Amiga floppy drive in ATX PC case

[FLiP79]

I'm working on a mid-tower mod where I've put one of my two Amiga 1200
I'd like to use also the floppy drive, so I mounted it in the case. Now I've three questions:

1. Can I simply connect one of the small plugs (the typical PC floppy power plug) of the ATX power supply and power the drive?
2. The original data cable is too short. Can I replace it with any flat cable, untwisted, with the same number of connections?
3. Of course the drive is without a front face plate. What can I do? I looked for a 3D print but I've discovered... nothing.

Thank you in advance.

[torsti76]

Originally Posted by FLiP79

I'm working on a mid-tower mod where I've put one of my two Amiga 1200

I'd like to use also the floppy drive, so I mounted it in the case. Now I've three questions:



1. Can I simply connect one of the small plugs (the typical PC floppy power plug) of the ATX power supply and power the drive?

2. The original data cable is too short. Can I replace it with any flat cable, untwisted, with the same number of connections?

3. Of course the drive is without a front face plate. What can I do? I looked for a 3D print but I've discovered... nothing.



Thank you in advance.

1. Yes

2. Yes, but keep it as short as possible

3. Since Commodore used "normal" floppy drives, you might be lucky finding a similar one for PC on eBay. The facias then usually fit the Amiga drives.

Another option would be to buy a PC floppy drive that's been modified for Amiga use.
This has the benefit that PC drives are usually much younger and, because floppy drives usually weren't used extensively in PCs, show less wear than their Amiga counterparts. The downside is that these usually lack the RDY signal, so some games and XCopy won't work.

That said, I'm in the process of converting a larger number of Sony floppy drives with a little added circuitry so they are usable in an Amiga and can read and write both HD (1,76 MB) and DD (880 kB) floppy disks. These drives have a properly generated RDY signal, too. If you are a little patient, I can probably sell you one beforeChristmas... :-)

Note that your typical converted PC drive off of eBay is only capable of handling DD disks.

[FLiP79]

Thank you so much for your answer(s)! I connected it with a no-so-long cable and it works
Let me know when your "new" Sony drives will be available, if the price and shipping to Italy is not too high I will be interested

[MiaM]

Re front panel: Maybe you can make one out of a blind cover plate for the PC case? Drill or chisel (use a real chisel or a flat blade screwdriver) out roughly where the holes should go, but make them a bit too small. Then use a file to enlarge the holes to the correct size.

It wouldn't give you a flap that closes but it would at least look far better than nothing.

[FLiP79]

I replaced the plate with one of a old, broken drive from a 286 PC. Not bad! I made a couple of tiny modifications to the front metal to let it mount the "new" plate and it looks very good and solid. Now I have to:

- Paint it with with lucid black
- Create an eject button -- I think I will simply paste it
- Figure how to enable the on-drive LED to show activity.

[Daedalus]

Good stuff! On the A1200, the floppy LED is connected to the /MOT signal, rather than indicating actual read/write operations. Does it not show any sort of activity at all? I modified drives before to show the same type of activity by connecting the LED with a suitable resistor directly to the /MOT signal at the drive's 34-pin connector. In that case, the positive side of the LED is towards 5V and the negative side is to the /MOT signal.

[FLiP79]

Suddenly, the LED has begun to work maybe the cable I detached and re-attached to paint the front. Boh!

The black paint seems ok

[Daedalus]

No don't touch it! Yeah, the black looks good, good job!

[Mick]

stedy sells adapters to use PC drives on Amiga doesn't he? perfect for towers.

[Stedy]

Originally Posted by Mick

stedy sells adapters to use PC drives on Amiga doesn't he? perfect for towers.

Currently completely out of stock of those adaptors. Was looking to re-order most of the adaptors but suspended all sales earlier this year due to Covid 19.
I live in London, which was the hotspot back in March/April and I work in the Medway area, the current hotspot in the country.

I have a prototype design that can switch DF0:/DF1: and support Gotek, it needs some refinements. Will make the decisions on what designs get manufactured early next year.