Old floppy drive or Datavue 25 floppy interface specifications \ VOGONS

Old floppy drive or Datavue 25 floppy interface specifications

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First post, by babtras

Posted on 2020-06-09, 17:12

babtras Offline

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Joined: 2019-03-03, 04:19
Location: Canada

I have recently acquired a Datavue 25 Lunchbox PC (8088). It has no hard drive or hard drive controller and only a 360k 5.25" floppy drive, an Epson SD-521.
After getting the machine working again (bought it as a derelict), I want to boot DOS. But I have no 5.25" floppy disks.
The drive has a very familiar-looking 34-pin interface so I decided I'd try an emulator instead. When I swapped out the Epson SD-521 with the emulator and turned the machine on, one side of the floppy cable got extremely hot and the PC displayed corrupted gibberish on the LCD.

I put the 5.25" floppy back in and everything works again.

So my conclusion is that this isn't a standard 34-pin floppy interface, that it is something else.

Does anyone know anything about this Epson SD-521 or the Datavue 25 that might enlighten me what kind of floppy interface this is or what the pinout is so I can possibly manufacture an adapter?

Reply 1 of 1, by RonA

Posted on 2022-04-09, 07:41

RonA Offline

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Joined: 2022-03-30, 01:01

This is odd. The SD-521 should be a standard drive. Epson SD-521 drives were used in the Kaypro 4 and the Visual Commuter. I have a visual commuter and have substituted a Chinon FZ-502 Floppy Drive (360K 5-1/4 DSDD ) in place of the Epson and it worked fine (implying that the SD-521 should be standard). I would like to find a working Epson SD-521 because the Chinon has a different faceplate and load latch. As such, it does not match the original look.

Ron

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