Spent 5 days getting my GPU working. It was one of those problems where the GPU worked 3 out of 50 times when rebooting. Tried every imaginable BIOS setting, removed PCI cards, etc. etc. etc. for 5 f*cking days. On the 5th day, Saturday morning, piss drunk, dead tired, I tried one last attempt by moving the GPU from the PCIExpress 3.0 slot to the PCIExpress 2.0 slot. It worked. Just wasted 5 days on that, but like I said it was one of those "sometimes works" problems. I think the problem was that my CPU couldn't start up fast enough for the GPU.
This isn't a failed project in my view, I find it quite interesting and you clearly put a lot of work into it. This also CLEARLY shows the value of documentation and service manuals, which computers used to come with, but no longer do in our disposable society. I love the adapter cable you made! :)
Great video as always! Even though the video doesn't have a happy ending it was fun following your journey! I really like the background music at 2:00.
I was one of the supporters of releasing this video despite it having no happy ending. Glad you posted it, unfortunate that it didn't work, but the process is very interesting.
+The 8-Bit Guy Is it just a standard regulator like a 7805/7812 etc? You could run down to Tanner in Carrollton or probably a Radio Shack. If you've never been to Tanner, I highly recommend it for surplus parts and cool odds and ends. Lots of chips for repairing vintage computers (6502 chips, Z80s, SRAMs). They tend to keep a lot of Adafruit stuff and RPi stuff in stock as well.
Love the fact you posted your journey. Glad to see someone of your caliber going through those same hurtles old gear puts us all through. Never stop man.
Even if your initial idea of making the floppy drive emulator work on your retro laptops didn't work out, your video was still enjoyable and interesting to watch! it's so cool to see cable adapters made from scratch, especially with proprietary connectors :D Keep the good work up, your many fans appreciate every bit of your effort!
+Dennis McCarson It's actually a good practice to get into. It not only keeps the pieces organized, but when you have to put it back together, all your screws and stuff are in the order you will need them. Just start at the end and work back to the beginning.
I'm definitely going to do it now, it's one of those things that you don't think about, and it's so simple and after you see it you feel instant regret that it took you this long to figure it out.
I really enjoyed watching you fight through and surmounting difficulty and even though it never perfectly got off the ground, it was very inspiring to my future projects. Keep going because you have an amazing skill set/talent.
Long time viewer here, just wanna point my experience with digital interfaces to you: STOP and STEP are two totally different signals, I wouldn't cross the two. STOP is a signal that tells the motor and data to stop all operations STEP is to step over to the next track or 'cylinder' (don't quote me on this, it's been a long time) just as a safe measure I would cut that trace, but if it works - more power to you! good video either way, very informative!
+ionbladezofficial Also just seen the rest of the video, the step signal probably fed something to the drive, and the drive may have spit some voltage back to one of the data lines causing the effect you are experiencing with the laptop. I'm sure there's a diode or resistor somewhere that might need looking at.
I know how these kinds of projects go and how frustrating it can be when you run into unexpected problems. My only advice is don't get too discouraged and don't quit! Take a break if you need, but I encourage you to keep going and solve the issue with the power supply. You're doing a great job and I feel you're 75% there. Just a little bit more!
Really like these cool side projects :) I have an old Toshiba T1200xe from the late 80's, which also has this 26 pin interface, and after looking up drive replacements for it, it appears no-one has figured out a way to convert the interface to more common formats, though by looking it up, maybe there is hope given the large amount of people in this situation.
+The 8-Bit Guy You need to flash the drive to the Cortex firmware. You can find all the necessery steps here cortexamigafloppydrive.wordpress.com/ It certainly works wit A500 and should work with all amigas according to the author.
Wow, great video. And props to you for hanging in there and not rage-quitting after hitting a few bumps in the road (looks like you hit pretty much every single one).
I really like using these GOTEK FDD emulators. I think I have four of them now :) My oldest PC is a 386, so I they all support 1.4 MB. Selecting an image on the GOTEK and then putting it into a modern PC, I always get the very first image, so that's a bit odd. But yea, it's a great product no doubt. You can use two in one machine, works with VGA Copy for example. I haven't found software that can read a 1000 image USB, they only read the first 100. Now I wish someone would make a CD/DVD emulator that supports ISO and BIN/CUE images as well as analogue CD Audio outputs :)
4:54 I think it isn't the greatest to combine ale wires toghether because you can make short circuit or you can blow up power suply due the voltages for each function.
+GRAHAMINATOR Yeah, most of us would. I wouldn't even have checked on the Internet where the screws are. I would have probably pried it open with crowbar turning it into a piece of junk in the process and then I would have thrown it away. That's probably why all the machines I've attempted to open ended up in the garbage.
I just picked up one of these for my 486 project, and so far, it works great! I was able to find the English version of the software, in the event that someone needs that ...
The bundled software is crap. Here's what I use and it works great! - www.ipcas.com/support/usb-floppy-emulation-download.html - Make sure you right click the corresponding floppy slot and click save after copying your files. You don't have to do this when writing .img files. Shout out to +PhilsComputerLab for this.
For anyone that wants to see more on this type of device, there's another RUclipsr by the name of 'PhilsComputerLab' that has a couple of retro videos on it. As for software, he did mention an English program that would be able to format and manage the disk images as well. It's a bit quirky, from what I saw, but it seems more convenient for batch images.
I love your videos. I like this one too, don't get me wrong. But this video looks like it's about EVERYTHING ELSE BUT THE FLOPPY EMULATOR xD hahahaha PS: man, you broke a Tandy... that's like crashing a Ford T... you realized that? :P
Thank you for putting you projects on RUclips. Even though it didn't work out for you this time I still learned something and your presentation in your videos are awesome. Better luck next time.
So, what how does the USB stick show up on a computer when plugged into a normal USB port? Is each image a partition? Is it formatted with a partition that has img files on it? What would happen if you just used something like 'dd' to clone a floppy to a USB drive, would the emulator recognize that? Is there anyway you can clone a floppy to a USB drive with this device, then take that drive and put it in another computer and make an image of the entire drive and post that image online some where can download and look at it? That would be awesome!
+Kris Occhipinti The USB shows up as "FLPPY0" and you can read/write to disk0 just as you would a normal floppy but just on the USB. For the other slots, you need to use a program or you use the computer itself to write to the other disks after selecting them. Each 'disk' is not a partition. They are specially formatted by sectors on the USB that the emulator recognizes. Using dd will not work, the emulator is not looking for that kind of disk image. It is not a big partition with img files on it--that would be FAR TOO AMAZING to be a thing that happens. :P If you have more questions, I can answer them more. I use these things at work a ton.
Boy you weren't kidding about those instructions. I just installed one of these in a Gateway 2000, and if it weren't for tutorials like the ones from Phil's Computer Lab I'd be lost. I did hit a snag where I had a bad floppy ribbon cable, so at first it didn't work. But I was able to fix it. This is going to be a great substitute for using actually floppies I think.
Its the battery probably. I have a bunch of those old Toshiba's (T1000, T1200, wanted to get that T1400 at EDS:P) and they all run though the battery first then the incoming power charges the battery. So if the battery is shot, even if you charge it a little bit, the computer will die the second it trys something high current like the floppy. I just refurbishment my NiCad battery's with cheap cells from china, but you can also just connect directly to the batter tabs with a wire.
At time of writing this comment, this video is almost 3 years old. Would like to see this topic taken up again - in a more extensive survey of converting various retro computers to use modern solid state storage device. This looks to be a fairly broad topic as there is the matter of converting old computer that had spinning harddrive to use an SSD. This involves the various retro hardrive interfaces (which ones are supported with modern adapters to SSD). Then there are the various retro removable storage devices (floppy drives, perhaps even tape drives) and what options are there to adapt them to USB sticks and/or compact flash memory cards, etc. Yeah, this could be a very big topic and take several episodes to cover it well. Doesn't seem anyone has taken it on yet. The 8 Bit Guy probably has the best expertise to address it.
Sad to hear that laptop was broken. About the Chinese language problem, there are actually many Chinese fans of your channel (including me)! We are glad to help!
Nice video. It's not common to see a video showing when things don't go well, but I appreciate when the approach to the problem is clever. That's the case. And we sure can learn a lot!
I think it's fun, haha. It adds an extra element of challenge for the content creator and then added suspense for both him and the audience. What will the ePacket from China bring us for this project??? TUNE IN NEXT TIME! Lol
I enjoy it. Especially when it shows up 3 months later and you don't necessarily remember ordering half the stuff in the package. It's like Christmas. "Oh cool, a package... huh, I wonder what this thing does." -stare at it for 5 minutes "Oh yeeeeaaah, now I remember. Gonna have to put a label on that one..."
I'm glad you decided to complete this! There was a lot of good information and you did quite well explaining your process to try to get the drive emulator to work. Well done! :D
4 disks to install Doom, 17 to install Duke Nuke'em 3D.... nope, don't miss that at all. Backing up your entire hard-drive using PKZip or ARJ, only to have 1 disk go bad and the entire backup rendered garbage.... priceless.
I was lucky enough to get Falcon 3.0 on CD. Never really got to play it much, though, and the sound card we had in that machine wasn't recognized by the program (TYVM, Windows Sound System and your lack of SoundBlaster emulation...). Maybe one of these days I'll put it into a dosbox setup.
evknucklehead Sometimes when playing Falcon 3.0 I used to choose the PC speaker instead of my SoundBlaster card. Many of the sounds were not good, but the radio chatter sounded more realistic through the tinny PC speaker lol.
I wouldn't rule out that the emulator itself broke your laptop. These things are not supposed to go in those machines actually. Also, made in China, so it's to be expected.
+אולדסקול nowadays EVERYTHING is made in china, even the top-brand stuff you'll probably claim works much better! it used to be like "oh made in chine, it must be crap" but nowadays that's not so much the case anymore, lenovo laptops are brilliant... made in china. samsung phones are also really high quality... made in china. even the iphone is made in china!
Factories in China offer different tiers of quality assurance, material quality and manufacturing environments. When you buy something on the cheap (yes, $30 for this is damn cheap) you're getting the lower end of all of those. Sometimes that's enough, but if you buy something that's supposed to cost a lot more (like this drive) and put it into a retro computer from your collection, you shouldn't be surprised things go wrong.
As easy as all this sounds... It's unlikely that the floppy emulator actually broke the Tandy 1400LT. Those old 1400s drop dead rather regularly, usually because things like capacitors in the power supply unit die. Floppy drives and floppy emulators are pretty passive anyways. It's much more likely for a faulty PSU to fry the drives, or emulator, than the the drive/emulator will screw up the PSU. Considering the symptoms, where the computer will run for a short while, then shut off, it's likely the fault of dead and/or dying capacitors.
Hi. Around 1983 when I bought MY first high density floppy drive at a trade show. I found out, you can replace high density drive with a low density drive. The computer did not care. It formatted the floppy disk as a low density disk, that I could only use in that machine. It still worked.
Asians use these drives for old embroidering machines and/or keyboards. There's a ton of different versions available, even with just the connector facing the other side. You'll probably even find one with the 26-pin connector on AliExpress. I upgraded my old Tektronix scope this way. Had to get a 2,5" floppy emulator which - sadly - can only work with 1 virtual floppy per USB drive. But it works perfectly.
Wow that's vey impressive. You made it so far! Please don't leave us hanging. I would have given up at the whole 24 pin adapter part. That must have been annoying and very time consuming to do. Sorry to hear it didn't work out.
Great video! Too bad you couldn't get it finished. The timing of this is hilarious because the past few weeks I've been grappling with the exact same problem: bad 720K floppy drive on a Yamaha V50 synthesizer being replaced with Chinese USB emulator drive, where original floppy has a 26-pin connector and I needed to make an adaptor, so I bought a bunch of electronic stuff to do it, but I got stuck on how to figure out how to match the pins together, so I wound up buying a German adapter on Ebay and I'm still waiting for that thing to come. I wish I would have seen this video a week ago! Anyway, thanks for posting.
It's frustrating when a problem appears suddenly and you don't have sure if your work went right or wrong. But the video content still interesting to watch anyway! Thanks for make it!
It's cool to see this even if it didn't turn out well. The journey was interesting. Plus, that's also what happens at times, to everybody : sometime, things just don't work out
arg!, that sucks so much, I'm so sad that you couldn't get it going [i love retro computers and seeing them upgraded like this makes me so happy] i hope you get it working soon
8bit, I think you just pioneered the first "failed" video. All that build up, I had no idea it was going to end on a negative note. That's true to life though.
These things are utterly useful. They don't have machanical parts that can break and you can store loads of data on one stick. I suggested to replace the old and broken floppy drive from my school's Korg N364 and offered a free installation but unfortunately the school doesn't have any money for such a thing left... but for contests and what not of course.
"I'll pick this back up when my enthusiasm returns..." haha... totally been there.
haha, what a horseshit scenerio. My enthusiasm would have died pretty quickly after that too.
The older I get the more I think of a Lethal Weapon movie quote, "Getting too old for this shit."
Spent 5 days getting my GPU working. It was one of those problems where the GPU worked 3 out of 50 times when rebooting. Tried every imaginable BIOS setting, removed PCI cards, etc. etc. etc. for 5 f*cking days. On the 5th day, Saturday morning, piss drunk, dead tired, I tried one last attempt by moving the GPU from the PCIExpress 3.0 slot to the PCIExpress 2.0 slot. It worked. Just wasted 5 days on that, but like I said it was one of those "sometimes works" problems. I think the problem was that my CPU couldn't start up fast enough for the GPU.
#noenthusiasmforme
Todd Na And It appears it still hasn’t returned.
This isn't a failed project in my view, I find it quite interesting and you clearly put a lot of work into it.
This also CLEARLY shows the value of documentation and service manuals, which computers used to come with, but no longer do in our disposable society. I love the adapter cable you made! :)
A trick: watch series at flixzone. Been using it for watching loads of movies lately.
@Jamir Lyle Yea, I've been using Flixzone for years myself :D
You made it this far! You can't just leave us hanging.
+BeyondDeathday There will probably be a part 2.
+The 8-Bit Guy pleas link me the soft ware i will hack it so it in english :)
hmmm just a tip, way not try on stationary first before on laptop , mutch easy to repair.
There has to be someone out there whom can read chinese and at least type of a document telling you what says what.
+thesmashtvnetwork you should probably work on your own English first.
"I'll pick this back up when my enthusiasm returns"
Story of my life
LOL
Geez talk about retro repair blue balls. I need more!!
Great video as always! Even though the video doesn't have a happy ending it was fun following your journey! I really like the background music at 2:00.
+cjhoyle That was submitted by a fan of my 8-bit keys channel, and he created it on an old Casio SA-2
+The 8-Bit Guy Makes me want to play old Apogee games.
Hello ... Hmm.. Troll or genuinely desperate for attention?
You pay extra for happy ending =^__^=
cjhoyle o
Did you... misplace your enthusiasm? It's been 3 years...
Perhaps he curbed his enthusiasm.
Melinda Louise bum bum bum.
Pieter van Ham
Dun dun dun
Yashas Valmikam dun dun dun DUN
@@RomanBellic that's different
I was one of the supporters of releasing this video despite it having no happy ending. Glad you posted it, unfortunate that it didn't work, but the process is very interesting.
+Adam Sidelsky On the bright side, there will eventually be a part 2, as I plan to fix that Bondwell laptop and put the emulator in there.
Awesome!
+The 8-Bit Guy Is it just a standard regulator like a 7805/7812 etc? You could run down to Tanner in Carrollton or probably a Radio Shack. If you've never been to Tanner, I highly recommend it for surplus parts and cool odds and ends. Lots of chips for repairing vintage computers (6502 chips, Z80s, SRAMs). They tend to keep a lot of Adafruit stuff and RPi stuff in stock as well.
+Adam Sidelsky Maybe there's someone out there who can help
+The 8-Bit Guy are you in Dallas?! I'd help for sure
Despite the project not being a success (yet!) I'm incredibly impressed that you were able to make that adapter. The video was still real interesting.
(yet!)
Man, I admire you for your patience. I would've blown a gasket at the first signs of trouble.
Love the fact you posted your journey. Glad to see someone of your caliber going through those same hurtles old gear puts us all through. Never stop man.
hurdles
@@shawbros lol "hurtles" not such a bad word. I'm thrown a mile off regularly with this old stuff ... politely called "legacy".
good lord! I had a hard enough time finding a modular pcie cable. your dedication is admireable.
You worked so hard! I give you mad props for even using the service manual to attempt on making an adapter! Keep it up!
Not gonna lie, it was a good video with a very disappointing ending lol, but I get you got frustrated with it.
Steven Tyler I
I like how the music abruptly stops at 5:29
Tadfafty lol
It's a dramatic effect, showing us that the computer wont start. So the music dies with it...
I absolutely love the content! Being a vintage computing enthusiast and hardware tinker myself: Please keep it coming! :)
Even if your initial idea of making the floppy drive emulator work on your retro laptops didn't work out, your video was still enjoyable and interesting to watch! it's so cool to see cable adapters made from scratch, especially with proprietary connectors :D
Keep the good work up, your many fans appreciate every bit of your effort!
Oddly the most amazing thing in this video to me was using that container for the screws and labeling what screws were in each little compartment.
+Dennis McCarson It's actually a good practice to get into. It not only keeps the pieces organized, but when you have to put it back together, all your screws and stuff are in the order you will need them. Just start at the end and work back to the beginning.
I'm definitely going to do it now, it's one of those things that you don't think about, and it's so simple and after you see it you feel instant regret that it took you this long to figure it out.
I really enjoyed watching you fight through and surmounting difficulty and even though it never perfectly got off the ground, it was very inspiring to my future projects. Keep going because you have an amazing skill set/talent.
your videos are always very interesting, even if I'm not interested to the video topic
Supra Man i know right? Our 8bit guy always has ways to make vids interesting
Long time viewer here,
just wanna point my experience with digital interfaces to you:
STOP and STEP are two totally different signals, I wouldn't cross the two.
STOP is a signal that tells the motor and data to stop all operations
STEP is to step over to the next track or 'cylinder' (don't quote me on this, it's been a long time)
just as a safe measure I would cut that trace, but if it works - more power to you!
good video either way, very informative!
+ionbladezofficial Also just seen the rest of the video, the step signal probably fed something to the drive, and the drive may have spit some voltage back to one of the data lines causing the effect you are experiencing with the laptop. I'm sure there's a diode or resistor somewhere that might need looking at.
That was pretty cool seeing how to make a cable like that
That was 7 year ago, enthusiasm still has not returned.
I know how these kinds of projects go and how frustrating it can be when you run into unexpected problems. My only advice is don't get too discouraged and don't quit! Take a break if you need, but I encourage you to keep going and solve the issue with the power supply. You're doing a great job and I feel you're 75% there. Just a little bit more!
+Satoshi Matrix Yep - I will eventually have a part 2 to this video.
Really like these cool side projects :)
I have an old Toshiba T1200xe from the late 80's, which also has this 26 pin interface, and after looking up drive replacements for it, it appears no-one has figured out a way to convert the interface to more common formats, though by looking it up, maybe there is hope given the large amount of people in this situation.
Do you have an old Amiga? it's quite common to use that Floppy Emulator on Amiga machines with a Firmware update
+Sheepy007 I have an Amiga 500 and Amiga 1000. Will it work on those?
+The 8-Bit Guy You need to flash the drive to the Cortex firmware. You can find all the necessery steps here cortexamigafloppydrive.wordpress.com/
It certainly works wit A500 and should work with all amigas according to the author.
+Sheepy007 interesting.. I may look into this.
+The 8-Bit Guy i had the amiga500 and i would really like to see it work with this emulator in your next video
+The 8-Bit Guy would it help me run crisis 3 at max settings?
Wow, great video. And props to you for hanging in there and not rage-quitting after hitting a few bumps in the road (looks like you hit pretty much every single one).
I really like using these GOTEK FDD emulators. I think I have four of them now :)
My oldest PC is a 386, so I they all support 1.4 MB.
Selecting an image on the GOTEK and then putting it into a modern PC, I always get the very first image, so that's a bit odd. But yea, it's a great product no doubt.
You can use two in one machine, works with VGA Copy for example. I haven't found software that can read a 1000 image USB, they only read the first 100.
Now I wish someone would make a CD/DVD emulator that supports ISO and BIN/CUE images as well as analogue CD Audio outputs :)
Man, I'd love to see a conclusion to this saga. That adapter was awesome!
hard works always appreciated
I hate when that happens. Yo go so far and then you hit a wall. Great video.
4:54 I think it isn't the greatest to combine ale wires toghether because you can make short circuit or you can blow up power suply due the voltages for each function.
I think that's what broke it
I love that you really put your heart, passion and mind into your work!
Failed projects make me kinda sad :
I have been watching your channel for about 2 years and I love your channel 😄😄
You have a lot of patience. I would have likely gave up when I noticed I had to make an adapter, lol.
Yeah but, how fun to match those pinouts and solve the typo riddle. 😉
+GRAHAMINATOR Yeah, most of us would. I wouldn't even have checked on the Internet where the screws are. I would have probably pried it open with crowbar turning it into a piece of junk in the process and then I would have thrown it away. That's probably why all the machines I've attempted to open ended up in the garbage.
I would have looked at eBay for and adapter. if I didn't see one I would give up.
I just picked up one of these for my 486 project, and so far, it works great! I was able to find the English version of the software, in the event that someone needs that ...
Bumber that the project didn't work out. But still an interesting video!
We use one of these things on a CNC machine where the floppy drive broke down several times, works like a charm!
The bundled software is crap. Here's what I use and it works great! - www.ipcas.com/support/usb-floppy-emulation-download.html - Make sure you right click the corresponding floppy slot and click save after copying your files. You don't have to do this when writing .img files. Shout out to +PhilsComputerLab for this.
You seem a Tec person 'what does solid state mean .?
@@topnotch3282 asking him 3 years later
For anyone that wants to see more on this type of device, there's another RUclipsr by the name of 'PhilsComputerLab' that has a couple of retro videos on it. As for software, he did mention an English program that would be able to format and manage the disk images as well. It's a bit quirky, from what I saw, but it seems more convenient for batch images.
I love your videos. I like this one too, don't get me wrong. But this video looks like it's about EVERYTHING ELSE BUT THE FLOPPY EMULATOR xD hahahaha
PS: man, you broke a Tandy... that's like crashing a Ford T... you realized that? :P
Dude, I was hoping you would finish. You did so much!!! YOU CAN"T GIVE UP NOW!!! I was hoping to see a 'sequel' video update but sadly I didn't.
Your great, you should continue this project
Thanks for uploading anyway! Didn't know those modern Floppy tools existed, and they look pretty sweet!
Talk about a challenge and a half. I can't fault you for losing your enthusiasm after all of that.
I stumbled across your videos about a year ago and just became a big fan. I always look forward to your new videos. So uh, thanks.
Has your enthusiasm returned yet?
I'd really like to see this thing working!
Thank you for putting you projects on RUclips. Even though it didn't work out for you this time I still learned something and your presentation in your videos are awesome. Better luck next time.
So, what how does the USB stick show up on a computer when plugged into a normal USB port?
Is each image a partition? Is it formatted with a partition that has img files on it? What would happen if you just used something like 'dd' to clone a floppy to a USB drive, would the emulator recognize that?
Is there anyway you can clone a floppy to a USB drive with this device, then take that drive and put it in another computer and make an image of the entire drive and post that image online some where can download and look at it? That would be awesome!
+Kris Occhipinti The USB shows up as "FLPPY0" and you can read/write to disk0 just as you would a normal floppy but just on the USB. For the other slots, you need to use a program or you use the computer itself to write to the other disks after selecting them.
Each 'disk' is not a partition. They are specially formatted by sectors on the USB that the emulator recognizes.
Using dd will not work, the emulator is not looking for that kind of disk image.
It is not a big partition with img files on it--that would be FAR TOO AMAZING to be a thing that happens. :P
If you have more questions, I can answer them more. I use these things at work a ton.
Boy you weren't kidding about those instructions. I just installed one of these in a Gateway 2000, and if it weren't for tutorials like the ones from Phil's Computer Lab I'd be lost. I did hit a snag where I had a bad floppy ribbon cable, so at first it didn't work. But I was able to fix it. This is going to be a great substitute for using actually floppies I think.
Oh, please do an other episode on this! I'd really like to see this working.
Interesting stuff! PS: I loved that the music cut out when the laptop died.
+Richard Toppler I wondered if anyone would catch that.
Its the battery probably. I have a bunch of those old Toshiba's (T1000, T1200, wanted to get that T1400 at EDS:P) and they all run though the battery first then the incoming power charges the battery. So if the battery is shot, even if you charge it a little bit, the computer will die the second it trys something high current like the floppy. I just refurbishment my NiCad battery's with cheap cells from china, but you can also just connect directly to the batter tabs with a wire.
At time of writing this comment, this video is almost 3 years old. Would like to see this topic taken up again - in a more extensive survey of converting various retro computers to use modern solid state storage device. This looks to be a fairly broad topic as there is the matter of converting old computer that had spinning harddrive to use an SSD. This involves the various retro hardrive interfaces (which ones are supported with modern adapters to SSD). Then there are the various retro removable storage devices (floppy drives, perhaps even tape drives) and what options are there to adapt them to USB sticks and/or compact flash memory cards, etc. Yeah, this could be a very big topic and take several episodes to cover it well. Doesn't seem anyone has taken it on yet. The 8 Bit Guy probably has the best expertise to address it.
Still hasn't returned :(
I saw your post of Facebook last week so thanks for finishing and posting this video! Like the Mythbusters said "Failure is always an option"
im taiwanese and i can help you if you have translation problem :)
+業餘卡屁 I wish I could just ask you to help me whenever I would get stuck on chinese documentation!
+業餘卡屁 Let's start with that name of yours.
Just Johnny it just a random name, hehe
Hongkongese here... In case you reached Cantonese
LOL, +Just Johnny!
I am truly impressed with your persistence!
Did you ever get back to this?
this video was an emotional roller coaster
man i wasn't expecting that ending hahaha
Sad to hear that laptop was broken. About the Chinese language problem, there are actually many Chinese fans of your channel (including me)! We are glad to help!
Please revise this video, waiting for this to return in 2019!
The bit with you making an adapter cable was awesome! Could you make or do you have any videos on making your own adapters?
+batfan1939 Agree, that was some detective work and then it culminated in soldering! Wow!
Legend says his enthusiasm is still lost in the wilderness to this day….
Nice video. It's not common to see a video showing when things don't go well, but I appreciate when the approach to the problem is clever. That's the case. And we sure can learn a lot!
u r very brave to order generic electronics from China
Well if it's either that, or abandon the project, there isn't much of a choice.
I think it's fun, haha. It adds an extra element of challenge for the content creator and then added suspense for both him and the audience. What will the ePacket from China bring us for this project??? TUNE IN NEXT TIME! Lol
I enjoy it. Especially when it shows up 3 months later and you don't necessarily remember ordering half the stuff in the package. It's like Christmas.
"Oh cool, a package... huh, I wonder what this thing does."
-stare at it for 5 minutes
"Oh yeeeeaaah, now I remember. Gonna have to put a label on that one..."
I'm glad you decided to complete this! There was a lot of good information and you did quite well explaining your process to try to get the drive emulator to work. Well done! :D
It's a sign from the universe that you shouldn't mess with something that works fine.
My 5,25" still work perfectly.
Sir, you are a hero! Don't give up on this! I am looking forward to the continuation (fingers crossed).
We need a part 2
I admire your initial enthusiasm. I would've stopped when I realized I had to make an adapter.
Aww I miss the A drive :(
4 disks to install Doom, 17 to install Duke Nuke'em 3D.... nope, don't miss that at all.
Backing up your entire hard-drive using PKZip or ARJ, only to have 1 disk go bad and the entire backup rendered garbage.... priceless.
I felt really old when I saw an article/video explaining the 'mystery' of why A: and B: are missing. And I'm only in my 20s.
All the disks to install Falcon 3.0, glorious times!
I was lucky enough to get Falcon 3.0 on CD. Never really got to play it much, though, and the sound card we had in that machine wasn't recognized by the program (TYVM, Windows Sound System and your lack of SoundBlaster emulation...). Maybe one of these days I'll put it into a dosbox setup.
evknucklehead Sometimes when playing Falcon 3.0 I used to choose the PC speaker instead of my SoundBlaster card. Many of the sounds were not good, but the radio chatter sounded more realistic through the tinny PC speaker lol.
His enthusiasm never returned
If yiou weren't going to do anything why release the video instead just wait.
I bought a $75 hxc2001 floppy emulator. Turns out I could've saved quite a lot of money. Meh!
Good to know a product like this exists, could come in handy with old software that has to run from or install from floppy disks.
Is that a mechanical keyboard on that laptop?
+RosenBosen Yes.. most were during that time.
+The 8-Bit Guy later the electric keyboard was introduced but now we have more mechanical for gaming pc
@Goll indeed i don't even remember saying that tbh
Even if it didn't pan out as expected, the video was brilliant. Loving the projects. Keep it up!
I wouldn't rule out that the emulator itself broke your laptop. These things are not supposed to go in those machines actually. Also, made in China, so it's to be expected.
+אולדסקול nowadays EVERYTHING is made in china, even the top-brand stuff you'll probably claim works much better! it used to be like "oh made in chine, it must be crap" but nowadays that's not so much the case anymore, lenovo laptops are brilliant... made in china. samsung phones are also really high quality... made in china. even the iphone is made in china!
Factories in China offer different tiers of quality assurance, material quality and manufacturing environments. When you buy something on the cheap (yes, $30 for this is damn cheap) you're getting the lower end of all of those. Sometimes that's enough, but if you buy something that's supposed to cost a lot more (like this drive) and put it into a retro computer from your collection, you shouldn't be surprised things go wrong.
Niek Nooijens Samsung phones are made in Korea. iPhones are made in Taiwan.
As easy as all this sounds... It's unlikely that the floppy emulator actually broke the Tandy 1400LT. Those old 1400s drop dead rather regularly, usually because things like capacitors in the power supply unit die. Floppy drives and floppy emulators are pretty passive anyways. It's much more likely for a faulty PSU to fry the drives, or emulator, than the the drive/emulator will screw up the PSU. Considering the symptoms, where the computer will run for a short while, then shut off, it's likely the fault of dead and/or dying capacitors.
Fuck off.
Hi. Around 1983 when I bought MY first high density floppy drive at a trade show. I found out, you can replace high density drive with a low density drive. The computer did not care. It formatted the floppy disk as a low density disk, that I could only use in that machine. It still worked.
Does anyone remember when he was called the iBook guy
I do
Asians use these drives for old embroidering machines and/or keyboards. There's a ton of different versions available, even with just the connector facing the other side. You'll probably even find one with the 26-pin connector on AliExpress.
I upgraded my old Tektronix scope this way. Had to get a 2,5" floppy emulator which - sadly - can only work with 1 virtual floppy per USB drive. But it works perfectly.
Really enjoy watching your videos. You're a great presenter!
damn guess the enthusiasm never returned...
Wow that's vey impressive. You made it so far! Please don't leave us hanging. I would have given up at the whole 24 pin adapter part. That must have been annoying and very time consuming to do. Sorry to hear it didn't work out.
Great video! Too bad you couldn't get it finished. The timing of this is hilarious because the past few weeks I've been grappling with the exact same problem: bad 720K floppy drive on a Yamaha V50 synthesizer being replaced with Chinese USB emulator drive, where original floppy has a 26-pin connector and I needed to make an adaptor, so I bought a bunch of electronic stuff to do it, but I got stuck on how to figure out how to match the pins together, so I wound up buying a German adapter on Ebay and I'm still waiting for that thing to come. I wish I would have seen this video a week ago! Anyway, thanks for posting.
I’m very curious to see this work. Are you ever going to do a follow up repair video and get it functioning properly?
3.5 years later... has the enthusiasm returned or naw
I'm glad you uploaded this even though you didn't get anything working. It's still interesting.
my favorite vid so far. I love when there is detective work involved in trying to solve a computer mystery
It's frustrating when a problem appears suddenly and you don't have sure if your work went right or wrong. But the video content still interesting to watch anyway! Thanks for make it!
I am glad to help with the translation. By the way I thought I was the only Chinese subscriber of this channel until I see the comments :)
It's cool to see this even if it didn't turn out well. The journey was interesting. Plus, that's also what happens at times, to everybody : sometime, things just don't work out
Love the shirt ! Where did you get it ?
I love how candid and honest this video is - "I'm done... I'll pick this back up at some point when my enthusiasm returns"
arg!, that sucks so much, I'm so sad that you couldn't get it going [i love retro computers and seeing them upgraded like this makes me so happy] i hope you get it working soon
8bit, I think you just pioneered the first "failed" video. All that build up, I had no idea it was going to end on a negative note. That's true to life though.
These things are utterly useful. They don't have machanical parts that can break and you can store loads of data on one stick.
I suggested to replace the old and broken floppy drive from my school's Korg N364 and offered a free installation but unfortunately the school doesn't have any money for such a thing left... but for contests and what not of course.
Your videos are so awesome! Keep up the amazing work!