Cheap FDD emulator in Philips NMS8245 MSX2

Rookie (19)

23-05-2014, 17:20

Hi...

I mounted a really cheap FDD emulator (using a USB key) in my Philips NMS8245. I paid 14US$, shipping included in that big chinese store. I found some information in a brazilian forum but it did not work exactly for me.

To copy the files to the "virtual floppys" in the PC, you can use the software of IPCAS (they manufacture also a floppy emulator... but it is really expensive).

Here is a picture of the FDD emulator motherboard with the right jumpers location (for NMS8245, probably OK for more MSX2 models):

Here is the front view of the reader. It can not be seen in the picture but the square display shows the number of the "virtual floppy" (max. 100) selected by means of the two frontal buttons:

I hope that this info could be useful for someone. Bye, bye from Spain.

By Grauw

Ascended (10818)

23-05-2014, 17:52

Look similar to the HxC Floppy Emulator by Lotharek…

Interesting, I never heard of this kind of device until recently.

I can imagine that on systems that did direct addressing of the floppy disk controller, such a device would be pretty popular. On the MSX I think we were lucky to have a DiskROM abstraction layer, so we have many other storage options as well.

By marcoo

Expert (112)

23-05-2014, 18:35

I have this gotek floppy emulator into my amiga to read adf files directly
you can flash the rom inside de emulator with a TTL to serial usb stick
I was thinking to put one into my 8280 is iT possible to read only files or DSK files to
the rom is flashable I think it's possible program iT to read *.DSK files

By x-nen Aivalahostia

Paragon (1559)

23-05-2014, 18:59

I use the same ""chinese gotek "" from two years ago, you only have change the extension .dsk to .img to write disk images to usb key,

By marcoo

Expert (112)

23-05-2014, 19:44

That's easy , I coudn't try it because it was already programmed for amiga so I think
I' am gonna order one more

By xostia

Rookie (19)

23-05-2014, 23:02

Theorically, this one is not gotek but, with chinese things, nobody knows... I simply found it because of the black cover with this square in the center (like the original IPCas).

I did not see any firmware for this one but I red something for gotek... but not related to copy directly dsk files. You can use diskmanager to write dsk to the "first floppy 00" but I did not find how to do it with the 01, 02, 03... anyway, many times I simply extracted the files and that works.

I did not test to rename dsk to img and write the image with IPCas tool... it it works, it is perfect.

Anyway, it is really cheap and it works perfect for what I wanted, I think that is a good option for many people, that is why I decided to write here.

If anybody wants to know exactly the seller, I can inform you... I am not sure that I can write it here (if anybody can ensure that, I will do it that way).

Thanks for your interest.

xostia

By Grauw

Ascended (10818)

23-05-2014, 23:54

Sure yes you can link to the seller no prob.

By xostia

Rookie (19)

24-05-2014, 11:54

Hi again, I bought this one, at Aliexpress:

Floppy Disk Drive Emulator

It seems to be a bit more expensive now...

Bye

By qwerty69

Resident (36)

24-05-2014, 18:24

hello, I have one question
If this emulator reads 1.44 Mb, how can you use 720 Kb images? Is there some kind of jumper configuration?

By anonymous

incognito ergo sum (116)

25-05-2014, 13:24

I also have bought a couple of them. It is not a jumper configuration. There is a 720kb version of the emulator and a 1.44mb version. I noticed that since 720kb drives are hard to get, the price is a bit higher for the 720kb version.

By marcoo

Expert (112)

25-05-2014, 12:39

i think if you've got the 1.44 version you can program it for a 720kb version maybe there is a flash file for it already on the internet I found one for a CPC