New 4 Drive Floppy Controller - TexElec Quad-Flop

[@TechTangents]

To everyone who wants a PCI or PCIe floppy controller, it actually isn't possible to make a "real" floppy controller like that. FDCs are a direct access device that cannot be made to work on those interfaces. It would be possible to make a kind of floppy controller that would work over PCIe, but it could also be done over USB. But it would need custom software to work, like a greaseweezle or kryoflux.

[@b747xx]

My brain was like : I wish I could get a PCIe version of that... Then I read that comment.

[@moth.monster]

I wouldn't mind if it required some sort of custom software, as long as the custom software wasn't totally terrible.

[@BlackEpyon]

@@b747xx One of the reasons I haven't upgraded my 1st-gen i7 machine (daily driver) to something more modern is because nothing modern has built-in IDE or floppy. I've found PCI-e IDE cards that can recognize Zip drives, but for floppies, you're limited to either a Kryoflux (which is on my to-get list), or a USB floppy drive. Unfortunately, the USB floppy controllers don't work for 5.25" drives.

[@b747xx]

@@BlackEpyon Yeah, I do have a USB 1.44MB drive. I was also considering the USB adapter but they are as limited as my USB floppy drive from what I have read. For example, they won't work for non-standard format, like for the win95 install disks. Will check for kryoflux

[@BlackEpyon]

@@b747xx Kryoflux is basically a low-level archive solution. You can either back up disks to various imaging formats, or restore to disk from those imaging formats at a bit-accurate level. One of the advantages of this is that you can do non-PC formats. The disadvantage is that you can't just read/write the disk from Windows Explorer.

[@TailRecursion]

This community is so amazing. Brand-new expansion cards, cards being re-created that were thought to be lost to time, and even whole new computers. It's really incredible to witness all this stuff go from pipe dream to reality.

[@lisandro3614]

True, but there's a Holy Grail that still eludes us: A fully universal, SoundBlaster-compatible PCI sound card for DOS. No SBLink, no specific chipsets. Every single PCI card I've tried under DOS requires something extra, or it's not compatible at all. :(

[@viscountalpha]

Some of these controllers actually have practical applications as there's systems out there still using floppies. IT's cool? yes. But there's people who actually want new controllers like this.

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

If anyone is interested on how to use 4 drives with IMD with TecElec controller, I go over all the details of this in my "How to image and create disks for retro computers" video I put out about a month ago. I really recommend using IMD for all disk imagine because it auto analyzes the disk format properly. The command line utility Shelby was showing off requires you to know the format, which is not ideal. In addition, the controller IC the TexElec controller uses fully supports reading and writing FM and MFM disks. (Single density and double density) so the oldest disks written in FM will work. 8" drives and 1.2mb 5.25" drives are basically identical in format other than the fact 1.2mb drives have 80 tracks while 8" drives typically have 77. Otherwise, the rotational rate (360 rpm) and data rates are exactly the same. (500kbit) So using an 8" drive on a PC is easy by just setting it to 1.2mb. Just avoid using the last 3 tracks or the head will bump.

[@Grak70]

This dork is on a level I can only aspire to. Love seeing all this hardware and jargon from my childhood. Keep it up!

[@Error42_]

I like the little legs for standing the card up like that. Really simple and neat.

[@BLASTIC0]

“My dream floppy controller”. By god!, we are such freaking nerds.😂

[@BLASTIC0]

@tradde11 who doesnt!?

[@rBennich]

The only way to have a Gotek and an Epson SD-800 at the same time.

[@Copa20777]

It's nauseating and satisfying😂

[@ObiWanBillKenobi]

Ohhh! 😮😮😮😮 🤩🤩🤩🤩 It even has an expansion for controlling an 8-inch floppy drive!!

[@JeffTiberend]

This is a cool card. What a amazing design. It would be interesting what Adrian Black would think of it for using 8 inch drives.

[@ReinaldoRauch]

oh, his comment is right below yours here in my screen

[@GodmanchesterGoblin]

Fascinating video, thanks. I worked on hardware and software design for floppy and hard drive controllers in the mid 1980s (not for PC though) and dealt with the many low-level control issues. This brought back so many memories.

[@bocarlsson3rd]

The guys at TexElec makes so much neat stuff and they are so valuable for our community.

[@xenoxaos1]

Mapping a single drive as both a: and b: could be a potential benefit for the random software that requires it be run/loaded from a specific drive letter.

[@JosiahGould]

I got an 8-inch Zenith external drive around twenty years ago. Never could find any information about it so it became little more than a display piece. Now everyone seems to have one and I can get an expansion card for my old DOS box to use it. The future is awesome sometimes.

[@cocusar]

this thing is cool! even though I dislike floppies, but your video and presentation of this card is amazing. thanks for this and all your great videos!

[@Pickelhaube808]

I cannot wait for this, ESPECIALLY for the 8" adapter.

[@czarkowskipawelyt]

Hobby goals: having a dream floppy controller

[@JamesHalfHorse]

That is neat. I hope they do a hard drive controller too. I came across a 286 graphics workstation that had an LED display that showed what tracks/cyl the hard drive was read/writing and I always wanted the same in another machine. I regret not taking it further apart to find out what and how it was doing it.

[@bzuidgeest]

Curious Marc recently did a video on 8 inch floppies, he explained all about the adapter jumpers and why they are needed.

[@ReinaldoRauch]

Also @usagi electric made one talking about his drive of the Centurion computer

[@adamsfusion]

Huge props to Kevin at TexElec who makes these always-awesome devices available to the retro PC community. You're a super cool dude Kevin, thank you!

[@Throckmorton.Scribblemonger]

The real props go to the makers of the open source projects that TexElec feeds on.

[@R_C420]

*Floppotron* _has entered the chat_

[@aut0turret]

Had to hack a few more instructions into the beginning of Sergey's FDC bios ROM in order to get it to work in my Tandy 1000 SL. That girl rocks a 1.44 MB drive now, and she's proud of having at least one one-up her sister, the 1000 TL.

[@ObiWanBillKenobi]

I bet this card is going to sell out the day it goes up for sale! I am going to buy at least two of them. I have a tall tower 386 with a dormant DC2120 tape drive because I can only control two floppy drives at once. This will finally change that! And I have another tall tower case from the same era with (6) 5.25-inch bays and (2) 3.5-inch bays, and I am going to build it up from just the case, loading floppy drives, DC2120 tape, Zip, Syquest, magneto-optical, and maybe more!

[@MessalineApghar]

2120 and all QIC drives should be able to coexist with 2 floppies . It required a weird cable scheme but no extra hardware. There were also QIC accelerator boards

[@zirize]

9:58 TIL DOS selects each drive on a hardware level rather than a software level.

[@AndersNielsenAA]

Well, you don’t have to mount both FDC’s on Sergey’s Monster FDC. Actually you can just skip everything but the address decoding and you’ll have a suuuuper cheap 4 drive FDC. You can even skip the ROM I believe! That should bring the cost down < 10$.😅 Not hard to solder either - but Sergey’s design doesn’t have a card edge connector so I might have to fork it first.

[@charizard4410]

Would love to see a pcie floppy controller, though this is a great product for those that have older systems.

[@nullplan01]

Honestly, I'd be happy with a USB floppy drive, but they don't come in sizes other than 3.5".

[@ryanalswede3475]

@@nullplan01 You can buy USB to floppy drive controller to plug into whatever drive.

[@diakritika]

@@ryanalswede3475 Nope, only 3.5" floppy. For 5,25" you would need a different onboard chip, and it seems nobody is willing to produce it... :(

[@AsmodeusDeviluke]

I just went though building the Monster FDCs. Will be tested in the next week.

[@graealex]

Idk how I feel about the microcontroller having more MIPS than the whole host computer it's sitting in.

[@petermuller608]

What a cool project!!

[@JeffreySJonas]

4 floppies on one ribbon cable was the INDUSTRY STANDARD, until the PC-XT neutered it with the "cable twist" for only 2 floppies, one on at a time due to the undersized power supply :-( This is merely restoring what was there before the PC-XT "standard". Similarly, ST-506/MFM drives were 4 to one cable, not 2.

[@gordoncreAtive]

One thing missing though: New floppies. I'm so fed up with my stock of now reliably unreliable disks.

[@bstar777777]

That's going to be an insta-buy for me when it comes out. I specifically need it for imaging 3.5" and 5.25" disks to a gotek. I've been looking at adding another floppy controller and it's just not worth the money if something like this exists.

[@songsan807]

Pretty neat project. Still have some old pc parts and systems that I could build a multi-floppy system. Not sure personally I would have much to do with it since I would have to hunt down old floppies and dos programs that would work with it. Still looks fun.

[@stevemcknelly5036]

NGL, I wish I had that card 30 years ago when I was selling computers for a living.

[@MessalineApghar]

We did. It was the GSI model 11. 4 floppy , with QIC and 2.88 support.

[@DonnyHooterHoot]

OK, but what's a "floppy"? Does anybody still use them? NO! Great video!

[@kevinbtube]

This was entertaining in a 'eff it, I'm doing it live!' sort of way.

[@krazyhartin]

I hope to get one of those Texelec floppy control card and the 8" floppy adapter. Be really handy to have.

[@ericlemmon6297]

I don’t understand how to do any of this, but all of your videos are so interesting and enjoyable to me, it makes me want to learn how to do electrical engineering but I don’t know where to start lol

[@curvingfyre6810]

holy shit, I didn't think anyone would still be making floppy cards. I just wish they came in more flavors than isa...

[@JonTheGeek]

*8 Drive Floppy Controller* When you wanna be an 80s super computer in your home office.

[@evilZardoz]

That's AWESOME! My first experience with a four way floppy controller was one made by TechWay that powered the family's XT computer in 1990 when the 1.44MB (massive!) floppy drive was installed, alongside the existing 5.25" 360KB floppy drives. PHWOAR! The funny part, was that this would, by default, cause the hard disk to come up as D:, and there was some software that was hard-coded to firstly not install FROM C: (assuming it was a hard disk), or install *to* a hard disk that *wasn't* C:. I recall there was some trickery required to reassign the drive letters, so that the 1.44MB floppy was moved to another drive assignment such as D:, so the hard disk would remain at C. I *think* it may have been unharmed by the leaking battery in that system, but I'll have to check. Fun times! That 8 inch floppy drive adapter is of significant interest. I have a bit of 8" media still kicking around that I've collected, however my two Shugart 8" drives (with AC motors!) were improperly stored, so there's a bit of rust/corrosion and restoration work required to get them going again.

[@jan_harald]

sounds like a must-have for a homemade Floppotron knockoff ;P

[@AiOinc1]

I really hope one day we will get a modern MFM hard drive controller. I like my MFM/RLL hard disks a lot, but some of these controllers are just appallingly bad, with buggy and confusing BIOSes, unlabelled annoying jumpers that don't always work, usually pretty poor performance (which is not hard to fix), garbage CMOS support, limited drive geometry selection, etc. I would love a nice, modern MFM controller, preferably 16-bit but 8 works as well, free-use geometry, still capable of RWC/change cartridge and unbuffered seek... Nobody will ever make this, I know, but it would be really cool to see.

[@bzuidgeest]

You could put in the effort and make it yourself...

[@highpath4776]

somewhere I have a VEISA ? floppy/disc controller for a 8086/386 machine of some sorts. Did not some drives come with their own controller board so the cable was dumb other than to BIOS ?

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

I actually have a video coming out next week about MFM drives and controllers. The XT controllers are the annoying ones, but 16 bit ones that are replicas of the IBM MFM controller from the 5170 and good. They just use the normal BIOS hard drive type and will work on any machine that has a 16 bit ISA slot. IDE drives, Compact Flash card and what not all replicate all the base functionality of the IBM MFM controller card from the 5170. That's how everything is cross compatible.

[@TheGreatAtario]

Before today, I never heard anyone pronounce BIOS to be the plural of bio

[@Capt.Marco-Hawk-L.L.A.P]

awesome card... might just have to get one

[@MessalineApghar]

Functionally a copy of the GSI model 11 controller card, plus the diagnostic header and 8" header converter

[@colinstu]

Octoflop would be useful if you had a bunch of different 8" floppies to read lol

[@nerfspartanEBF25]

Question: This works in DOS, but could it work in Windows 95?

[@Miasmark]

I put together the Monster FDC to use on an old 8088. Unfortunately had to disable all the extra options and the second FDC since that system only has so many interrupts available. If you do not have a bios option to disable the floppy disk controller maybe check to to see if the onboard FDC is socketed and just pull it from the socket as that seemed to work for me.

[@HaveYouTriedGuillotines]

Only four floppies? How am I supposed to play Doom music with this? This is actually pretty awesome, considering most of the old four drive controllers are hopelessly finnicky.

[@malloryworlton6359]

If only it existed in PCI :(

[@tobios89p13]

Oh man id love that too... but the only PCI based floppy controller is the "catweazle mk 4" but it requieres drivers so u cant use it with ms-dos or any Linux i think, u also cant find one to buy anywhere.

[@rarbiart]

up to 8 drives? We need a new Version of VGAcopy! Did someone ask Thomas Moenkemeier for that?

[@MotownBatman]

Your Vids are Awesome! BTW Im coming over to Steal that Hydro Thunder Cab. That's My Favorite Sit Down Cab

[@dimitrioskalfakis]

impressive effort.

[@lfraser7128]

If it’s possible to have it in or get it to work with a pci-e interface I’d definitely buy one

[@squaretrianglez]

Those IBM PCs should be re-created. Those are the real pcs

[@Roxor128]

I think we're most of the way there as far as the purely electronic parts go. I've heard of an XT motherboard clone that'll fit in an ATX case, and I've seen a GitHub repository for a CGA/MDA compatible card that'll give VGA-compatible output (I think it was called the Graphics Gremlin). For sound, there's a few options, such as the Snark Barker, which is a clone of the original Sound Blaster, and various Adlib, CMS, Covox, etc clones. There's the XT-IDE for using newer hard drives or CompactFlash with an XT. Haven't seen any serial or parallel port cards, but I expect they do exist, and then there's this for a floppy drive controller. So, yeah, I think you probably could put together the electronic side of an XT machine made with new parts. The mechanical side I have my doubts about, though. I doubt anyone's made an all-new floppy drive, so you'll probably still have to go with second-hand hardware for that, at least for the time being.

[@TimToolman]

iirc you need to add a flag to imd to see the extra drives - “/4” to assume 4 drives.

[@_Thrackerzod]

The LED display had me baffled. I couldn't figure out how it worked with no traces going to it. I guess they are just really hard to see with that white paint.

[@VintageComputing911]

Yes, the traces to the LED display are very thin and run under the white paint.

[@Mrshoujo]

Image a floppy, then mount as a virtual disk and extract files on it to DOS. Or even add files to it.

[@spacedock873]

Great bit of kit. Excellent work by the designer. Some may say that your videos need to be scripted properly and be "more professional" with higher production values but personally the ad-hoc mayhem is much more personal and engaging! 👍😁 I certainly remember spending hours trying to resolve IRQ conflicts and device contention on my heavily expanded P200MMX machine back in the day. I suspect that the "supply problems" are trying to source the floppy controller. I'm currently trying to design/build a floppy controller card for my homebrew 6809 machine but so far all the floppy controller chips I have received have been fake! 😡 Some more arrived yesterday so here I go again!

[@tobios89p13]

Does this work with non dos os? Like linux

[@psilimit]

Super cool. Now if it just came in PCI...alas for technical limitations.

[@Pippo.Langstrumpf]

Nice

[@samio3907]

Interesting. I assume you saw the last video of CuriousMarc? They just fiddled around with the same kind of setup.

[@urvhalt]

In Linux, maybe you can mount the image file with mount: use -t to specify the file system, or try -t auto

[@landspide]

Great video!

[@DatBlueHusky]

i need that 8 inch floppy adapter, i have one here that i tried to make a cable for but all i can get it to do is seek when pc boots up

[@daveellis2376]

Anyone have any ideas on whether this will work in a LPC to ISA adapter?

[@tobios89p13]

Probably.

[@rubberduck4966]

Does this controller support 2,88MB Drives or HighSpeed Floppy Streamers, too?

[@wskinnyodden]

Duude, what about 3" Drives? You know, same as the ones use on the Spectrum +3 and other Amstrad systems. The ones you needed to turn the disk up side down to access the other side of the disk like with tapes originally.

[@dh2032]

that weird socket at 17:45, looks very automotive to me, sure I've seen one car wiring loom somewhere? GM motor car model's maybe?

[@BobHannent]

I'm hoping that one day, someone makes a CDC/SMD interface and emulator. There are lots of computers out there with SMD drives and using them is a pain.

[@darkwinter6028]

Next challenge: booting Hydro Thunder off of an 8” floppy! 😜

[@stefansynths]

Switching the drives could be useful! I've seen installers that assume they're running from drive A.

[@rBennich]

I sent a mail to texelec to give them the idea that the little display and button could be used as a replacement in a turbo button/mhz display equipped case. Imagine having front access to a button to circulate which drive is presented as A. Would be neat.

[@xnamkcor]

I'm gonna assume that it's much easier to read the display in real life? Or, worst case, I'd have to ad a dark tinted screen in front of it?

[@lovemadeinjapan]

Would it be possible to make it work with a single port and shugart connection? Shugart can handle 4 drives without twisting, making it a lot easier to create your custom cables with a mix of IDC and edge connectors. Shugart can read and write PC disks every bit as much, the protocol is not changed, just the pinout to the drives.

[@jengelenm]

I got the exact same DELL monitor... not sure if this is interesting info :)

[@dant5464]

The display can be made much easier to read by sticking some red PVC electrical insulation tape over it.

[@SouseMouse]

I was thinking "taillight repair" tape, but yeah. There's probably model paint or nail polish that would work too.

[@CptJistuce]

Or by not shining studio lights on it.

[@Roxor128]

Wonder if that's due to blocking infrared light?

[@dant5464]

@@Roxor128 bare seven segment displays are kinda shiny, adding the tape stops the unlit segments from reflecting light from the room, making the lit segments much more obvious.

[@pupaepedorra]

Amazing, i could really use one.

[@pupaepedorra]

@tradde11 I see, i have two 1.2 mb and one 1.44 mb drives.

[@pupaepedorra]

@tradde11 Yeah, same here, i usually have to swap one of the 1.2 for the 1.44 one.

[@BilisNegra]

An 8 way version of the controller exists? Well, that's good if you want to do floppy drive music, right?

[@Gitbizy]

Can you tell us where you bought that testing rig and what motherboard you’re using on this setup? Thanks

[@billkeithchannel]

Where besides ebay or Amazon is a good place to sell retro items? My late dad has a lot of early model items and printed material. Is there a market for older stuff such as issues of Computer Shopper magazine?

[@jasonhowe1697]

as for naming conventione floppy was typically and b drives c drive hdd cd/dvd/bdrom d drivecd/dvd/bd drive 2 f-j floppies galore however driver support for floppies stopped around xp I think...

[@highpath4776]

half thinking that the pin out of this and the control setting in the chip COULD fit in Usagi's centurion as it seems to be a control motor step and read the (Odd tape based sectorisation) of floppies. Rather a bit of custom cables but does not seem impossible given time to actually do it.

[@megatech1966]

Very cool

[@JohnCena-iw2vk]

how many amps does a 8 inch drive need on the 24V rail? then you could actually use a boost converter to power the 8 inch drive from the PC itself.

[@w9gb]

Majority use 2.0 to 2.5 Amps. Your specific 8” drive should have that spec. on label.

[@FrankenLab]

@Tech Tangents, any chance you can post a link to the "test bench" adjustable frame you have for your PC?

[@Bewefau]

Does it work with hard drives ?

[@tobios89p13]

No

[@DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

What about a similar adapter that has a SATA adapter or RAID Adapter chip plus File-System ROM to add a SSD capability to the computer.

[@scalamasterelectros3204]

Is there a pci version

[@tobios89p13]

Sadly no

[@bruce_just_]

hey @TechTangents got a link to that open frame motherboard case?

[@bruce_just_]

answering my own question because Tech Tangents never did google “high speed pc”

[@tulsatrash]

Cool!

[@southernflatland]

Okay, cool cool! Does it support the 1.68MB DMF format? Or better yet the rather rare 1.72MB format which used 21 sectors per track and 82 tracks? The latter format isn't supported by Windows NT at all, nor is it supported by MS-DOS or even Win95a. It's only supported by Win95 OSR2 or Win98 (maybe WinME too, I dunno)...

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

🎵Reeetro!🎵

[@wizard-pirate]

Hi Shelby! Been binging your videos for a couple weeks. Do you have a github account that I can check out for your schematics, code, etc?

[@tcam333]

I wonder if drivparm would work to set the parameters for the additional drives.

[@InfiniteBrain]

I have a very similar 8" enclosure, can you tell me the model number? I'd love to get this unit working with my DOS machine. Thanks!

[@Matthew_and_Ami]

So this is dropped early in the video, but I’m curious as to how set ups like the flopper Tron are set up. Would it be using something like this or something very different?

[@matthewkriebel7342]

The floppy interface has a few simple pins for spindle and seek control, so those are the only ones needed for the Floppitron.

[@troytaylor623]

@techtangents Do you know how to flash the ROM on this card? I need v2.4 version to work in my IBM 5150

[@rBennich]

What if you put the display where the Mhz display is in a 486 case, and the button linked to the turbo button?

[@mccrh7737]

Awesome video and device, but not in PCI 😪

[@RGTUGA]

Update your soundcard drivers. Your mic is picking up a faint whistling sound.