749 Comments so far

1. 
   rami shaked - December 20th, 2018 3:27 am

   It looks like i solved it with Steve great advices now it’s working like charm. wonderful product with goos dervice 👏

2. 
   groinksan - January 6th, 2019 5:33 pm

   I probably discovered the same problem as rami. If you place the emu into a case, you can’t tighten the screws too much. The stems for the buttons are a bit too long. If you turn the emu on, and the screen immediately shuts off, the problem is that the top lid is pushing down on the stems, which then push down on the buttons. I had to loosen the nuts to give the stems some room. The permanent fix is to stick a piece of tape between the top lid and the walls, and that’ll avoid the lid from pushing down too much.

3. 
   Mikol - January 6th, 2019 8:29 pm

   I ended up 3d printing a case for mine. It won’t win any design awards but it works well. I’d post a picture but I don’t see any means of doing so here.

4. 
   Walter - January 12th, 2019 6:36 pm

   Hi Steve, do you have these in stock, and are you taking into consideration the latest comments to add just a bit more solder to the LCD part to avoid losing image?

5. 
   Steve - January 13th, 2019 8:22 am

   Yes they’re in stock – the “add to cart” button above and the BMOW store page reflect the current stock status. I don’t do back orders, so if it’s listed as available for purchase, that means it’s in stock. I don’t recommend resoldering but I’m glad it’s helped a few people. Each LCD is tested and hand-adjusted prior to sale to ensure it’s working well. The hardware is covered by a one year warranty, should you run into any problems down the road.

6. 
   Steve - January 14th, 2019 7:24 am

   Sorry you’re having trouble, Peter. 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.

7. 
   Steve - January 14th, 2019 10:25 am

   Sorry you’re having trouble, Thomas. 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. 
   Paul Powers - January 26th, 2019 7:21 pm

   How big of an SD Card does the FloppyEmu Model B support? SHXC? SDHC only? The reason I’m asking is because now that .WOZ support is in Beta, I’m seriously thinking of much larger SDCards for mine, and wanted to know what the max size supported actually is. Yes, I’m expecting a ton of .WOZ images, eventually to be out there, plus my own personal ones, when I get my own AppleSauce device 😉 Thanks for this device BTW, it’s super handy, as you well know 😉

9. 
   Steve - January 27th, 2019 8:09 am

   Smaller capacity cards perform better for writing data, so I wouldn’t recommend going with a huge card. A 32 GB SDHC card is large enough to hold hundreds of thousands of Apple II disk images. I’m not sure if the SD library in the firmware can handle SHXC cards, but if somebody has one and wants to try it, please let me know what you learn.

10. 
    Paul Powers - January 27th, 2019 10:01 am

    I ended up trying it (SDXC) before you responded.

    So the 1st 16gb Class 10 SD card (Samsung EVO) got destroyed in about 3 weeks of use in the device (the power surge thing I suspect, since I was quite often removing and inserting the card as I was tinkering with it and learning how to use it etc. I now have a label on the FloppyEmu to remind me to only insert and remove the SD card when it’s not powered at all.).

    The 2nd 16GB card (the 2nd of the same type as above- I bought 2 at the time) has worked great, but I haven’t been removing and inserting it all that often since I’ve now got it setup and don’t do that activity much anymore.

    So when I wrote the above question, that card was in it. (just a bit too small, as you pointed out above). So I ended up with a 64gb SDXC card (Lithium-Ion battery expansion in a smartphone- and the SD card needed a new home) and I had it on hand to try. So I did, and it works great and no more full card! (for the record it’s a 64gb Samsung EVO Class 10 and UHS-1 micro SD card)

11. 
    Steve - February 25th, 2019 3:47 pm

    Please see the notice at the top of the page, in red – targeting early March.

12. 
    Paolo Cognetti - March 4th, 2019 1:25 am

    Sorry for my poor English.
    A few days with both Macintosh and Lisa I have many problems with SD Fatal Error
    The problem is not always at the same point, installing Lisa Office, for example, I have problems sometimes on disk 1, sometimes on 2 sometimes on subsequent and I can never complete the installation.
    I have downloaded the latest firmware and I have a card with the firmware Lisa and a card with the Mac firmware and passing the floppyemu from one to another, each time I change the card and reload the firmware.
    I never had these problems until today. Since I installed the Lisa firmware Fatal Error have started and now even restoring the Mac firmware remain

13. 
    Chris - March 4th, 2019 7:21 pm

    Hi there,

    I’ve been using these floppy emulators on a Quadra 950 (as a floppy, natch) and an enhanced Apple IIe (with Liron controller, as both a 5.25″ replacement and a dual-slot Smartport drive).

    I’ve just received a IIc+, and I absolutely cannot get it to recognize the emulator as a Smartport hard drive. No problems whatsoever on both the internal header and the external port as 3.5″ dumb drives. Slotscan shows that an internal 3.5 is attached to S5D1 whether it’s actually there or not, but will only recognize a drive at S5D2 if it’s set to dumb 3.5 mode. No joy at all getting it to see it in HD mode.

    I’m obviously missing something really simple. Can someone point me in the right direction?

    Thanks,
    Chris

14. 
    Eric Berty - March 6th, 2019 6:59 am

    It is possible to have a unified firmware with 3 position switch to be able to select the firmware needed? It must be a easy way to implement that needed feature.

15. 
    Gordon Murray - March 15th, 2019 11:01 am

    Curious is the .woz files supported with Rev c? I got my floppy emu a week ago and absolutely love it! I have one running on my Apple IIe. When I try to load a .woz file it says not supported. I am happy with the .dsk ones but was just curious about the .woz file. Great product I absolutely love it.

16. 
    Steve - March 15th, 2019 12:16 pm

    Yes it’s supported on the Model C. You’ll need firmware apple-II-0.2G-F23 or newer.

17. 
    walter - March 19th, 2019 9:51 am

    Hello,

    I have a macintosh G3 computer that I was thinking of re-installing with the emu, but I realize it’s not on the list… Is the flopp of that different that I cannot use the floppyemu?

    Thanks

18. 
    Steve - March 19th, 2019 2:47 pm

    If it has a 10×2 pin floppy connector on the logic board, then it should work.

19. 
    jake - March 21st, 2019 5:35 am

    really cool but what makes it so pricey? being over a hundred dollars it is often more expensive then the classic mac in question. maybe if you got into contact with a manufacturer you could make loads of these of cheap.

20. 
    Robert Dowell - March 29th, 2019 5:30 am

    Just received it. The case was a bit fiddly to put together, and it might be nice to have some standoffs for the screen, but all in all, it’s amazing.

    I purchased it for use around The National Museum of Computing. Prevents me having to hook up a PC over serial to an Apple II, use ADTPro on both Machines and hope it works. So much faster and hassle free. Is there anyway we could have a unified Firmware for both Mac+Lisa+Apple II, or is that a memory constraint problem?

    Best $175 (including import duties) I paid for a solution to keeping the Apple kit alive. Thanks for the quick delivery.

21. 
    Wagner Eduardo Medina - April 3rd, 2019 7:31 pm

    Perfect emulator. I’m using it on my Mac Classic. The design is great. Congratulations Steve …

22. 
    Bill Knopp - April 15th, 2019 12:14 pm

    Hi,
    Back in March of 2014 on this blog you have a link to a post on how to build your own, but that link now just brings you back to this page. Do you no longer share your schematic? If not, that is understandable, as I see a great deal of effort has gone into this product. I would, however, love to build my own as I have the expertise and time to build them, but not the funds to purchase the assembled units. I would be using them in several of my collection, so would probably need 5 or so of these just so I don’t have to keep moving them around.

    Thanks,
    Bill

23. 
    Steve - April 16th, 2019 6:52 am

    I think you’re referring to the 2012 technical plans for the original prototype hardware, predating the Model A? Unfortunately a couple of people in Eastern Europe and Asia were abusing it and flouting the license terms, so I had to remove it.

24. 
    K.T. - April 17th, 2019 3:37 am

    My eyes are starting to bug out searching for this so I’ll pose the question in here now. :-O

    [limit on number of files within a folder question]

    Is there a hard limit to the number of disk image files that the Emu will catalog to display within a folder on the microSD card? Is there a practical limit? (i.e. speed of cataloging file nemes etc.)

    I ask because I used some automation to aquire and prepare quite a lot of disk images (specifically the 5.25 140K ones) into one folder on the card and it only displayed so many. My guess was the array of names was limited to 256-ish. It also gets a little slow to list a directory with so many. (I get that)

    I also need to consider renaming the image files so they effectively fit onto the screen without missing important information (like disk number, back/front etc. for multi-disk applications/games).

    Anyway, this is an incredible nostalgia boost for me getting to play with this vintage hardware I cut my teeth on again. Thanks Steve!!

    K.T.

25. 
    Steve - April 17th, 2019 5:10 pm

    The max is calculated dynamically based on filename lengths, but the practical limit is probably around 50 entries per directory. As you found, scrolling gets pretty slow after that.

26. 
    Gregg - April 20th, 2019 7:10 pm

    THANK YOU Steve! Was up and going with the Floppy Emu on my (gorgeous but til now recalcitrant) Mac Plus within an hour of it showing up in my mail. 55min to assemble the great case, 5 min to swap in the appropriate firmware. Don’t know what else to say, but THANKS!

27. 
    Traveler - April 24th, 2019 5:55 pm

    Great device! But I have one question. The s/w collection includes a bootable hard drive image, but it’s OS 6. There are OS 7 upgrade disk images, but I can only mount them by disconnecting the HD image. How can I upgrade the HD image to OS 7? Or is there a bootable OS 7 image available?

28. 
    CharonPDX - April 30th, 2019 4:27 pm

    Traveler – you would need to create your own System 7 image. You could do it by duplicating the System 6 image, then upgrading in place. Note that every system capable of booting from the FloppyEmu in hard drive mode is capable of running System 6, so it’s not like there is a system that could boot from it physically, but can’t because of the disk image.

29. 
    Christopher Maksudian - May 12th, 2019 7:00 pm

    So glad to see .WOZ read support! It’s so much fun playing these games from true images rather than cracks! Can we expect .WOZ write support to be added in a future update? Either way, thanks so much for this great product! It’s earned a permanent place in my set up!

30. 
    drken - May 13th, 2019 6:43 pm

    Steve – What are the differences between Model B and C? I have Model B and am wondering if it is worth spending the $$ to get a Model C.

31. 
    groinksan - June 11th, 2019 8:49 pm

    Steve, found this on VCFED you might be interested in…

    “Well, unfortunately 5.5V is a bit on the edge. This particular PSU was sent to me because it seems the only thing that could have damaged two “FloppyEMU” boards. Unfortunately I haven’t yet found a schematic of this FloppyEMU, but it uses a Xilinx XC9572XL CPLD directly connected to 5V I/O. This is usually fine since this part is rated up to 5.5V You see the problem here? Both FloppyEMU boards have a shorted CPLD”

    Some PSUs on the Apple IIs aren’t well regulated. The original poster doesn’t go into detail, such as if the PSU was from a Apple clone.

    http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?70208-ASTEC-AA11040C-repair

32. 
    Matthew Whited - June 18th, 2019 7:04 am

    Is it possible to control this device over the ISP? If not currently would you be interested in a collaboration to make this possible?

    I would be interested in adding the ability to list/select the disk images using a serial connection allowing this device to be interfaced and controlled over the local serial port or a network serial adapter.

33. 
    Sam - June 24th, 2019 3:50 pm

    Thank you Steve. What a great little device. I didn’t know about this product until Perifractic’s Retro Recipes on YT featured it in his channel.I just received it yesterday and very happy.

    Have you thought about emulating the sound of the floppy drive like the 1541 Ultimate cart for the c64 does ?

34. 
    josh - July 2nd, 2019 2:25 pm

    hi – will this work on an lc 475 ? i saw lc, lc ii, lc iii and lc 5xx, i’m just curious before i order. thanks-

35. 
    Raphael - July 2nd, 2019 2:55 pm

    how can i do for a .dsk file read an write into floopyemu? any .dsk file i put in it, gets a padlock and does not can be writed.

36. 
    Steve - July 6th, 2019 10:00 am

    Belated answers for a few past questions:

    – Christopher, there are no further WOZ plans at this time beyond what’s already present.

    – Ken, the Model C is described here: https://www.bigmessowires.com/2019/03/05/introducing-the-floppy-emu-model-c/ If you’re happy with your Model B then there’s probably no compelling reason to replace it.

    – Matthew, ISP control is not supported and not possible. Those pins are already used for other purposes.

    – Josh, it will work on any Mac with a standard 19-pin external DSUB or 20-pin internal 10×2 rectangular connector. This includes the LC475.

    – Raphael, please use the Contact link for one-on-one customer support issues.

37. 
    Bernardo Jimenez - July 17th, 2019 6:11 am

    Hello, I have a Quadra 605, which only has a SCSI port (as far as I understand). Can i use the EMU? If so (connecting it from the isnide of the machine, i guess) will it work only as a Floppy emulator, or may I’ll be able to use it as a hard disk to boot from ti as well? Thanks for your help and keep on doing this amazing work.

38. 
    Steve - July 17th, 2019 6:18 am

    Please see the compatibility table at https://www.bigmessowires.com/floppy-emu/#compatibility for information. The Quadra doesn’t support HD20 Hard Disk mode, but you could use it in floppy disk mode if connected internally.

39. 
    Bernardo Jimenez - July 17th, 2019 6:28 am

    Thank you. Yes, i had seen the table before but because the 605 is the simplest one of the Quadras, I just wanted to make sure it could work on it (since it has no disk port, etc). BTW, the Rom-inator works on it as well? Last question, if i use the EMu as a floppy ont he 605, may I boot from it? Thanks for your support

40. 
    Steve - July 17th, 2019 1:00 pm

    Yes, you can boot from the Floppy Emu – please see the FAQ above. None of the Quadra series is compatible with the ROM-inator II. Please see the list of supported computers at https://www.bigmessowires.com/mac-rom-inator-ii/

41. 
    qwj - July 24th, 2019 7:03 pm

    The newly updated firmware Apple-II-0.2K-F25-modelBC and Apple-II-0.2K-F22-modelA do not support SD cards very well. There are often “FATAL ERROR SD read error R” errors, and replacing them with 0.2I version does not have this problem. I hope you pay attention to it. Thank you.

42. 
    Chandler Vercetti - July 27th, 2019 4:49 am

    I have a Macintosh SE SuperDrive (FDHD) with a dead SCSI bus. I have tried just about everything to try to fix it with no luck. I remembered hearing about this nifty little device from somewhere a good while ago. Since the SE supports HD20, i can now finally use the system without constant disk swapping and my failing disks. The price kind of surprised me at first, but i am happy to say this has been the best $133 i have ever spent. Thank you so much Steve for making such a useful and awesome device! I do have one question though.

    Since i plan to use my Floppy Emu a lot, do i need to worry about the OLED display burning in or failing? If it does, are replacements available for purchase?

    Thank you.
    -Chandler

43. 
    Wulf Wolf - July 28th, 2019 5:25 pm

    Any chance for a ‘clear’ acrylic case for the Model C? Sorry, I’m not a fan of the frosted look.

44. 
    Steve - July 29th, 2019 4:11 pm

    Floppy Emu will be back in stock in about 2-4 weeks. There’s no clear case option – all the available accessories are listed above. The firmware has a “screensaver” behavior to prevent OLED burn-in.

45. 
    dk3406 - August 3rd, 2019 11:34 am

    The Jumbo OLED Fun posting leads me to another idea:

    Why not adding an HDMI output connector instead of an OLED as display?
    On the other hand, I think this would be way too oversized, isn’t?

46. 
    tim1724 - August 7th, 2019 5:49 pm

    supporting HDMI output would be significantly more difficult. These OLEDs communicate via a simple serial interface (I2C or SPI) which is very low bandwidth and doesn’t depend on any particular timing. They’re character displays which buffer the screen contents on-board. You just sent text to them.HDMI on the other hand requires sending a high resolution bitmap dozens of times per second with very tight timing constraints. It would be completely impossible to do in the microcontroller used in the Floppy Emu.

47. 
    Steve - August 26th, 2019 1:41 pm

    After a few weeks of delay, the Floppy Emu Model C is now back in stock. Thanks for all the interest – I will be sending a restock notice to everyone who asked for one.

48. 
    Jose - August 26th, 2019 2:45 pm

    Hooray! I got one. Can’t wait to see how it runs with my Mac SE with a Radius Accelerator 25, Plus and IIe. Thank you so much!

49. 
    Christophe - September 23rd, 2019 2:51 am

    Hi, is your Floppu EMU Model C compatible with an Apple IIe Enhanced (equipped with a classic DISK II card).
    I am asking the question because of a possible conflict with the 128K configuration of RAM on the motherboard.

50. 
    Steve - September 23rd, 2019 6:26 am

    Yes it is compatible. Please see the compatibility table above. The hardware mimics an external disk drive, and doesn’t have any special dependencies.

51. 
    Nasuno Akira - October 19th, 2019 2:23 am

    Help!
    I begin to use floppy emu recently.
    My Macintosh is color classic.I connect internal FDD connector.
    it seem to move well,but on Mac screen,message apear and loop.
    “Disk initialization failed because the disk is locked!” I push “OK”,but same message apear and loop.
    What can I do?
    Noother drives connected.I boot from floppy emu.

52. 
    Steve - October 20th, 2019 6:43 am

    Macintosh floppy disk images can’t be initialized that way with the Floppy Emu. If you need a blank disk image, instead of initializing it on the Mac, use one of the blank disk images provided on the SD card. Please use the Contact link at upper-right of the page if you have any more customer support questions.

53. 
    Nasuno Akira - October 21st, 2019 3:39 am

    because of my poor english,misunderstanding.
    I am not tring to initialize FDs. I can read terget FDs,But that message apear and cannot escape this stuation. It looks like another drive exist and inserted a noninitialized locked disk.

54. 
    Steve - October 23rd, 2019 11:33 am

    I am not sure what you mean, sorry. Please use the Contact link at upper-right of the web page to contact me directly, if you have any more customer support questions about this.

55. 
    Anonymous - November 29th, 2019 5:52 pm

    Hey Steve, just wondering if, for people like me that need to change the firm ware between Apple II and Macintosh (back and forth), is it the right procedure to, when moving the files to the SD card, replacing them or first you should delete the ones you dont need and then putting the new ones on it. Does it make any difference?

56. 
    Steve - December 1st, 2019 7:13 am

    Either way is OK.

57. 
    Richard Moore - December 1st, 2019 12:11 pm

    Hello. I have been having some card error issues with a competitors product (wDrive’s in Smart Port, 5.25 woz is working in my testing with that adapter) and I just ordered the floppy emu to act as a replacement instead. If I use the wdrive in 5.25 emulation mode only (not smart port) will it work with the floppy emu & daisy chainer accessory on the apple IIGS?

    It they won’t work together with the daisy chainer, other thought was to use the A/B switch instead, and switch between the floppy emu (for 3.5 & smartport emulation) and the wdrive (for woz 5.25 write support.) Does the a/b switch work with the apple IIGS?

    I know there are probably not may people using both devices together, but it never hurts to ask and see if someone had experimented with using both before me.

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