.

I have found some CF/IDE adapters that can be installed in the case (not PCI cards) after some search on the web. I'll go for it!

Network.

Right. And XTIDE BIOS also supports serial ports for virtual drives I believe.
So all it needs is a serial cable and the server software (serial server ?) beeing run from a modern computer.
Plus a host for the univeral BIOS, of course, which often involves a network card and the necessity to program such a ROM chip.
And that's about the point where someone has to ask himself if it wouldn't be simpler to just use an XTIDE adapter for CF cards instead.
http://www.xtideuniversalbios.org

This is what a floppy emulator was made to do. Replace floppy drives with a quick changing solution.

You can get IDE to CF card adaptors that use slot in the back of your PC, this is just an example plenty more out there
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CF-Flash-Card-to-40 … DQAAOSwnHZYY9Yh
You can then swap the cards without opening the case 😀

Yup, that's one of these types which I've got, too. I'm not sure right now, but it might be necessary to insert the card bottom up in that particular model.

A floppy emulator is a good idea, but I wish they made one that didn't take up a drive bay. I don't want them so visible on my retro PC's. Would be nice if I could have one at the back, like that CF reader, or wireless I guess.

firage wrote:

A floppy emulator is a good idea, but I wish they made one that didn't take up a drive bay. I don't want them so visible on my retro PC's. Would be nice if I could have one at the back, like that CF reader, or wireless I guess.

I agree, I think that floppy emulator kills the retro feel and look. I'd never install something like that to my vintage PC. But yeah, they are very useful to be honest.

It would be cool if they made one where the seven-segment display (->SSD, haha) was detachable/connected by a ribbon-cable.
This way, someone could install it in place of the turbo display (which was a SSD, too).
If the floppy emulator also had a turbo button pass-trough, it would be perfect. The values for low/high settings
could then be stored on the flash media and displayed when the floppy emulator was idle.

YNS89 wrote:

I agree, I think that floppy emulator kills the retro feel and look. I'd never install something like that to my vintage PC.

I agree

The second somebody installs a slightly modern bit of tech to replace a few hundred floppy disks with a single usb thumb drive it really ruins the retro feel of having to store 100's of floppys or rewriting the same floppy over and over again. And man it sure does ruin the software. Everyone knows that if the software isn't loaded by an actual floppy disk then the software is 100% different. For example i tried to load dos and I stuck the usb drive in and it loaded windows 10...... totally ruins that retro feel.

I guess I'm just a purist really. I want to use period correct parts like CF card adapters. Everyone in the early 90's used CF card adapters.

Or even better , I'll just burn my games onto cd rom. Everyone in the early 90's burned all their games onto a single cdrom with their cd burners so it wouldn't ruin that "retro feel" i like.

i wonder if anyone ever makes flash discs may have the shape of a 3.5" diskette and the reader might actually just make similar noises th the real ones :>

http://hackaday.com/2016/02/28/floppy-drive-h … sd-card-reader/

not even bad, but the floppy cannot be used via standard floppy controller, needs some weird contraption i guess; the noise isn't there either;
i know i know, i want it all..

The motherboard is important, and Nvidia Vesa 3.0 card, all my retro gear has HDD caddies, USB Floppy emulators, ISA cheap ass Yamaha or ESS sound card, it is only depending, DO I WANT TO PLAY DUKE 2....

Fujifilm Floppy Disk Adapter FD-A1
http://www.minidisc.org/boyde/fda1.html

That looks pretty neat, but the page suggests you need Windows 95.

Hmm.. True. I've also seen another model which claims to have drivers available for DOS/Windows 3.1 and Windows 95, 98, NT 4.0 and Mac.
"Mac" may refer here to MacOS 8.1 or higher (upto 9.2.2): https://www.amazon.com/Olympus-Camedia-FlashP … r/dp/B00LRE1W28
But I guess these Flashpath devices were sold under different brands. Maybe it is possible to use the drivers interchangeably ?
Edit: Sorry for my bad English, need more practise. 😅

Your English is practically perfect, sir. (It's strange that the ones who apologize for bad English are usually the ones who least need to apologize.)