine could still function and many of the original floppy disks could be stored and loaded as needed (provided you have a way to get them to a computer to be stored).

I am finally in the process of trying to get this machine running again and am very doubtful that the floppy drive will work after I clean and repair the circuit boards and such.

Hope you all don't think this is a stupid idea, but I would really like to bring this machine back from the dead. It is a very primitive machine, but only about 500 were built and the replacement floppy drives are said to be expensive, not to mention tracking down software. I believe I have sources for software, but am not in a big hurry yet as I have lots to do cleaning and repair wise.

Thanks in advance for any help with this.

 

[MikeS]

Well, MPI and Shugart drives still pop up from time to time at reasonable prices, and I'd be surprised if some other more common 5.25" DD drives wouldn't work as well.

There are solutions out there similar to what you're looking for, but they're not fully universal and may or may not work with your particular disk format.

Definitely not a stupid idea, quite to the contrary; that's the sort of thing many people on here do with various obscure and obsolete treasures. Good luck; maybe you'll find someone with a similar machine or at least some solid info.

mike

 

[Chuck(G)]

There's nothing magic about an SA400; just about any other 360K 5.25" will do and I suggest that you go that route to keep things simple.

Yes, floppy emulators exist, but they're format-specific. Since we don't know the format of your system, best to stick with the real things.

 

[MikeS]

There's nothing magic about an SA400; just about any other 360K 5.25" will do and I suggest that you go that route to keep things simple.

Yes, floppy emulators exist, but they're format-specific. Since we don't know the format of your system, best to stick with the real things.

Yeah, that's what I meant to say ;-)

 

[EdGs]

Thanks,

I have no idea what format they used here either. I got the machine for free, but it's not worth alot, so I don't want to spend alot if possible.

Is there a way to figure out what format was used?

 

[carlsson]

OmniFlop claims to be able to read, write and format floppy disks for E-mu EIII, Emax, EOS and ESi. I don't know if your Emulator fits either of those four formats. Since they are quited to be 800-1440K each, I suppose all those four are 3.5" formats while yours is a 5.25" format.

http://www.shlock.co.uk/Utils/OmniFlop/OmniFlop.htm

Would the sampler be able to format blank floppy disks if you get an adequate floppy drive? If so, you could try to read a floppy disk in a PC with .. an adequate floppy drive and see if the program detects the format.

This page mentions at least the Emulator II+ uses 96 tpi DD (QD) floppy disks which suggests at least some 600-800K per disk.
http://emulatorii.com/?page_id=11

Actually I find several resources selling sound disks for the EII but very little about the first model.

Here is another reseller for replacement floppy drives. Very expensive, but I suppose those are fully tested and a bit of research is put behind the pricing. Worth noticing is not even this site mentions your sampler, their kits start with the Emulator II.

http://www.route66studios.com/drives.html

 

[MikeS]

Thanks,

I have no idea what format they used here either. I got the machine for free, but it's not worth alot, so I don't want to spend alot if possible.

Is there a way to figure out what format was used?

That depends on whether you have a computer that's capable of reading the disks at the hardware level (i.e. with the right kind of drive and a controller and OS capable of reading the disk at all).

If yes, then as Anders points out there are a number of programs out there that may or may not be able to read the actual data on the disk and that may or may not also be able to write meaningful data on to a disk.

If you don't have capable hardware then you might be able to find someone who does who would be willing to look at one of your diskettes to see if it is a known format that can in fact be read and written on a PC.

If it is, then all you'd need is an old junked PC with the right drive & controller. If it isn't, then you're probably out of luck; people make good money getting data off obscure disks.

So, what have you got with which to try reading the disks?

PS: There are several people working on emulators and software for this sort of thing; if all else fails one of them might be interested in looking at one of your disks to see if their system can deal with it and they can add it to their list of supported formats.

Also, you say you might have access to software; any idea what format that's in?