Malvineous
Experienced Member
Hi all,
I have had very little exposure to Apple products so I'm hoping some experts might be able to help. I recently purchased a "new in box" 5.25" floppy drive sight unseen, and it turned out to be a Teac FD-55A (single sided, double-density, 40 tracks.) To my surprise, it turned out to be an external drive in its own enclosure (something I have never seen in person before) and a 20-pin IDC ribbon cable was hanging out the back.
I've done a little research and it seems that this could be compatible with the early Apple "direct drive" floppy drives. Opening the case revealed a very interesting addition to the drive - a small board that adapts the 20-pin cable partly to the drive's PC-style Shugart interface, and partly connects it directly to (I assume) the head stepper control circuits. The 20 pin ribbon cable connects to the white header that is blocking the PC-style power connector.
Does this look like it could be an Apple interface? Or were there other 20-pin data+power interfaces that it could also be?
I am considering removing the interface to convert the drive back into a standard PC drive (although of limited use being only single-sided, so only early DOS 160/180kB floppies will be usable) but before I do, I thought I had better check whether these types of drives are rare in this configuration and whether it would be better to keep it as-is, in case it turns out to be more useful/valuable to someone else in its factory state.
The forum seems to make the attached images a bit small so some of the full-resolution Vogonswiki pics might be clearer.
Any opinions/info? Thanks!
I have had very little exposure to Apple products so I'm hoping some experts might be able to help. I recently purchased a "new in box" 5.25" floppy drive sight unseen, and it turned out to be a Teac FD-55A (single sided, double-density, 40 tracks.) To my surprise, it turned out to be an external drive in its own enclosure (something I have never seen in person before) and a 20-pin IDC ribbon cable was hanging out the back.
I've done a little research and it seems that this could be compatible with the early Apple "direct drive" floppy drives. Opening the case revealed a very interesting addition to the drive - a small board that adapts the 20-pin cable partly to the drive's PC-style Shugart interface, and partly connects it directly to (I assume) the head stepper control circuits. The 20 pin ribbon cable connects to the white header that is blocking the PC-style power connector.
Does this look like it could be an Apple interface? Or were there other 20-pin data+power interfaces that it could also be?
I am considering removing the interface to convert the drive back into a standard PC drive (although of limited use being only single-sided, so only early DOS 160/180kB floppies will be usable) but before I do, I thought I had better check whether these types of drives are rare in this configuration and whether it would be better to keep it as-is, in case it turns out to be more useful/valuable to someone else in its factory state.
The forum seems to make the attached images a bit small so some of the full-resolution Vogonswiki pics might be clearer.
Any opinions/info? Thanks!