So, you have a more extensive selection than with Goteks that only come in the variant that uses USB drives. The Lotharek HxC line of floppy emulators has products that use SD cards and those that use USB drives. If you’re looking for a product made explicitly for emulating floppy drives for retro gaming machines, the Lotharek HxC line ( website) is a good fit. Many of them are Chinese clones that don’t feature great fit and finish, and it can be intimidating to have to flash their firmware. It’s no secret that Goteks don’t have the best build quality. Once you have the Gotek and the USB-to-TTL adapter, just follow the FlashFloppy GitHub’s directions to install the firmware.Īlternatively, you can use a USB-A to USB-A cable and jumper wires to program the firmware, which may be easier, though I haven’t used this method. Either type will work, but I personally find the cable version to be less awkward to use. To do so, you need a USB-to-TTL adapter, which can either come as a small USB dongle or a wired cable. However, if you order one from anywhere, be prepared to have to program the firmware yourself. Many Goteks, especially those on eBay, come with FlashFloppy pre-installed. Once you have a Gotek, it’s not necessarily ready to pair with your retro gaming device.

Just make sure you get one with a 34-pin header and a model number starting with “SFR.” These are extremely common and can be found on Amazon, eBay, and a host of other online stores for $30-50. The Gotek floppy drive emulator has been endlessly cloned, but they all work similarly (for the most part). I’ll go into a bit of detail on the Gotek and HxC emulators below. Lotharek’s HxC floppy emulators are of higher quality and support a ton of hardware, but are 2-3 times more expensive than the Gotek. Gotek floppy emulators are cheaper and more readily available, and can be used with FlashFloppy firmware to play a ton of different types of images over a wide array of retro hardware. In fact, there are only a few consumer-grade models that are available. What’s the best floppy drive emulator?įinding the best floppy disk emulator isn’t hard.

Floppy drive emulators can connect to older computers through the standard floppy-disk controller cable and read floppy disk images (which come in a staggering array of formats) from a thumb drive as if they were the real thing. You could use a real floppy drive and media, both of which can be finicky and unreliable, or you can use a more modern solution. If you’re into retro gaming or collecting old computers, you’ll eventually run into a situation where you vitally need a particular floppy disk.

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