749 Comments so far

1. 
   Steve - October 21st, 2016 7:48 am

   The Emu has an LCD screen and interface buttons built directly into the unit, rather than requiring a remote control gui. Please see the instruction manual and the video above for details and examples.

2. 
   Ryan - October 21st, 2016 5:29 pm

   I was hoping for a way to connect it internally and controlling it remotely to keep a clean desktop space with the emulator board out of sight.

3. 
   Steve - October 24th, 2016 10:22 am

   A new batch of Floppy Emu boards is already being made, and I expect to have them available by mid-November or earlier.

4. 
   Ryan - October 24th, 2016 9:41 pm

   I was vague in my prior statement, I apologize. I am interested in buying a few of these for myself and friends. However, I am curious of the usability with SD cards like Verbatim FlashAir and Eyefi Wifi Lan. I am assuming since the cards themselves have the built in LAN and handle sending receiving within themselves, than the only issue is the floppy emu refreshing the display or supporting it without SD card corruption.

5. 
   Steve - October 24th, 2016 10:30 pm

   I’ve not tried an Eye-fi SD card myself, but yes I think you’re right. Assuming the computer isn’t actively writing to the disk image on the SD card.

6. 
   Rick - October 25th, 2016 8:36 am

   Thanks Steve, I can’t wait to get one for my IIGS!

7. 
   Ryan - October 28th, 2016 10:58 pm

   Does the Floppy emu come with latest firmware already installed or should I update it after receiving?

8. 
   Steve - October 29th, 2016 6:56 am

   It comes with the latest Apple II-compatible firmware already installed. For the Mac and Lisa, or for updates, there is a simple firmware update process. See section 4 of the manual for more info.

9. 
   lou - November 6th, 2016 8:33 pm

   Got this device, and it works when plugged in, although it won’t read any file unless it is a .DSK file…which I have no clue how to create; nor the manual mention it. Also there is no mention about how to create an emulated disk drive image; since it is not on the manual either; and one of the features of this device is to act like an hard drive.

   I have a bunch of files as sit files that I would like to transfer, but I can’t because the mac can’t see them…it would be really appreciated to get at least the barebone info about how to set up the software on the SD card to use this device.

   Beside that; excellent work.

10. 
    Steve Hammond - November 6th, 2016 9:00 pm

    Lou, the device is meant to act as a disk drive, so you need disk images on the SD card to make it work.

    You can use CyderPress to create disk images for the SD card that can be read on the EMU.

    http://a2ciderpress.com

11. 
    Steve - November 6th, 2016 9:26 pm

    Check out section 6.1 of the manual, which discusses working with disk images, and provides links to web sites where you can download them, as well as examples of software tools that can create/edit disk images. For the Macintosh you’ll primarily be looking at macintoshgarden.org for disk image downloads, and something like HFVExplorer or Mini vMac for creating or editing your own disk images. This applies to both floppy and hard disk images.

    The “Vintage Software Collection SD Card” also includes a variety of different disk images for all supported platforms, including floppy and hard disk images, and is intended for people who just want an easy way to get started with some pre-existing disk images.

    Stuffit (sit) files aren’t disk images, but are just compressed files (like a zip file). You can use one of the aforementioned tools to put the Stuffit file inside of a disk image, then mount the disk image on your Mac and you’ll see the Stuffit file along with the rest of the disk’s contents. Or you can uncompress the Stuffit file using a Macintosh emulator like Mini vMac, and then copy the uncompressed contents into a disk image for use with the Emu.

    68kmla.org is a great resource if you have general questions about Macintosh retrocomputing tools and methods.

12. 
    Gary Teichrow - November 15th, 2016 5:23 pm

    You just made my month! I’m now going to actually keep versus sell my Lisa. Thank you for all your hard work putting this together.

13. 
    Ryan - December 4th, 2016 5:01 pm

    What is the correct terminology for the model B extension cable? I am looking to buy a shorter one but need to know the search term.

14. 
    Steve - December 4th, 2016 5:07 pm

    Is this what you’re looking for? https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/assmann-wsw-components/H3CCH-2036G/H3CCH-2036G-ND/999352

15. 
    cbmeeks - December 7th, 2016 10:17 am

    Is there really a company called “Assmann”? Does Kramer work there?

    LOL

    https://www.digikey.com/en/supplier-centers/a/assmann-wsw-components

16. 
    DB - December 22nd, 2016 7:23 am

    Neat product! A good way to keep old computers still usable. Plan to get one at some point.

17. 
    Johnny - December 28th, 2016 1:21 pm

    If and when you have a sale, i will get one! but even if you don’t, i’m still gonna consider getting one! This is an amazing thing because the floppy drives on my Macintosh Classic are failing, and I also want to update both of them to system 7.5.5.

18. 
    techknight - January 2nd, 2017 12:03 pm

    Why is the B alot more expensive than the A? Cant we go back to the cheaper version?

19. 
    Steve - January 2nd, 2017 3:41 pm

    I think you’re looking at the “closeout” price of the Model A, from when the remaining inventory was sold at a big discount. The Model B is the same price as the Model A + Universal Adapter pair that it replaces.

20. 
    techknight - January 7th, 2017 7:12 pm

    Ah ok. Can we have the ability to switch between different HD20 images?

21. 
    Steve - January 8th, 2017 8:08 am

    Yes, that already exists. Just follow the menu prompts on the Emu’s LCD when you’re in hard disk (HD20) mode.

22. 
    Mohamed Fahmy Hussein - January 11th, 2017 9:32 pm

    I’ve thousands of WORD and Excel files of my PhD thesis and later papers/articles, of the the period 1988/2000, on my Mac SE, mainly on external iomega Zip Drive Disks, and fewer files are as well stored in compressed state on the Mac SE Hard Disk (and compressing/decompressing functions of the initially used software still works fine as well as WORD and EXCEL, on my Mac SE).

    I’ve recently bought your product through my courageous son in the States. Hope to find most or all of my files intact after all these years on the iomega disks. I run my Mac SE, it works fine. I loved this great machine and worked on it for about 12 years before I finally shifted to PC laptops running under Windows mainly due to the exaggerated huge prices that Apple Computers applies to it machines and I cannot afford anymore by the start of the 21st Century after I’ve had purchased my Apple IIgs and Mac SE after 28-26 years ago when I was resident in France and had a much higher income than in Egypt.

    There was a problem of an electric spark produced when launching the Mac SE machine with the on/off button, however, the problem was fixed few days ago, i.e. by late Dec 2016, by a genuine local technician in Cairo, Egypt, who has changed the internal switch of the Mac SE on/off button.

    Now, everything is ready to connect my Zip drive to see in what condition are my files on the iomega Zip drive disks. I wonder if I can connect your product and the iomega to my Mac SE at the same time before booting the Mac SE. Please, confirm that this type of double connection to the SCSI ports of Mac SE is possible at no risk. Thank you. My final goal it to transfer my file to a recent Mac (of a friend) and then to my recent PC laptop running under windows.

    Thanks a lot.

    Dr. Fahmy
    Cairo
    Egypt

23. 
    Mohamed Fahmy Hussein - January 11th, 2017 9:33 pm

    I think your product by all measures is a great one of its category, if not the unique, easy and useful one to use. I’m completely astonished that Apple Computer doesn’t make use of your product to help its old costumers recover their old files stored on vintage Macs to new Macs instead of simply saying to them that their old machines are obsolete/vintage and not covered by any service from Apple worldwide. A great manufacturer can never say such thing or proclaiming he is not responsible of his own old machines, this is a big shame and a unbelievable violent pity action to those who participated in building the wealth of Apple Computer at its early years.

    Hopefully, there are great engineers, like you Sir, to save the aged folk, like me, and the World.

    Thanks a lot.

    Dr. Fahmy
    Cairo
    Egypt

24. 
    Steve - January 12th, 2017 7:37 am

    The Floppy Emu connects to the 19-pin disk port, not the SCSI port (25 pin). So you could connect both the Emu and your Iomega drive at the same time if you wish.

25. 
    Mark Wolfe - January 23rd, 2017 1:53 am

    Wow, I’ve read through ALL the posted feedback (and boy are my arms tired)

    Was hoping to find people sharing their pimped out hard disk images. I long to return to the days when my Mac Plus had flying toasters, the “moose” and made a barfing noise when you ejected a disk… I know that if I search carefully, all that can be obtained separately but I have to believe that people have created hard disk images that probably do most if not more of that with games and apps to boot.

    Is anyone sharing? (For fun not profit) links?

26. 
    Steve - January 26th, 2017 10:48 am

    @ Mark Wolfe, for Macintosh software, most people just download everything they need from Macintosh Garden.

    @Techknight, a note about the ability to switch between different HD20 images: I added that feature many months ago in firmware hd20-0.7F-F14.5, but I just discovered that I never updated the link on this page to point to the new firmware. Doh! It’s now updated.

27. 
    Johnny - February 12th, 2017 6:44 am

    Hey, this thing is amazing. Great job! I have 2 old mac classic’s and I can’t wait to buy this!

28. 
    Joseph B Oprysko - February 22nd, 2017 6:26 pm

    Steve, I’ve got a question, would wireless web control capabilities be possible with something like the Toshiba FlashAir? Similar to the way UNISDISK is? http://tulip-house.ddo.jp/digital/UNISDISKAIR/index.html

    Although, having switched to the MicroSD format, I guess if possible, it would only be on the A versions…

29. 
    Pat Allen - February 22nd, 2017 6:43 pm

    Hi, is there a way to format and mount a 1600kb file on the emulator ?

    i do have such file for a specific machine, recognised as a “akai 1600kb” at the end its a OS file for a aligner machine

    thanks

30. 
    Steve - February 23rd, 2017 7:38 am

    A WiFi-enabled SD card like the Eye-Fi or Toshiba FlashAir should work, though I’ve never tried it myself.

    The Emu is designed specifically for vintage Apple computer disk emulation (Macintosh, Apple II, and Lisa). For industrial equipment, you can probably use a PC-centric floppy disk emulator like HxC Floppy.

31. 
    Willy - February 25th, 2017 2:10 pm

    Hi Steve,

    I am trying to use the EMU floopy drive emulator to install Mac OS 7.5.3 on my Macintosh SE. Somehow the SE does not recognize 1.4 Mb disk images and wants me to reformat to 0.8 Mb. Is there a way to have the SE recognize the 1.4Mb disk images?

    Thank you.

32. 
    Steve - February 25th, 2017 2:20 pm

    Apple introduced 1440K floppy support with the Mac SE FDHD and newer machines. If you have the original Mac SE, it will be limited to using 400K and 800K floppy disks and disk images. You could use the Emu in Hard Disk Mode with your SE, and load OS that way. Or stick with System 7.1, which comes on 800K floppies and which will probably be more usable on an SE anyway.

33. 
    Jungsi - February 26th, 2017 7:40 am

    Hi Steve,
    I\’am using the floppy Emu B with my Mac SE/30s. On one of them it\’s working without a problem. On the other one it is only working on the interanl floppy port. On the external port there is no reaction – no power no display. I think it\’s all ok with the Floppy Emu and the problem is on the mainboard? Any idea?
    Thanks
    Gerhard

34. 
    Steve - February 26th, 2017 8:12 am

    If the external floppy port isn’t even getting power, then you have a damaged logic board. You could use a multimeter to trace the connections to the external port, and try to identify what’s broken. A repair service like http://maccaps.com/MacCaps/Repair_Service.html may also be able to help.

35. 
    fouasson - March 4th, 2017 4:31 am

    Hello, i have a floppy emu version A with universal adapter for my apple iigs, all it was ok but this morning, the 2gs don’t boot on .2mg or .p , only boot with .dsk.
    You you known the problem. I already try to put the firmware.
    Thank

36. 
    Steve - March 4th, 2017 7:09 am

    @fouasson, that might be due to using the wrong emulation mode maybe. Please send me email with the details, and I can help troubleshoot what’s going wrong.

37. 
    Johnny - March 5th, 2017 11:50 am

    Hi, i’m in Canada, and i’m wondering, how long would it take to reach me? (estimated)

38. 
    Steve - March 5th, 2017 12:30 pm

    For Canada, 4-5 days shipping time is typical.

39. 
    Chris - March 8th, 2017 12:53 pm

    Loving this Emu, it’s done absolute wonders for my old Macs. However, i’m stuck using the .IMG files that are pre-loaded as there seems to be few (if any) websites that offer the images as direct downloads (or atleast .IMG types that are already loaded). They all seem to be .SIT files which are nothing short of a pain in the bum to extract in Windows. Though I can do it and when you manage to, you are left with the files but still the problem of somehow putting them files onto a floppy image that are the same type that the Emu accepts and are pre-loaded.

    The manual is a good start but I am still scratching my head as to how I can make some from the .SIT files you download (Eg. from Macintosh Garden), extracted or not. Is it possible in Windows 7? If so is there a tutorial on how because Google hasn’t given me a proper solution as of yet.

    Thanks in advance.

40. 
    Steve - March 8th, 2017 4:30 pm

    I don’t have a tutorial on Stuffit, sorry. Section 6.1 of the Emu manual has some suggestions for tools you can use to view and edit the contents of disk images, or make new disk images. There’s also some general info here on the use of StuffIt, Macintosh disk images, and their use in emulators that you may find useful: http://www.gryphel.com/c/image/

    I try to avoid software that comes in a StuffIt archive, since as you’ve discovered it’s often a pain. Many items on Macintosh Garden are available in several different forms: as a StuffIt archive, as a set of disk images, etc. Check the list of download links and try to find one that’s a disk image. If you must convert a StuffIt archive, do it on a vintage Mac or a Mac emulator like Mini vMac. Uncompressing the stuffit archive on a Windows machine will lose the resource fork and type/creator signatures.

41. 
    Mohamed Fahmy Hussein - March 9th, 2017 1:02 pm

    How to use this Floppy EMU to copy files of interest from the HD of Mac SE (that works well up to present day) to a new machine (e.g. Mac desktop/Mac laptop)? I have a wealth of old Word and Excel files that are stored since years on the HD of my old Mac SE (they are in good condition) and I need to transfer these files to a newer Mac (as a preliminary basic step before finally transferring them to a recent Windows laptop). The local Apple Macintosh vendor shops refused to do do that job for me. Thank you for reporting the required steps in some details (if possible without referring me to the EMU Instruction Manual that stays somewhat obscure for me). I understand that I must first insert the SD into the EMU, second I plug the EMU into the rear 19 pin slot of the Mac SE, third I’ll start the Mac SE. At this point, the Mac will turn on, and the EMU will work. What to do next in order to copy the files of interest from the HD of the Mac SE to the SD on the EMU? Is this to be done simply by dragging the files of interest to the SD of the EMU using the Mac SE Finder, or I’ve do something else? My son has bought the EMU complete (including the Floppy Emu Model B, the Frosted Ice Acrylic Case “assembled”, the Vintage Apple Software Collection SD Card, the Full-Size SD Adapter, and the Disk Extension Cable) and send that whole nice package (ready to be used) to me. However, I didn’t use that package yet.

42. 
    Steve - March 10th, 2017 1:36 pm

    I think it will be clearer once you have the hardware. Yes, you would copy the files to a blank disk image on the SD card. Then you would put the SD card in your Windows laptop, and use HFVExplorer (or one of the other tools described in section 6.1 of the manual) to open the disk image on the SD card and copy out the files. If you need general tutorials on using vintage Mac systems with emulators and disk images, vintage file format conversions, etc, I recommend asking for help in the discussion forums of enthusiast web sites like 68kmla.org and thinkclassic.org.

43. 
    Johnny - March 11th, 2017 11:22 am

    Does the floppy emu have built-in Macintosh support or do you have to install the firmware after?

44. 
    Steve - March 11th, 2017 7:16 pm

    Please see step 1 of the quickstart guide included with the hardware, and section 4 of the manual for additional details. There’s one firmware that provides Apple II disk emulation, and a separate one that provides Mac and Lisa disk emulation.

45. 
    Chase Clarkson - March 14th, 2017 12:36 pm

    Yesterday I got my Floppy Emu and I’ve got to say, it’s an AMAZING piece of tech, glad to have gotten my hands on one!. And good timing too, the day I got it, my Mac Plus’s internal drive kicked the bucket.

    One question though, and it’s about the HD20 emulation mode. I can never seem to get it to work. On bootup, the Macintosh becomes unresponsive and the Emu seems to freeze up as well, though when changing the HD20 disk it works fine. But the Mac still would not boot from it, nor would it be mounted when I had a system disk in the floppy drive, it would just freeze once Finder loaded. I’ve tried updating the firmware on the Emu and have tried multiple different images for the HD20, all of which work in Mini vMac, so it’s not a unreadable disk.

    The only thing upgraded to this Plus is 4MB of RAM and the Brainstorm Accelerator, seeing as it seems to work for other Plus users, I would assume the Accelerator has something to do with it, but I do not want to go inside and start removing the whole CPU to check.

46. 
    Steve - March 14th, 2017 1:30 pm

    Sadly it seems that compact Macintosh (Plus, SE) accelerators don’t play nicely with HD20 disks. If you scroll up in the comments, you’ll see another past report very similar to yours. Perhaps the HD20 routines in the Mac ROM used fixed delays that are affected by the accelerator – just a guess.

47. 
    Chase Clarkson - March 14th, 2017 1:38 pm

    @Steve
    Ah, alright, guess I’ll be looking into how to disable the accelerator, I’d rather sacrifice performance for HD20 emulation, and hopefully, the uninstall is easy enough if I ever need it again I can.

48. 
    John - March 18th, 2017 2:12 pm

    Any chance you could combine the apple ii and mac modes into one super firmware? I use the device between many machines. Would be really handy! 😉

49. 
    Mohamed Fahmy Hussein - March 20th, 2017 2:29 pm

    You may forgive me for my multiple questions before physically using the emu to transfer files from my Mac SE to another computer.

    First: Should I use Ciderpress utility to create blank floppy (or blank HD) volume on the SD of the emu (using a Windows machine) before I insert the SD in the emu board that will be connected to the Mac SE, or the SD shipped with the emu board has already such blank volumes installed on it?

    Second: I read somewhere in the instructions an alarm on running the emu board under the Apple II mode while the emu is inserted in a Mac machine (since this may damage the emu or the computer). Is this alarm not relevant to a “new emu”, i.e. the “new emu” will run smoothly with the Mac SE as if it has never been run with Apple II machine?

    Third: I sincerely hope that you would have some free time to make a YouTube video that will show the users how to transfer files from the Mac to the emu SD. Your previous YouTube videos concentrate on running games or software on the Apple II or APPLE IIGS using the emu board.

    Thank you for your reply, and again forgive my basic questions.

50. 
    Steve - March 20th, 2017 4:28 pm

    1) There are some blank Mac disk images on SD card, and you can use HFV Explorer to create more if desired. Ciderpress is for Apple II disk images, HFV Explorer is for Mac disk images. Please see section 8 of the manual.
    2) The warning you’re referring to is specific to the older Model A and does not apply to the Model B. You will need to download and install the alternate Mac firmware, as discussed in the manual.
    3) Floppy Emu functions just like a real external disk drive, so you can copy files to/from it just as you would any other disk. If you haven’t yet actually used the hardware, please wait until you have. If you need general tutorials on vintage Mac usage, like how to copy a file, I recommend asking for help in the discussion forums of vintage Macintosh enthusiast web sites like 68kmla.org and thinkclassic.org. I can only provide support specific to the Emu hardware, sorry.

51. 
    Johnny - March 21st, 2017 4:27 pm

    I have an iMac g3 from 2000 running mac os 9 and i also have disk copy installed on it. when I try to make a blank floppy disk image on disk copy, it works and i can transfer games and files onto the blank floppy disk image and then put them on the sd card. However, when i try to load that disk copy image off of the emu, it just says “file not contiguous”. Can you please help me?

52. 
    John M Holmes Jr - March 21st, 2017 4:32 pm

    Easiest way to fix that is to copy all the files off of the card onto your computer, then erase the card, and copy the files back over there. That will put them in contiguous order. There may have been one in the middle that got deleted and another file went in and partially wrote over that space and then had to go to another area of the card to finish writing, thus it’s not contiguous.

53. 
    Johnny - March 21st, 2017 6:10 pm

    Ok, the problem was the contents of the disk image was in a folder and I needed to take all the programs out of the folder, then put them in the disk image. Sadly I was not able to get mini vmac working on my Macintosh Classic, because it requires 5mb of memory and the Classic only has 4mb. I knew that wasn’t gonna work……

54. 
    Anonymous - April 1st, 2017 5:51 am

    I followed the instructions for the copying the two updating firmware files to the SD on my Windows laptop, and made the correct connection of the emu to the Mac SE and started the emu firmware update.

    The first part of the firmware update run smoothly (and the LCD displayed “RESULT: SUCCESS”).

    However, the the second part (by holding down the SELECT and PREV buttons, and pressing/releasing the RESET button) didn’t started the AVR microcontroller firmware update.

    Instead the display of the LCD became permanently hanging at the display (wrong CPLD 14 ! = $).

    I shut down Mac SE, and when launching it again the emu LCD was still hanging at that same wrong message.

    I shut down to wait for kind help from your side as I do not know what should I do at this point.

    Thanks.

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