Jeff Epler has been on a mission of information restoration, trying to archive the contents of classic 8″ floppy disks from a Xerox 820 Info Processor — a problem, provided that even two-generations-removed 3.5″ disk drives are a vanishingly uncommon sight on computer systems today.
“My Xerox 820 CP/M pc has a big exterior drive enclosure with two 8″ SS/DD [Single Sided/Double Density] floppy drives in it,” Epler explains. “They’ve a ‘Shugart’ interface inside, introduced out to a proprietary-but-documented 37-pin D-style connector. I beforehand made a passive adapter board so {that a} ‘Gotek’ floppy drive emulator may change the drive enclosure, and it labored! (and is a LOT much less loud than two 8″ floppy drives spinning on a regular basis!)”
Having constructed an adapter to place fashionable floppy drives in a traditional Xerox (proper), Jeff Epler turned it into the other — to archive disk contents. (📷: Jeff Epler)
Changing an actual floppy drive with a Gotek or comparable emulator, which permits disk pictures to be loaded from solid-state storage equivalent to an SD card or USB flash drive, is a good way to get extra life out of a classic pc system just like the Xerox 820 — launched in 1981 for $3,795 for its two-8″-drive configuration and closely primarily based on the Ferguson Massive Board equipment pc. There’s the difficulty of going within the different route, although: utilizing the unique floppy drives to create pictures from actual, bodily disks.
“[It] obtained me considering: may I make a second adapter board that may let me archive 8″ floppies,” Epler explains. “Then, inspiration struck: I did not even want a second board design. As an alternative of becoming a plug (‘male’) connector on the board’s prime aspect, I may merely match a socket (‘feminine’) connector on the board’s backside aspect. Since I would gotten 5 boards in my PCB order, I simply needed to look forward to supply of the connector and solder every little thing up.”
Epler has launched design recordsdata for the adapter board, permitting different Xerox 820 homeowners to comply with go well with. (📷: Jeff Epler)
The ensuing reversed connector permits the bodily Xerox floppy drives to hook up with a contemporary USB floppy controller such because the flux-sampling Greaseweazle or Adafruit’s prototype Floppsy. With appropriate software program — Epler used the official Greaseweazle software program, regardless of choosing the Floppsy on the {hardware} aspect — the 8″ disks will be learn into pictures for archival functions, and to make use of in emulated kind with the extra dependable and far quieter Goteks now put in within the Xerox 820’s floppy disk housing.
Epler’s write-up, which features a information to each studying from and writing to unique 8″ disks, is now out there on the Adafruit Be taught portal; KiCad design recordsdata and Gerbers for the adapter board can be found on Epler’s GitHub repository underneath an unspecified license.