GoTEK SFR1M44-U100 3.5 Inch 1.44MB USB SSD Floppy Drive Emulator Grey

Works great on an old Tandy 1000 I've been tinkering on.

Recently I've gotten very involved in retro computing. But in 2020, messing with tiny floppy disks is absolutely no fun. Bad sectors, dirty drives, it's just not a great experience. Enter this thing. It allows you to easily turn any old USB drive into 1000 floppy disks, and just push a button to swap between them. It works on any old PC or other devices that use floppy disks for storage (synths, etc). Some notes about the default firmware that's on the device: * The software to use the device is... interesting and a bit annoying. * It's Windows only. * It will only work with DOS and devices that support DOS. With that said, it's trivial to flash a replacement firmware onto this device that turns it into an absolute POWERHOUSE (FlashFloppy, Google it). It just requires VERY minor soldering skills (my toddler could probably do it) and a USB-A to A cable like this: https://www.amazon.com/Rankie-Cable-Type-1-Pack-Feet/dp/B01KRO8D20/ With the replacement firmware you get: * WAY easier to manage from basically anywhere, Mac, Linux, Windows, etc. * Able to use it with other old devices like Amigas. * Can easily replace the simple LCD with a full-featured OLED screen, again with MINOR soldering skills. In all, a massive value for the money even if you just keep the stock firmware.

I've used this emulator for loading startup disks for installing Windows 95 & 98. You can format a flash drive (the older the better) as a 1.44Mb floppy disk and you'll be able to go back and forth between a modern PC and the GoTEK easily.

My floppy failed in my last 80s pc. So I shopped. Found this. Fast delivery. About 15 minutes to physically install. I plugged in a stuck to the usb and it didn’t work. Back to the instructions that are way above my skill set . But then , I plugged in a new unused memory stick and formatted . Bingo , worked immediately. It’s slow but I’m sure that’s because my old machine is slow . But wow , breathing a little more life in this old machine . Great value , great idea , thank you

Replaced the old 3.5" FDD on a Roland digital Piano with this drive with no issues. I did use duct tape along top of this emulator within the mounting brackets to keep it in place since the mounting screws did not seem to hold it securely enough. Managed to figure out the button programming, but could never get it to recognize more than 1 virtual disk, but that was okay for my need. I did download lots of free digital MIDI files of classical performances on a thumbdrive that played just fine on piano. Also able to record and play back on the piano as well. Happy with purchase.

Well it works. Last job I lost my last box of 3.5" floppy's. So I needed a different solution to save show files. Found this online and installed it and it works. Plug and play. Everything fit perfect for mounting. Once you first turn it on you will need to format your USB stick from the console disk menu. You will need to format each step number to save different shows to different numbers. I found for the console to recognize each step. After you turn on the console. Change the number on the emulator to the correct show file you need during boot up. This has to be done prior to you seeing the main screen layout. It reads and writes perfectly fine. A++. Getting more for my other floppy disk drive lighting consoles. Did not have to format thru a computer. I did it all thru the lighting console.

Bought 2 of these emulators to replace the failing floppy drives in my Prototrak CNC mill. You'll also need a floppy to USB harness to set it up. They are all over Amazon for cheap. Downloaded the program from Gotek site to format the USB sticks then installed the SWI software just like I was making a new disk. Really pretty slick. Boots up and runs perfect plus have pretty much unlimited storage now for saving programs.

Getting images onto the USB stick was a bit fussy, I found that letting the GoTek format the USB stick was the easiest way to get it in a state I could transfer images to it. It would be a TREMENDOUS improvement if they added an OLED display that would show the volume name of each "disk", so you don't have to rely on more draconian means to keep track. It works, but is surprisingly just as slow as a normal floppy. The 1.44MB drives require the more advanced controller that can do 500Kbit/s, I can tell you that this does not come close to achieving that speed. The fastest floppy drive I ever used was an old Toshiba 1.44MB drive back in the 90's, there was something magical about that drive and it transferred data very fast, faster than the typical 22KB/s.