749 Comments so far

1. 
   Steve - July 28th, 2021 1:04 pm

   Yes, if you have a source of HDI-20 connectors it should be theoretically possible to DIY a one-off adapter.

2. 
   Shaun - August 3rd, 2021 12:24 pm

   How hard would it be to use one of these on both an Apple IIC and a Mac Plus? Or would it be easier to just get two so I don’t have to keep swapping the firmware?

3. 
   Steve - August 4th, 2021 8:05 am

   Having two Emus would be the ultimate in convenience, but switching between an Apple II and Mac is pretty quick. I do it all the time with the ones I use for testing. You can view the firmware update instructions and video to get an idea of the process.

4. 
   Bernardo - August 3rd, 2021 1:56 pm

   If you can afford it..yes, it would be better. If not, is not a big deal. I have just one Floppy Emu and use it constantly on several computers (a IIc and quite a few Macintosh from the 80s and 90s)

5. 
   MichaelLAX - August 4th, 2021 8:56 am

   I only have one, but that is because I have stopped using my Apple //c in favor of “playing” with my recapped and upgraded Mac SE/30.

   But Steve is the Thomas Edison of legacy computer usability and deserves all of our financial support; so I probably will buy another one when I take my Apple //c out again!

6. 
   Michael PHX - August 22nd, 2021 4:32 am

   HI Steve,

   I just tried updating the firmware so that I can use this on a Mac vs. a II that I was originally using it for and now it won’t start period, this was after flashing the first of the two files.

   Thanks.

7. 
   Steve - August 22nd, 2021 7:37 pm

   Sorry to hear you’re having trouble, Michael. For 1-on-1 customer support of individual issues, please get in touch directly using the “contact” link at upper-right, and I’ll do my best to help.

8. 
   Ray - September 4th, 2021 8:41 am

   Hi Steve!

   Love this product. I got the kit and it arrived in just a few days. The case is awesome and it was easy to setup with my Mac Plus. Instructions for updating the firmware for Mac were straightforward. I’m using it in hard drive mode. The one thing I can’t figure out is MacPaint won’t load. It says there’s not enough room left in memory. Any thoughts?

   Thank you.

9. 
   contiguous - September 29th, 2021 1:42 am

   I don’t understand why files must be contiguous for the FloppyEmu to work. SD Cards do not have any moving parts that would delay in any form the access of non-contiguous files. If there is indeed a delay it cannot be significant, considering how fast modern SD Cards are and how slow the data transfer from a floppy is in comparison. This also does not seem to be an issue for any other Apple II Floppy emulator out there (wDrive, Floppy SD, CFFA3K).
   Can’t this limitation be fixed in a future firmware update? It is very annoying to have to copy all files back in order to fix this once the collection has started to grow. Specially considering that it can happen again.

10. 
    MichaelLAX - September 29th, 2021 2:08 am

    Once you have fixed it (“copy all files back”) it will not happen again unless you erase a file. Given the 2GB on the SD card, I don’t erase anything.

11. 
    contiguous - September 29th, 2021 5:05 am

    Hi MichaelLAX, unfortunately, it does not only happen when you delete files. It can also happen when you add new files. The new files will simply not work until you repeat the whole operation. Sometimes I just duplicate files until it works to avoid copying everything again, but it results in an unnecessary mess.

12. 
    Steve - September 29th, 2021 6:16 am

    Contiguous files can be less convenient to deal with, I’m sorry if they’re causing you trouble. Non-contiguous files may be created when you erase a file and then add a new one. If you’re often seeing “non-contiguous” messages, try minimizing file erasures on the SD card. Maybe try moving or renaming unwanted files temporarily, then erasing a large number of them all at once later.

    Using contiguous files makes SD card access substantially faster and more consistent. This is especially important for disk writes, and for 3.5 inch disk emulation. With non-contiguous files, the time to load or store a track’s worth of data from the SD card would vary depending on the level of file fragmentation of the disk image. A badly fragmented file might slow down SD access enough to cause disk-level emulation errors.

13. 
    contiguous - September 29th, 2021 6:36 am

    Hi Steve, thanks for chiming in. This issue happens to me even if I don’t delete files. I’m not sure if it is because I use MacOS and it tends to be less careful about placing new files on FAT file systems. But it happens often enough to be a nuisance, since I have not been able to avoid it completely and forces me to repeat the copying of images regularly. Do you have real use case measurements where the fragmentation caused delays significant enough to affect the emulation or is this only a theoretical situation?

14. 
    Steve - September 29th, 2021 9:46 am

    I’m sorry you’re having trouble with fragmentation. That hasn’t been my experience – is it possible that you have some hidden system files on the SD card that are fragmented, from a previous use? I don’t know of any method that would cause fragmentation other than deleting files and later adding new ones into the gaps created by the deletion.

    There are some 10 year old blog posts that touch on the challenges of SD card access speed versus emulated disk speed:
    https://www.bigmessowires.com/2011/12/10/floppy-write-emulation-continued/
    https://www.bigmessowires.com/2011/12/11/three-crazy-ideas/
    More recently this was also an issue with emulation of formatting 5.25 inch Apple II disks, where success is directly determined by how quickly data can be written to the SD card, and some SD cards fail to keep up even when using contiguous files.

    The basic problem is that memory cards are designed to have high average throughput, but it’s not consistently high, which presents a problem when emulating a rotating disk with a constant and predictable access time. The worst case for an SD card can actually be quite slow, either due to file fragmentation, or because the card’s internal control logic chose that moment to perform some housekeeping work. A more powerful system could work around these delays through a combination of read and write caching using background processes, maybe combined with other strategies too. In the case of the Floppy Emu, requiring contiguous files was an easy way to get a nice speedup and to make the access speed more consistent, while only presenting a minor inconvenience for normal use (hopefully).

15. 
    contiguous - September 29th, 2021 11:58 pm

    That was an interesting read. Thanks for the background. But it seems like at least for the Apple II, the only critical use-case is formatting disk images. This would also explain, why other disk emulators have no issues with fragmentation: they don’t support formatting. Actually this is a very small limitation considering that blank images can be copied at any time instead. Adding new images to the SD card on the other hand is a very normal use-case and if doing this potentially causes a non-contiguous error message, I’d definitely prefer giving up the formatting capability. Maybe this could be added as some sort of setting? Or as an alternative firmware?

    I’m pretty sure that I have formatted the SD-Cards and copied all files again but the problem still appears after adding some disk images afterwards, even without deleting any file. I can try again even though I’ve done it a couple of times already. I will keep track of the operations to see if I can spot another possible cause.

16. 
    Andrew Witte - October 11th, 2021 5:38 am

    Hey Steve, The CC (Color Classic) doesn’t work correctly. I’m having the same issue as another guy on here. If you try to boot from Disk-Tools 7.5.3 you get a looping error “Disk initialization failed because the disk is locked!”. If you boot from Disk-Tools 7.1.1 you get a looping dialog asking you to init a disk. If you open “Disk First Aid” you will see some odd virtual disk. If you try to scan that disk, then quit the app the error goes away until you restart.

    I’ve never seen this on any of my other computers. Very odd.

17. 
    Steve - October 11th, 2021 6:56 am

    That specific error message seems to be a common Mac disk-related error in many settings, not specifically the Floppy Emu. Despite what the error says, it seems to be some kind of generic “a disk problem occurred” message. Here are a few references I found on the web:

    https://www.voy.com/24978/4/1711.html
    https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Disk+initialization+failed+because+the+disk+is+locked%22

18. 
    Michael Sprague - October 11th, 2021 8:21 am

    How you guys able to plug your floppy emulators into your Mac Color Classics? My Mac Color Classic has a SCSI receptacle but no floppy receptacle. Is it somehow possible to plug a Floppy Emu into a SCSI port?

19. 
    Steve - October 11th, 2021 8:27 am

    For Mac models without an external floppy port, the Floppy Emu can be plugged in directly on the logic board, in place of the built-in floppy drive. Section 2 of the instruction manual has the details. The CC has a very short floppy cable that makes this more difficult, so some people have added cable extenders like this one: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/assmann-wsw-components/H3CKH-2018G/1043698

20. 
    Michael j Sprague - October 11th, 2021 2:28 pm

    I thank you, Steve.

21. 
    Andrew Witte - October 11th, 2021 11:27 pm

    @”Michael Sprague” I made a MALE TO MALE cable to make it easy.

    @”Steve” I’m not sure this is the issue as a normal floppy drive works fine. Its only FLoppyEmu where this happens. This is a re-capped MB, no PRAM battery.

    Either way I got 7.1.1 installed at least by constantly skipping this dialog. For these computers an external SCSI2SD drive is better you just can’t install OS from that (so FloppyEmu is needed). However I’d love for someone to make a SCSI CD drive emulator so you could install a OS from a CD.

22. 
    Greg - November 25th, 2021 2:01 pm

    Hello, I got Floppy Emu mode C. I would like to load some disk images to my Macintosh 512k from Floppy Emu microSDcard and I am receiving this error:”disk image type not supported in the current emu mode”

    What does it mean? How to fix it. I appreciate help.

    /Greg

23. 
    Steve - November 26th, 2021 6:48 am

    Please see Appendix A – Error Messages in the Floppy Emu instruction manual for more details about that message.

24. 
    Andrew Witte - November 25th, 2021 2:20 pm

    ”disk image type not supported in the current emu mode”
    — FloppyEmu comes setup for Apple computer. You need to switch it to Macintosh mode.

    https://www.bigmessowires.com/femu-quickstart.pdf
    Look at “Select the desired disk emulation mode.”

25. 
    MichaelLAX - January 14th, 2022 12:56 pm

    On a Mac such as the IIFx, when utlizing the internal motherboard floppy port for connection to the Floppy EMU, can the internal floppy drive still be utlized in some fasion so as to be able to save files from floppies to the F-EMU?

26. 
    Steve - January 14th, 2022 5:56 pm

    If the computer only has a single drive connector, then you’ll have to choose between the Floppy Emu or the real floppy drive. You can’t use both at the same time. Maybe the A/B switch would help? https://shop.bigmessowires.com/products/apple-disk-drive-ab-switch

27. 
    Matteo Trevisan - January 19th, 2022 3:33 am

    Dear BMOW,
    I have still no trace of the package sent 28 december and lastest tracking available is 30 december.
    Bye

28. 
    peter - January 26th, 2022 10:01 am

    Steven,

    How do I make Floppy EMU recognise a 140k .img file?

    Where do I obtain documentation on Floppy Emu understanding of .2mg & .dsk image formats?

    I presume that they are raw blocks of 256 byte sectors whithout headers and that Floppy Emu coverts them back to GCR on the fly adding in any necessary sector headers & crc.

    Thanks

    Peter

29. 
    Steve - January 26th, 2022 2:18 pm

    The file formats for disk images are general standards used by many emulator programs and products. If you’re designing your own, you can find technical references on the web. The 2MG format contains lots of metadata about the image. You’ll find some technical info about it here: https://apple2.org.za/gswv/a2zine/Docs/DiskImage_2MG_Info.txt PO is a 140K unadorned format that simply contains the contents of every sector on the disk, nothing else. The sectors appear in ProDOS block order. Floppy Emu assumes that any 140K disk image without a .PO filename extension is a DO disk image. This is also an unadorned format like PO, except the sectors appear in DOS 3.3 order. IMG doesn’t denote any specific disk image format, but could be a synonym for DO.

30. 
    Michael j Sprague - January 26th, 2022 2:16 pm

    Peter,

    I have had success by simply renaming an .img extension to .dsk. I don’t know what advice to give regarding floppy EMU using .2mg images. I am assuming your question about “.2mg & .dsk” images relates to files larger than 140k.

31. 
    Stephan - February 11th, 2022 7:32 am

    Steve,
    first of all, thanks for this great product.

    Is there an easy way to switch Smartport images, other than put the SD-card in my computer and rename the needed to boot from.
    (ok, I can use several SD-cards 🙂 )

    thanks
    Stephan

32. 
    Steve - February 11th, 2022 7:58 am

    Not for Smartport Hard Disk emulation mode, no. It’s meant to emulate a fixed disk that is always installed in the computer. The Unidisk 3.5 emulation mode is also a Smartport disk device, and it supports switching the disk at runtime from the menu like the other floppy disk emulation modes, but it’s specifically for 800 KB disk images.

33. 
    Stephan - February 11th, 2022 8:32 am

    maybe a feature for the future, selecting another directory with smartport images by pressing the keys.

34. 
    Mike W - February 11th, 2022 1:43 pm

    I really want this device! Any reason this wouldn’t work on the disk controller card 655-0101-c? I have one connected to my dual drive DuoDisk 5.25″ unit (this is an enhanced //e). I see a comment above someone had an issue but I’m confused on what they’re actually saying.

    Also, if it does work, what would I need to do to keep the DuoDisk and the floppy emu working at the same time?

35. 
    Steve - February 12th, 2022 9:36 am

    Yes that disk controller works with the Floppy Emu. If you want to use both the Emu and the DuoDisk at the same time, you’ll need two separate disk controller cards for your computer.

36. 
    Joe G - February 16th, 2022 11:14 am

    I love the Floppy Emu! I know this is an extreme edge case, but on the Apple //c with flat panel display, the DB-19 adapter with 20-pin cable coming out at 90º is a tight squeeze under the connector panel for the flat panel display. I also had to angle the pins on the external drive switcher down in order to fit the jumper wire underneath. It’d be cool to see a variant of the external drive switcher DB-19 adapter that placed the 20-pin header and jumper connector a little bit further from the machine, or angled 180º so the cables come away from the machine, so it fits more comfortably with this (admittedly obscure) display.

37. 
    Robert A - February 20th, 2022 8:53 pm

    This was WAY too easy! I had my Mac 128k booted up in less then 10 minutes! I recently spent at least a week trying to get a Linux based PDP-8I replica computer up and running. I didn’t even have to connect the keyboard to my Mac to get it set up. Excellent product!

    I’m hoping it will make it easy to download old 68k software to the SD card plugged into my MacBook and then pop it into the EMU.

38. 
    Robert A - February 21st, 2022 2:02 pm

    Well, I guess I was hoping for too much. I downloaded a “disk image” file to my MacBook and it ended up as a .sit file. Tried a couple of unstuffit utilities and they just duplicated the .sit file. Why aren’t these disk image files actually .img files? 😤

39. 
    Steve - February 21st, 2022 3:58 pm

    Some classic Mac software is distributed as a compressed program file (Stuffit) instead of as a disk image. Sometimes you can find both. Stuffit files are cumbersome to use on a modern computer, but it’s certainly possible. See section 9.2 of the instruction manual.

40. 
    MichaelLAX - February 21st, 2022 5:35 pm

    Oh, Mac 128K, so the versions of Stuffit included with your BMOW Floppy EMU are probably not old enough to run on a 128, if at all.

    Which sit file are you trying to work with (the more details you provide, the less permutations we have to include in our solution)?

    I use The Unarchiver version 4.3.3 from MacPaw on my High Sierra Mac to unstuff sit files

    I could try it on your file if you identify it and let me know where I could download the sit version of it.

41. 
    Robert - February 23rd, 2022 5:14 pm

    Michael, the file is here:
    https://www.earlymacintosh.org/disk_images/1.1%20Write.sit
    Unarchiver just keeps making duplicates of it.

42. 
    Steve - February 23rd, 2022 5:36 pm

    There seems to be a bug with The Unarchiver. If you double click a .sit file, it just creates a new .sit file. But if you then double click that new .sit file, it correctly uncompresses it.

43. 
    MichaelLAX - February 24th, 2022 5:09 am

    I agree with Steve, there seems to be a bug with this file: Using the downloaded file, 1.1 Write.sit, The Unarchiver results in 1.1 Write-1.sit. But again using The Unarchiver on this 1.1 Write-1.sit results in Write.Image.

44. 
    Matt Balmer - March 26th, 2022 9:05 pm

    Have you ever given any thought to having the OLED screen scroll long filenames when the selection cursor is on one? Especially when keeping track of many, many old disk images, I find that sometimes it can be hard to remember which disk is which with only 20 characters of width to work with.

45. 
    Alan Filandro - April 2nd, 2022 3:56 pm

    Great product!!
    The SD card seems to be write protected when I tried adding. Woz images from my MacBook.. Would/could I just get another microsd card and copy the woz to it and it will boot? I really wanna play sabotage lol!.. I’m assuming just format the sd with fat32 and stick it in the emu.. And select it?
    Thank u again… Love this! Similar to the sdrive-max I have for my atari 800xl and the gotek for my atari 1040ste!

46. 
    Steve - April 3rd, 2022 7:11 am

    You might have accidentally bumped the write-protect switch on the full-size SD adapter sleeve. Please get in touch using the “Contact BMOW” link above if you’re not able to get it working.

47. 
    Tashtari - April 12th, 2022 9:11 am

    Someone may have already done this before, but I’ve just experimentally confirmed that the Floppy Emu’s HD20 emulation will work on the LC II – the ROM does have support for it.

    The problem is getting access to the !ENBL2 line required for HD20 emulation (you can’t just plug it into the floppy connector and expect it to work, as the floppy connector has !ENBL1, which is not where the ROM expects to find the HD20). I did this by clipping onto a leg of the SWIM IC and wiring up the rest of my Floppy Emu’s lines using wire jumpers, which is not quite what you’d call a user-friendly solution.

    …But it does work. 😀

48. 
    Bernard Guillot - April 23rd, 2022 1:14 am

    I’m happy with my floppy_Emu bought last end of december, working as expected on a Classic…
    Now i got an SE30 and need to know if it could just boot fine without his dead HD Quantum prodrive 40…?

49. 
    Steve - April 24th, 2022 6:47 am

    Yes the SE/30 is supported, please see the compatibility chart in the instruction manual.

50. 
    Anonymous - April 24th, 2022 7:10 am

    Hi Steve Thanx!
    Unfortunately, when trying to fiddle inside the SE30 I discovered a broken Clinton CRT tube at the neck… I will wait until I may find an SE at an affordable price to swap the mother board. I am aware that in this case the RominatorII is mandatory for the SE30…
    Now back on to the Classic, I am trying to find a solution to boot from the floppy-emu to update system 6.0.7 on the Quantum Prodrive 40 because I don’t have disk utility to check an external SCSI disk…

51. 
    Bernard Guillot - April 24th, 2022 7:11 am

    Sorry for my previous message sent as anonymous…

52. 
    Matthew Whited - May 19th, 2022 12:37 pm

    Would it be possible to add an option to the FloppyEmu to create/copy a disk image? It would be nice to create a new .woz file and then use a standard save/copy to put data in that image… without having to turn the machine off, pull the sd card, put it in another machine, create an image then go back to the Apple II.

53. 
    Victor - May 30th, 2022 6:24 am

    hi steve, on an Apple IIe, in Smartport mode, i encounter a Fatal Error, Overrun, while running the Total Replay image from https://archive.org/download/TotalReplay/Total%20Replay%20v5.0-alpha.2.hdv

    Any ideas what may have cause this?

54. 
    Steve - May 30th, 2022 7:10 am

    I’ve heard some reports of problems with Total Replay, but I’m unsure what causes it.

55. 
    Tashtari - June 8th, 2022 7:05 pm

    This just in, the Floppy Emu in HD20 mode will also work on the IIvx/IIvi/Performa 600 with the same creative wiring job as the LC II. Always more to discover…

56. 
    STEVE BURKE - June 14th, 2022 8:40 am

    Hi People,

    My Floppy Emu works perfectly with my GS which is running on dos 3.3. The app that i use is for editing an old forgotten Kurzweil synthesizer, to which the developer wrote the editor for this rack synth for the apple 2, and he wrote it in assembler which makes it go very fast for what I need it for.
    Kudo on the work.

    My question is I’m now looking at using the GS and its last incarnation of O.S (ver. 6.04 I believe), and I wanted to try to make the Floppy emu to work as a hard drive (smartport drive) where I can then boot off (32 megs) to have the other ‘partition have the 2gigs. I have both images that I downloaded.

    I have tried to create a boot disk of 6.02 thats on the sd card, using the install app. when I use the prodos 4.2 image to install the boot disk (using easy install) when its finishing up the install it says that the disk is too small – by about 77kbites.

    If I try to make a smart port hard drive – you need to change emulations to smart port, but then I can not boot up nor access any floppies.

    Does anybody have 6.02 on a smart port hard drive image that I could get up and going.

    I also want to do the booting off the first smart port drive (32meg) then reboot to the 2gig unit like its mentioned in the docs. But being I’m just learning about the apple OS, I’m at this time a bit above my head on the ways of the GS and how to make that possible. If it was an Amiga – I have no problems- It was my main computer until Commodore went belly up.

    I’m figuring the ‘smartport 2’ option may be the way to do this, the other is buying the daisy chain coupler, and go about installing using 3.5″ floppy and floppy emu.

    any suggestions would be welcomed, As it is I am more than satisfied with the product.

    thanks

    steve

57. 
    Steve - June 14th, 2022 9:08 pm

    Steve, if you bought the Vintage Software Collection SD Card (this is also included in the Floppy Emu Deluxe Bundle), there’s a pre-made 32 MB GSOS 6.02 disk image already included – no need to go through the whole installer process. I can’t speak to the difference versus 6.04. You can also download one from https://www.bigmessowires.com/2015/07/24/gsos-6-0-2-for-floppy-emu/ I’m not familiar with dual-booting GSOS from a 2 GB partition – as far as I know GSOS must boot from a 32 MB (max size) ProDOS partition.

58. 
    Ken - June 14th, 2022 10:51 am

    Hi Steve – Just a minor point of clarification. The last official version of GSOS was 6.0.1. Some group of individuals have made subsequent modifications to the OS, fixing some items and adding some. The latest result of that community effort is 6.0.4. Ken

59. 
    STEVE BURKE - June 14th, 2022 12:28 pm

    I believe I have the 6.04. The floppy emu has 6.01 and 6.02 listed in their SD card that came with the emulator, and my system came with v5.01.

    And thank you for clarifying the official version. Its nice to see that at least the O.S is still alive somewhat.

60. 
    Allen Finchum - August 16th, 2022 8:23 pm

    I have a question – I booted a Mac SE with a functioning hard drive from the floppy emu and it worked well. The problem is now I cannot boot from the internal HD after unplugging the emu – I get the little disk with a question mark. Is this something you have seen before and might know how to correct it or should I dig further to see if the HD died while in floppy emu mode? I find this unlikely, but these machines are over 30 yrs old so who knows. Thanks – I love the emu, used it on a Mac plus too and it works well, but this glitch is stumping me.

61. 
    Steve - August 17th, 2022 6:33 am

    The blinky ? means there’s no System file, either because the disk contents are hosed or the disk has mechanical problems. If it’s still the original SCSI drive from a Mac SE, there’s a high chance of mechanical problems especially if you hadn’t used the computer for a long time until recently. The drive can develop “stiction” problems where the head sticks to the platter, or other issues. Sometimes it helps if you let the computer warm up for a while, or power-cycle it a few times.

62. 
    STEVE BURKE - August 27th, 2022 5:30 am

    Have IIgs, and I need to change some files on the bootdisk image (5.25″) so when I’m in basic and need to delete a file , I get write protected coming up. Does floppy emu have write protect option? I looked everywhere in the menu, and manual. I was going to look on this listings, but there is no search engines to help with the search.

63. 
    Steve - August 29th, 2022 6:31 am

    Please see section 8 in the instruction manual. If a padlock icon appears next to a disk image’s name, it means that disk image is read-only. This may be because the disk image file itself is read-only on the SD card (check the file properties in Windows or OSX), or because that type of disk image is inherently read-only, or because it’s a sparse disk image where empty sectors have been omitted.

64. 
    Ederson Zier - September 9th, 2022 3:11 pm

    Amazing!!!! The best solution for a respect Macintosh collector.
    Was awesome to see all my vintage Apple computer running (again).
    Congratulations for the BMOW Team!

    Kind Regards;
    Ederson
    iZier Museum
    Brazil

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