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Add normal floppy drive to Power Mac G4? [message #330202] Fri, 22 July 2016 18:24 Go to next message
JackMacWindows is currently offline  JackMacWindows
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Registered: July 2016
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Hello,
I have an old Power Mac G4 Digital Audio, and I would like to add on a
floppy drive to read floppy disks I may find floating around. So I
purchased a floppy drive on eBay, but I realized that it has a normal
floppy drive connector. Is there any way I could connect this drive to my
G4 without buying a new drive or making this external? I did not get this
Mac with a Zip drive, so I do not have anything to replace in the 3.5" bay.
Note that I have a budget of $25 on this floppy drive project.
Also, if I can get this working, is there anywhere I could get a Zip drive
bezel? I would not like to have to a) drill into my blank bezel, or b) have
no bezel on.
Thanks,
Jack

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Re: Add normal floppy drive to Power Mac G4? [message #330204 is a reply to message #330202] Fri, 22 July 2016 20:06 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Cameron Kaiser is currently offline  Cameron Kaiser
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Registered: December 2011
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> Hello,
> I have an old Power Mac G4 Digital Audio, and I would like to add on a
> floppy drive to read floppy disks I may find floating around. So I
> purchased a floppy drive on eBay, but I realized that it has a normal
> floppy drive connector. Is there any way I could connect this drive to my
> G4 without buying a new drive or making this external?

No. There is no connector on the board for a "normal" floppy. I've seen
some folks shoehorn it into a USB enclosure in one of the 5.25" bays and
connect that up, however.

> Also, if I can get this working, is there anywhere I could get a Zip drive
> bezel? I would not like to have to a) drill into my blank bezel, or b) have
> no bezel on.

Regrettably, probably only from another Mac of the same model.

--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser@floodgap.com
-- Born free. Taxed to death. -------------------------------------------------

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Re: Add normal floppy drive to Power Mac G4? [message #330206 is a reply to message #330204] Fri, 22 July 2016 20:38 Go to previous messageGo to next message
peterhaas is currently offline  peterhaas
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>> I have an old Power Mac G4 Digital Audio, and I would like to add on a
>> floppy drive to read floppy disks I may find floating around. So I
>> purchased a floppy drive on eBay, but I realized that it has a normal
>> floppy drive connector. Is there any way I could connect this drive to
>> my
>> G4 without buying a new drive or making this external?
>
> No. There is no connector on the board for a "normal" floppy. I've seen
> some folks shoehorn it into a USB enclosure in one of the 5.25" bays and
> connect that up, however.

Even PCs have no floppy drive connector.

Exception ...

Those early PC motherboards which were designed using a "Super I/O" chip,
made by ITE and many other Asian companies.

This chip rides on the PC's "low pin count" bus, which Intel-based Macs
also have, and converts that to:

1) standard 34-pin floppy drive, and

2) standard 40-pin ATA bus which supports two ATA drives, and

3) RS-232/RS-422 serial port, and

4) "Centronics-type" parallel port, but using IBM's "Centronics-type" pinout.

These "Super I/O" chips largely disappeared with the 5-Series motherboards
from Intel and many others, but were considered essential for 4-Series
motherboards, and earlier ones as well.

The BEST solution for accessing floppies on a Mac is a Fujitsu or equal
USB floppy drive.

Incredibly enough, these even work on PCs, and can be bootable if the PC
motherboard/BIOS supports booting from a USB device.

On a "Hackintosh", floppy booting is even possible by selecting
"USB-Floppy" from the boot device selection menu.

Alas, a standard floppy only accommodates 1.44 megabytes of info, and most
PC BIOSes these days are 8 megabytes, a little more or a little less.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_I/O



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Re: Add normal floppy drive to Power Mac G4? [message #330208 is a reply to message #330202] Sat, 23 July 2016 00:33 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Jerry Kemp is currently offline  Jerry Kemp
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Registered: November 2012
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Junior Member
As a previous poster already commented, USB floppy drives are the way to go.

And to carry on, As the Apple world frequently chooses to disregard or forget
its glorious past, here is the WayBack Machine archive of the USB floppy drive
raid system on a Bondi Blue iMac.

< http://classic-web.archive.org/web/20040602201321/http://ohl ssonvox.8k.com/fdd_raid.htm>

enjoy,

Jerry


On 07/22/16 05:24 PM, JackMacWindows wrote:
> Hello,
> I have an old Power Mac G4 Digital Audio, and I would like to add on a
> floppy drive to read floppy disks I may find floating around. So I
> purchased a floppy drive on eBay, but I realized that it has a normal
> floppy drive connector. Is there any way I could connect this drive to my
> G4 without buying a new drive or making this external? I did not get this
> Mac with a Zip drive, so I do not have anything to replace in the 3.5" bay.
> Note that I have a budget of $25 on this floppy drive project.
> Also, if I can get this working, is there anywhere I could get a Zip drive
> bezel? I would not like to have to a) drill into my blank bezel, or b) have
> no bezel on.
> Thanks,
> Jack
>

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Re: Add normal floppy drive to Power Mac G4? [message #330210 is a reply to message #330204] Sat, 23 July 2016 11:11 Go to previous messageGo to next message
JackMacWindows is currently offline  JackMacWindows
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Registered: July 2016
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Junior Member
I am aware there is no floppy connector on the motherboard, but I wanted to
know if there is a cheap way to convert to IDE or add a floppy controller
card via PCI.

On Friday, July 22, 2016 at 8:06:48 PM UTC-4, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>> I have an old Power Mac G4 Digital Audio, and I would like to add on a
>> floppy drive to read floppy disks I may find floating around. So I
>> purchased a floppy drive on eBay, but I realized that it has a normal
>> floppy drive connector. Is there any way I could connect this drive to
> my
>> G4 without buying a new drive or making this external?
>
> No. There is no connector on the board for a "normal" floppy. I've seen
> some folks shoehorn it into a USB enclosure in one of the 5.25" bays and
> connect that up, however.
>
>> Also, if I can get this working, is there anywhere I could get a Zip
> drive
>> bezel? I would not like to have to a) drill into my blank bezel, or b)
> have
>> no bezel on.
>
> Regrettably, probably only from another Mac of the same model.
>
> --
> ------------------------------------ personal:
> http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
> Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com *
> cka...@floodgap.com <javascript:>
> -- Born free. Taxed to death.
> -------------------------------------------------
>

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Re: Add normal floppy drive to Power Mac G4? [message #330212 is a reply to message #330210] Sat, 23 July 2016 13:04 Go to previous messageGo to next message
peterhaas is currently offline  peterhaas
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Registered: September 2012
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Member

> I am aware there is no floppy connector on the motherboard, but I wanted
> to
> know if there is a cheap way to convert to IDE or add a floppy controller
> card via PCI.

Floppy to USB is the best option, if you can find a converter (probably
from a China or HK eBay store).



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Re: Add normal floppy drive to Power Mac G4? [message #330214 is a reply to message #330212] Sat, 23 July 2016 15:43 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Thomas Fritsch is currently offline  Thomas Fritsch
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Registered: September 2012
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Junior Member
there is one option. if you have a PC w/ one. to read/write Mac Floppies,
you can grab TransMac for it but if teh floppies you have laying arund are
allready in MS-Dos/FAT16 Format, then the point's Moot.

On Sat, Jul 23, 2016 at 1:04 PM, <peterhaas@cruzio.com> wrote:

>
>> I am aware there is no floppy connector on the motherboard, but I wanted
>> to
>> know if there is a cheap way to convert to IDE or add a floppy controller
>> card via PCI.
>
> Floppy to USB is the best option, if you can find a converter (probably
> from a China or HK eBay store).
>
>
>
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Re: Add normal floppy drive to Power Mac G4? [message #330215 is a reply to message #330214] Sat, 23 July 2016 17:37 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Charles Lenington is currently offline  Charles Lenington
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On 7/23/16 2:43 PM, Thomas Fritsch wrote:
> there is one option. if you have a PC w/ one. to read/write Mac
> Floppies, you can grab TransMac for it but if teh floppies you have
> laying arund are allready in MS-Dos/FAT16 Format, then the point's Moot.
>
> On Sat, Jul 23, 2016 at 1:04 PM, <peterhaas@cruzio.com
> <mailto:peterhaas@cruzio.com>> wrote:

snip------


Hey guys, can't he use a usb super drive?

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Re: Add normal floppy drive to Power Mac G4? [message #330217 is a reply to message #330202] Sat, 23 July 2016 17:43 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Charles Lenington is currently offline  Charles Lenington
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On 7/22/16 5:24 PM, JackMacWindows wrote:
> Hello,
> I have an old Power Mac G4 Digital Audio, and I would like to add on a
> floppy drive to read
Jack I have some usb zip drives if you need one.

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Re: Add normal floppy drive to Power Mac G4? [message #330221 is a reply to message #330202] Sat, 23 July 2016 15:24 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Cameron Kaiser is currently offline  Cameron Kaiser
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>> There is no connector on the board for a "normal" floppy. I've seen
>> some folks shoehorn it into a USB enclosure in one of the 5.25" bays and
>> connect that up, however.
>
> I am aware there is no floppy connector on the motherboard, but I wanted to
> know if there is a cheap way to convert to IDE or add a floppy controller
> card via PCI.

IDE, no.

There are ISA floppy controller cards, but I don't know of any PCI ones,
let alone ones with Mac drivers. You really would be better off with a
hacked-in USB approach.

--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
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-- Today's forecast is total crap! -- Strong Bad, "Homestar Runner" Menu #11 --

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Re: Add normal floppy drive to Power Mac G4? [message #330223 is a reply to message #330217] Wed, 27 July 2016 22:40 Go to previous message
Charles Lenington is currently offline  Charles Lenington
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On 7/23/16 4:43 PM, Charles Lenington wrote:
> On 7/22/16 5:24 PM, JackMacWindows wrote:
>> Hello,
>> I have an old Power Mac G4 Digital Audio, and I would like to add on a
>> floppy drive to read
> Jack I have some usb zip drives if you need one.
>
Do you have a SCSI card in that DA? Use of a SCSI zip with the USB
would be the easiest.
I'm looking for a usb floppy I have around somewhere. When I find it
I'll let you know.

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