10-08-2023, 03:20 PM
Hi Highground,
Another solution to real media, and a great update to those disk units is to swap one of the floppy drives for a Gotek Floppy drive emulator with Flashfloppy firmware.
There's a nice 3d printed frame for them online that you can use to mount a gotek in a 5 1/4" bay. You can then set up the gotek as drive 0 and the real disk as drive 1. Best of both worlds.
(I've recently done just that)
I've been using Microbees with various Gotek solutions for a while and I'm happy to help if you need more advice.
One thing to note with the drive unit is that some of them have a random number of RIFA branded mica capacitors in them which have a nasty habit of exploding after 30+ years with a bad smell. Not all of them use them, but it may be worth checking.
You could potentially replace the entire power supply with a modern MeanWell (or equivelent) power supply without too much work.
If the keyboard gives you grief, Microbee Technology do a lovely replacement keyboard kit that lets you keep your vintage keycaps, but replaces the dodgy keys with something a lot more modern. It even replaces the heat generating 7805 regulators with modern micro switchmode power at the same time.
That's most of the "modern" upgrades I can think of that are available right now. Your unit is already upgraded to 128k which should run most things you're likely to encounter.
Cheers!
John
Another solution to real media, and a great update to those disk units is to swap one of the floppy drives for a Gotek Floppy drive emulator with Flashfloppy firmware.
There's a nice 3d printed frame for them online that you can use to mount a gotek in a 5 1/4" bay. You can then set up the gotek as drive 0 and the real disk as drive 1. Best of both worlds.
(I've recently done just that)
I've been using Microbees with various Gotek solutions for a while and I'm happy to help if you need more advice.
One thing to note with the drive unit is that some of them have a random number of RIFA branded mica capacitors in them which have a nasty habit of exploding after 30+ years with a bad smell. Not all of them use them, but it may be worth checking.
You could potentially replace the entire power supply with a modern MeanWell (or equivelent) power supply without too much work.
If the keyboard gives you grief, Microbee Technology do a lovely replacement keyboard kit that lets you keep your vintage keycaps, but replaces the dodgy keys with something a lot more modern. It even replaces the heat generating 7805 regulators with modern micro switchmode power at the same time.
That's most of the "modern" upgrades I can think of that are available right now. Your unit is already upgraded to 128k which should run most things you're likely to encounter.
Cheers!
John
John "CheshireNoir" Parker
----
One Dark Little Kitten
----
One Dark Little Kitten