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Video: Fast Floppies! (Patreon)

Published:
2022-01-14 01:43:42
Edited:
2022-01-14 18:40:20
Imported:
2022-11

Content

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWwp3vVtElw

(Edit: Uploaded version with minor tweaks.)

This is a video I've wanted to make for several years, ever since I discovered my Mavica had a high speed drive in it. As cool as all of these are, it's still frustrating that they simply never became mainstream. Floppy drives could have been improved before the end of the eighties, there was really no reason for them to stay so slow except maybe controller limitations, and that limitation could have been resolved as well. Instead, we kept using the same crap well into the 90s, and it became impossible to replace. Ain't that always the way?

Fun Production Fact: About two months ago I ordered a 2X FDD off ebay. It arrived, I tested it, it worked, then I put it away. When I went to shoot this video a week or two ago, the drive was gone. I searched home and the studio four times with no success.

I could have ordered another, but GDQ was coming up and I just plain didn't want to do that. So, I got on eBay, found someone selling one ten miles from here, and asked them to meet me in a parking lot to hand it over instead of shipping it. And that's how this video got made at all, 'cause otherwise it would have been backburnered for months again.

I expect when I publish this I'm going to get a bunch of upset comments from people mad that I didn't do my tests "right", but hey, if they have a problem they can go do it "right" themselves.

Files

(OLD) Need to read a floppy? GOTTA GO FAST!

This is a video I've wanted to make for several years, ever since I discovered my Mavica had a high speed drive in it. As cool as all of these are, it's still frustrating that they simply never became mainstream. Floppy drives could have been improved before the end of the eighties, there was really no reason for them to stay so slow except maybe controller limitations, and that limitation could have been resolved as well. Instead, we kept using the same crap well into the 90s, and it became impossible to replace. Ain't that always the way? Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cathoderaydude Tip me: https://ko-fi.com/cathoderaydude Chapters: 00:00 Intro & background 03:30 Defining "1X floppy speed" 10:40 Sony 2X floppy drive 12:33 Faster drives 13:14 "4X" Mavica 18:34 Other 4X drives 19:40 LS120 drive 26:00 Conclusion Alright, here's the drives I used: Dell: FDDM-101 / MPF82E - I THINK there may be some of these without the USB... or maybe there's a very similar looking drive with a different model number that lacks the USB, I can't remember for sure. Nobody bothers photographing the USB plug on ebay to confirm, so... Good Luck! Toshiba: PA3109U-1FDD - Not that you'd want this one. Sony: MPF88E - I've confirmed that this one IS supposed to have a big "2X" plate on top, so all the ones you see on ebay will look different. LS120: Imation SD USB M3 - Make sure you get a power supply, it's a 5V@1.5A, but the barrel plug is real small. And some drives I don't have: Smartdisk FDUSB-TM2 / FDUSB-B2 - 2X drive, ostensibly. Sabrent FL-UDRV - 2X drive, ostensibly. Targus 420-0448-002C - 2X drive, ostensible. Y-E Data yd-8u14 - This is the 4X model, there are 2X and 1X as well with different model numbers. Fastcache 10X - Let me know if you ever find one, or even see one.

Comments

Adam Baxter

Suggested new title: 2 Fast 2 Floppies.

Anonymous

Great video! Love my USB LS-120 drive. For what it's worth, it just contains a USB-IDE converter inside. Now I'm curious if it would be any faster if I bypassed USB and connected it directly!

Anonymous

"Can floppys be speedy? Yes indeedy!" You can use that one 👍

Anonymous

yeow, I didn't even remember there being multiple speeds for the 5 1/4 floppy drives, very cool! I just remember the Zip and Jazz drives being a fascinating early of what floppy tech could be -- glad flash memory took over though. Even in the mid 2000s I remember Jazz drives being sold at my local community college, even though they were tremendously out of date even by that point heh.

Anonymous

Those Lacie drives you mentioned were more popular among Mac users - Lacie being a popular Mac peripheral brand at the time. I remember my dad had a couple of the 4X models back in the day. Wish I knew where they had gone!

Anonymous

I don't understand how you put the word "floptical" on my screen without commenting on it

cathoderaydude
>>75640629

I KNOW, haha, just, I don't have a drive so I have NOTHING to say about it, and since they aren't backwards compatible AFAIK, it was completely off topic.

Anonymous

Great video - yet another topic I haven't thought much about. Standard 720kB/1.44MB/2.88MB floppies are 80 track, 2 sides and rotate at 300 rpm. Thus to read/write the complete floppy you would need 160 rotations (+ changing tracks), making the absolute minimum time to read/write a disk 32 seconds. I would guess that the Dell drive is running at 360 rpm making it 20% faster. I have seen some drives where you could select 300/360 rpm. As a side note the floppy controller in the Amiga could only support the bit rate of the 880kB (1MB DS DD/720kB) disks and reduced the rotational speed of the drive to 150rpm when using 1.76MB (2MB HD/1.44MB) disks thus making it 0.5x and taking more than 1 min. to read/write a disk.