I used Gotek floppy emulator before. But I don't like the floppy management software.
It's too complicated.

I then switched over to HxC floppy emulator. It is more expensive. But it's worth that.
I think it has these advantages:

- using SD-Card instead USB-Stick -> much cleaner look
- looks nicer
- putting floppy images is much more comfortable
- has a nice display with extra infos

AND best for me:

It makes emulated floppy seeking and reading sounds that are very realistic.

ux-3 wrote on 2024-06-20, 13:57:

I am wondering if I really need to spend a front bay for a floppy drive? I think I am down to like 10 or so working disks. I have one machine with a floppy drive, and I have floppy drives. But I don't have floppy bays really. I even have a USB Floppy drive.
Do you include a floppy drive (or gotek) in every machine?

I still have 3.5" drives on a few older machines (incl some older laptops), Most of which run DOS, WinXP-

I still have a 5.25" drive in a couple machines - these are HD drives I've modified with a front panel switch
to change from HD rotation speed (360rpm) to DD (300rpm) - This is for ImageDisk as some SD/DD formats
can't be created at 360rpm.

I even still have an operational 8" drive !

For more modern stuff, running Win7+ I wouldn't bother with a floppy
(assuming your mainboard is newish - ie: knows how to boot from flash drive - or at least DVD)

Dave ::: https://dunfield.themindfactory.com ::: "Daves Old Computers"->Personal

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-06-20, 19:28:

Use one every single day on a WIndows 11 Pro PC to save my household accounts spreadsheet.

Hold up. Really? Is that so it's easy to tinker with the spreadsheet on retro systems?

I have 3.5" FDD in every build, as well as mechanical IDE drive(s). I appreciate the modern alternatives and the place they have, but for me it's not retro without the original noises (and sometimes hassles).

I have floppy drive wherever there's a shaft in the case for her and connector on the motherboard (last I had on LGA 1155 ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3).
And the reasons?

1) I like the sound of the PC boot when the drive verifies the presence of the floppy disk (yes, pure nostalgia)
2) DOS boot disk for W98 and other small DOS utilities (RAMBIOS, flashing utility, etc.) I find useful just on floppy disks, as many BIOSes can boot from FDD, but no from CD/DVD drives
3) saved my board several times after the flash of modified BIOS, when the board booted, but without the image on the display. All you had to do was boot from the boot DOS floppy disk, wait until the drive's LED goes off and swap the floppy disk for another with the flash program and backed up by the original BIOS. After a blind flash, the boards were saved again.
Yes, there would have been other ways, but this way the floppy drive made it simple and quick.

For me, a floppy drive, like a CRT monitor, is simply a piece of hardware that I must n't miss with a retro PC.

I've got a couple of old iomega 3.5" floppy drives on USB good for newer PC:s without suitable slots, the drivers are not original since XP days, but they are compatible with generic NEC drivers, so they still are useful for old games on floppies. (The 5 1/4" drives I haven't seen in USB enclosures, so those get to stay with the older computers.)

Still have a floppy drive in my main computer

I don't really like Gotek, though I admit it can be useful. I do use floppies and still have around 100 3.5" disks and maybe around 20 5.25" disks. When I have to transfer files to and from the older systems which don't have USB in my inventory that's around number 2 on my list. Number 1 is either interlink cable or network depending on the system. To install DOS or Win9x I usually still use a floppy at least to boot.

I also like the sounds the drives make when booting.

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-06-20, 19:28:

Use one every single day on a WIndows 11 Pro PC to save my household accounts spreadsheet.

Stops them pesky fraudsters, especially any born this century 😀

Actually, a security device that with one press of a button, physically takes your most important data offline, is not a bad idea!

Newest build I have a "floppy" "in" is the AM3 Phenom II X4 955, Windoze7 box, and it's an LS:120 on the IDE port. Which seems to get the imaging and floppy prep and putting crap off teh interwebs on floppy duty. Though I also have a couple of USB drives that float and may get plugged into XP thru 10 systems from time to time. I could say I go weeks without touching a floppy, but that's kinda the same weeks where I don't get any retro playtime, so I guess I still rely on them a bit.

I have an internal NOS Alps 3.5 drive in my DOS6.22/Win3.11 system, along with a GoTek. I also bought myself some Maxell MF2HD disks just for use with that system. The combo works quite well.

I also use a Sony 2X USB floppy drive on my modern system primarily for disk archival purposes. Personally, I love having all 3 available to me!

Ive got about 250 working disks so ik nooit in need of something else.
The most significant reason for a floppy disk to me is getting the basic OS there and make the partition bootable.
However, i can convert to CD rom instead if I need to.

Get the image of a working bootable floppy disk
Burn a cd with the floppy image as boot disk (any bundled Nero 5 / 6 will do)
Get the target hard drive into a computer that supports boot CDs (primary master, no other drivers)
Boot that system from CD and go fdisk it, make the partition active and format /s it. Here's your bootable hard drive again! Just put it back into the original computer.

Next up is any CF to get the rest of the stuff over to the hard drive.

ux-3 wrote on 2024-06-21, 08:03:

fosterwj03 wrote on 2024-06-21, 01:00:

Goteks (with Flashfloppy firmware)

Please explain what that means.

Gotek is a popular inexpensive and frequently cloned floppy drive emulator from China that works with floppy image files stored on a USB. There several revisions over the years:
https://github.com/keirf/flashfloppy/wiki/Gotek-Models

Flashfloppy is a freeware opensource firmware that is an improvement over the firmware that is installed on most Gotek devices by default:
https://github.com/keirf/flashfloppy/wiki

Flashfloppy supports a number of well documented hardware mods that improve the usability and aesthetics of a Gotek device:
https://github.com/keirf/flashfloppy/wiki/Hardware-Mods

Shadzilla wrote on 2024-06-21, 14:49:

ElectroSoldier wrote on 2024-06-20, 19:28:

Use one every single day on a WIndows 11 Pro PC to save my household accounts spreadsheet.

Hold up. Really? Is that so it's easy to tinker with the spreadsheet on retro systems?

I have 3.5" FDD in every build, as well as mechanical IDE drive(s). I appreciate the modern alternatives and the place they have, but for me it's not retro without the original noises (and sometimes hassles).

No nothing to do with retro systems.
I just want to use a floppy disk to save to so I do.

Its nothing to do with space, its nothing to do with speed, or moving it to another machine.
I just want to use it. I like the noise when it opens and saves.

I think the aestetics of many builds up to win98 just dont feel right without a 3.5 drive. For 486 and older also a 5.25 drive. Personally I also think they have to work It is a sign that its a genuine retro machine. It is a bit like those old alarm clocks. If they run on batteries its not real. Whenever I "finish" a build I always include a floppy into each drive with a ready to run game as a proof that the machine is fully working.

The other extreme are perhaps ready to load images (e.g. for the Amiga) with thousands of floppy disk file images. Such a solution may be tempting a a complete solution. But I feel this is completely overwhelming. Like someone sharing 5000 holiday photographs.

I just found out that the mere presence of a USB2 card reader in a 586 machine will slow down the machine by 25%. You don't need to insert a media. So an internal card reader isn't really a good idea for this CPU generation. Which frees up a 3.5" bay. As long as I am not using all 7 expansion slots, I could mount a CF-card adapter in the rear. Which would leave room for a floppy. I feel better now. 😉