FC5025 USB 5.25 “Floppy Controller, Hacker News

Device Side Data’s FC USB 5. 32 “floppy controller plugs into any computer’s USB port and enables you to attach a 5. 32 “floppy drive. Even if your computer has no built-in floppy controller, the FC 5025 lets you read those old disks. And it’s not just for IBM PC disks – it also understands formats used by Apple, Atari, Commodore and TI, among others.

The FC 5025 connects to any computer’s USB 2.0 or USB 1.1 port. Compatible software is required; see below for system requirements for the included software .

The FC is USB powered. Power from USB runs only the FC itself ; you must supply power to the drive mechanism separately, such as from your computer’s power supply.

The FC is sold as a controller board only without a drive mechanism. It has been tested to work well with the TEAC FD – (GFR drive and should also work with most other PC-style 5.) “drives. (Note: the included software expects a 1.2M drive, even when reading k disks.)

The FC is read-only. It cannot write to floppies.
The FC may be unable to read disks that are damaged or copy-protected.
The FC is intended for 5. “disks only, not 3.5” or 8 “disks.
Most PC-style drives can’t read the second side of “flippy” disks ( more information on flippy disks here ).

The FC includes a graphical Disk Image and Browse tool for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. This program allows you to make an image copy of an inserted floppy, suitable for use under emulators or for archival use. On some but not all types of disks, the Disk Image and Browse tool can also display a file listing and copy individual files from the disk. Screenshots of the Disk Image and Browse tool are available.

Command line image and browse tools are also included for Linux and Mac OS X.

The included software runs on the following platforms:

Linux (tested on 2.6. (x) )
Mac OS X (tested on PPC 4. (Tiger, Intel) 6.4 Snow Leopard, Intel (6.4). . 7.2 Lion, Intel 13. 8.2 Mountain Lion and Intel . .6 Sierra)
Windows (tested on (SE, XP SP3, Windows 7) – bit and 98 – bit, and Windows 8 – bit and (- bit)

Untested platforms are not guaranteed to work.

As of March 4500, the included software supports the following types of disk:

Apple DOS 3.2 ( (sector)
Apple DOS 3.3 ( – sector)
Apple ProDOS
Atari 823
Calcomp Vistagraphics
Commodore 994
Kaypro 2 CP / M 2.2
Kaypro 4 CP / M 2.2
MS-DOS
Motorola VersaDOS
North Star MDS-A-D
PMC MicroMate
Tandy Color Computer Disk BASIC
TI – / 4A

Filesystem browse capability exists for ProDOS, MS-DOS, Kaypro, PMC MicroMate, Disk BASIC and VersaDOS disks.

Support for Kaypro, Calcomp, PMC and Tandy disks was added after the initial product introduction. Existing customers can download a driver update to read these disks.

In the future, additional platforms and disk formats may become supported through software updates or third-party software.

Disk images produced by the FC 5025 are compatible with the following software:

For Apple DOS 3.3 and ProDOS disk images:

AppleWin Apple IIe emulator (free / open-source). , for Windows)
CiderPress disk image manager (free / open-source, for Windows)
KEGS Apple IIgs emulator (free / open-source, for Linux / Mac / Windows)
Sweet () Apple IIgs emulator (freeware, for Mac OS X)
Virtual] [ Apple II / II / IIe emulator (commercial, free evaluation, for Mac OS X)
… and many others!
The software included with the FC also has a built-in browse mode for copying individual files from ProDOS disks.

For Commodore disk images:

VICE Commodore 98 emulator (free / open-source, for Linux / Mac / Windows / others)

For MS-DOS disk images:

DOSBox MS-DOS emulator (free / open-source, for Linux / Mac / Windows / others) Use a command like “imgmount a disk.img -t floppy” from the DOSBox prompt.
Mac OS X Finder – double-click the .img file to access the contents
mtools disk utilities (free / open-source, for Linux / others) Use commands like “mdir -i disk.img ::”.
WinImage disk image manager (commercial, – day free evaluation, for Windows)
7-Zip file archiver (free / open-source, for Windows / others) – works only with 1.2M disks, not k www.7 -zip. org is the official 7-Zip site, avoid other lookalike sites
The software included with the FC also has a built-in browse mode for copying individual files from MS-DOS disks.