VOGONS


First post, by AngryByDefault

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Hi there, hope you're all doing well...

There is a slight change I get a friend to bring me a floppy emulator from overseas, given that down here they are sold at 10 to 20 times their AliExpress value.

But in this forums for instance, they seem to be always referred to as "Goteks" so I wonder if that's a specific brand I should go for or any no-brand unit should be theoretically ok.

I also just read about an open source firmware that greatly expands their capabilities, but again, I'm not sure if brands are a real issue or not if I' d be willing to use that alternative firmware.

Edit: I should add that I am considering a getting Gotek mostly to be able to install some old OSes whose installers I think might be floppy based only.

Any advice?
Thanks in advance.

Reply 1 of 9, by Byrd

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From my experience - multiple "Goteks" purchased from random eBay sellers - they've all been the same. Initially a bit tricky wiring and detecting for a firmware flash, after this plain sailing.

Reply 2 of 9, by chinny22

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Mine are always the cheapest going off ebay.
All are identical down to having 2 LED's inside the case (power and activity) but only the power been visible from the outside.

Reply 4 of 9, by appiah4

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No, some of the newer revisions are built using a different SoC and not compatible with older firmwares. Flash-Floppy and HxC have specific firmwares for these. As for performance and stability, I don't know as I don't own one, but I can tell you that they are NOT similar. The newer boards also are difficult to mod with things like potentiometers etc.

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 5 of 9, by imi

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also it seems like the time of cheap goteks is over?
I remember ordering them for about $15 or so... now they're $25-35 everywhere, most easily available ones even more than that.

Reply 6 of 9, by appiah4

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imi wrote on 2021-11-25, 10:42:

also it seems like the time of cheap goteks is over?
I remember ordering them for about $15 or so... now they're $25-35 everywhere, most easily available ones even more than that.

Pretty much everything that has silicon in it has gone up in price..

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 7 of 9, by AngryByDefault

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Thanks for the input guys, at least I have some info to go by and I'll see what I can get.

Re: pricing, locally they are ranging from u$85 to u$160 so I'd gladly pay 30 bucks for one 😀
This stuff is so so limited around here that this kind of abusive prices are all too common.

Thanks again.

Reply 8 of 9, by oso2k

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Maybe an RPi Virtual Floppy is easier for you to acquire and build?

https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/x9tFlsBX

https://www.smbaker.com/raspberry-pi-virtual- … -xtat-computers

https://youtu.be/eDD2GbaMwYA

https://youtu.be/bFggAAzIQn0