Title: PLI Superfloppy - can't get it to work
Post by: tomaz on December 21, 2021, 02:49:54 PM
Post by: tomaz on December 21, 2021, 02:49:54 PM
I just bought myself a USB to SCSI adapter (RATOC U2SCX) and retrieved my PLI Superfloppy 2.88 drives from storage, planning to image all the unimaged ED floppies in my collection this winter.
I tested my 230V-120V transformer - it works.
I tested my Superfloppy power supply - an original - which has IN=120V AC @ 60Hz, OUT=7.5V DC/1.5A - and it works. It gives 10V without load. I also have a spare generic 7.5V DC power supply which gives about 11V without load.
I then connected it all up: a SCSI terminator to one PLI Superfloppy SCSI port, the RATOC SCSI connector to the other PLI Superfloppy SCSI port, I disabled the internal terminator on the floppy drive, set the SCSI ID to 2, connected the DC power supply to the PLI Superfloppy, then the USB side of the RATOC adapter into a USB port on my computer. And then ... nothing.
No acoustic noise, no lights came on on either the RATOC adapter, the SCSI terminator (actually a SCSI terminator/sniffer with lights for all the lines), the floppy. Just nothing. I inserted a floppy. Still nothing.
I then repeated the same process with a second PLI Superfloppy 2.88 drive ... still nothing.
Does anyone have any experience with these? Am I doing something obviously wrong? If I'm not, and the drive is likely broken, what should I check for?
I bought at least one of these drives as "tested and working". The other one I don't know. They've both been in storage for several years and I've never been able to test them before.
Thanks for any suggestions.
I tested my 230V-120V transformer - it works.
I tested my Superfloppy power supply - an original - which has IN=120V AC @ 60Hz, OUT=7.5V DC/1.5A - and it works. It gives 10V without load. I also have a spare generic 7.5V DC power supply which gives about 11V without load.
I then connected it all up: a SCSI terminator to one PLI Superfloppy SCSI port, the RATOC SCSI connector to the other PLI Superfloppy SCSI port, I disabled the internal terminator on the floppy drive, set the SCSI ID to 2, connected the DC power supply to the PLI Superfloppy, then the USB side of the RATOC adapter into a USB port on my computer. And then ... nothing.
No acoustic noise, no lights came on on either the RATOC adapter, the SCSI terminator (actually a SCSI terminator/sniffer with lights for all the lines), the floppy. Just nothing. I inserted a floppy. Still nothing.
I then repeated the same process with a second PLI Superfloppy 2.88 drive ... still nothing.
Does anyone have any experience with these? Am I doing something obviously wrong? If I'm not, and the drive is likely broken, what should I check for?
I bought at least one of these drives as "tested and working". The other one I don't know. They've both been in storage for several years and I've never been able to test them before.
Thanks for any suggestions.
Title: Re: PLI Superfloppy - can't get it to work
Post by: barcher174 on December 21, 2021, 09:24:47 PM
Post by: barcher174 on December 21, 2021, 09:24:47 PM
They have a voltage regulator inside that can go bad. I would check the voltages inside the unit.
Title: Re: PLI Superfloppy - can't get it to work
Post by: tomaz on December 22, 2021, 12:51:37 PM
Post by: tomaz on December 22, 2021, 12:51:37 PM
Ok, thank you for that. I have opened the floppy and I am confused. Inside, there is what looks like a standard NeXT internal 2.88MB floppy drive and a PCB. Off the PCB come two cables to the floppy - a data ribbon cable and a power connector. The power connector on the PCB has the standard 4-pin Molex connector and on the floppy side it is a 4-pin connector with two pins connected, one to a red wire and one to a black wire. However, the power connector just sits inside a gap inside the floppy drive, there is no matching connector in the floppy to plug it into. I have looked at a few NOS NeXT 2.88MB floppy drives I have and they are the same - there is no connector at that point on the drive to plug the power cable into. Is the floppy powered from the data cable?
Title: Re: PLI Superfloppy - can't get it to work
Post by: tomaz on December 22, 2021, 01:38:56 PM
Post by: tomaz on December 22, 2021, 01:38:56 PM
Do we know the NeXT internal floppy data cable pinout?
Title: Re: PLI Superfloppy - can't get it to work
Post by: gxs on December 31, 2021, 02:40:35 AM
Post by: gxs on December 31, 2021, 02:40:35 AM
I bought a non-working PLI unit a long time ago and had to replace the octal driver chip to get it working.
I think it was a 74HCT245 chip.
I think it was a 74HCT245 chip.
Title: Re: PLI Superfloppy - can't get it to work
Post by: tomaz on January 14, 2022, 05:16:41 PM
Post by: tomaz on January 14, 2022, 05:16:41 PM
I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that I've managed to get the drive to work - without replacing any components. The issue was with the SCSI-to-USB adapter I was using which I have resolved.
I decided to finally get around to imaging all my remaining NeXT floppies, having imaged many of them before. I started with my own floppies which I have owned from new and kept in good condition. All those imaged fine, without errors.
I then started imaging some floppies I acquired second hand - storage conditions unknown. Some imaged fine, then I inserted a floppy which the drive didn't like. The set the floppy was from looked a bit dusty, so I cleaned all the floppies with a damp cloth and dried them before using them. However, when the drive spat this particular floppy out, I noticed that the floppy door closing mechanism felt like there was a bit of grit behind it. I cleaned the floppy with a compressed air gun and tried again. No luck. I tried a few more floppies from that set and the drive started spitting them all out. So I tried some HD floppies I had not yet imaged - first in the PLI, then in a standard 1.44MB USB floppy drive, then in the PLI again. The standard drive was able to image them but the PLI is now spitting every floppy out either immediately, or sometimes it can read a part of it and then spits it out. I took 3 or 4 extra long cotton buds, dipped them in some IPA and poked around the drive assembly, trying to clean it out as much as I could, but not in a very targeted fashion, because I couldn't tell just by looking into it where the heads were, or what else I needed to clean. The buds came out a bit dirty and covered in a bit of dust, but nothing very drastic. I tried again. The drive was spitting floppies out again. I then tried cleaning the drive heads with a head cleaning diskette. At first, the drive spat that out immediately too, but on second attempt, it accepted the cleaning diskette and I cleaned the heads for some number of seconds. The drive then didn't spit the very first floppy I inserted immediately. It read a few sectors, but then spat the floppy out and now it's back to spitting out every floppy I put in immediately. Any ideas? Many thanks.
I decided to finally get around to imaging all my remaining NeXT floppies, having imaged many of them before. I started with my own floppies which I have owned from new and kept in good condition. All those imaged fine, without errors.
I then started imaging some floppies I acquired second hand - storage conditions unknown. Some imaged fine, then I inserted a floppy which the drive didn't like. The set the floppy was from looked a bit dusty, so I cleaned all the floppies with a damp cloth and dried them before using them. However, when the drive spat this particular floppy out, I noticed that the floppy door closing mechanism felt like there was a bit of grit behind it. I cleaned the floppy with a compressed air gun and tried again. No luck. I tried a few more floppies from that set and the drive started spitting them all out. So I tried some HD floppies I had not yet imaged - first in the PLI, then in a standard 1.44MB USB floppy drive, then in the PLI again. The standard drive was able to image them but the PLI is now spitting every floppy out either immediately, or sometimes it can read a part of it and then spits it out. I took 3 or 4 extra long cotton buds, dipped them in some IPA and poked around the drive assembly, trying to clean it out as much as I could, but not in a very targeted fashion, because I couldn't tell just by looking into it where the heads were, or what else I needed to clean. The buds came out a bit dirty and covered in a bit of dust, but nothing very drastic. I tried again. The drive was spitting floppies out again. I then tried cleaning the drive heads with a head cleaning diskette. At first, the drive spat that out immediately too, but on second attempt, it accepted the cleaning diskette and I cleaned the heads for some number of seconds. The drive then didn't spit the very first floppy I inserted immediately. It read a few sectors, but then spat the floppy out and now it's back to spitting out every floppy I put in immediately. Any ideas? Many thanks.
Title: Re: PLI Superfloppy - can't get it to work
Post by: pl212 on June 28, 2024, 12:20:42 PM
Post by: pl212 on June 28, 2024, 12:20:42 PM
Reviving this thread with a few notes:
1) I have a PLI SuperFloppy at home and will open it up to see if it's got the same NeXT-specific 2.88 drive as tomaz has. (IBM also combined data and power into one cable for use on high-end PS/2 systems with 2.88 drives - it's possible NeXT just piggybacked off that design.) In this thread from 2010 over on 68kmla (https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/pli-superfloppy-2-8.21468/), a user found the drive inside their SuperFloppy was a Sony MP-F40W-1Y with the same unicable.
2) Having said that, it's interesting that PLI supplied the extra power cable just in case. Presumably there might be a jumper or something to configure the selection between traditional power and one-cable-power?
3) I'm also curious what program (and operating system) folks are using to image NeXT floppies. In the past I've used dd, but in recent years we've seen cheap USB devices such as Greaseweazle that can read at the magnetic flux level. (See TechTangents' video on this topic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxsRpMdmlGo).)
4) There is support for 2.88 drives (https://github.com/keirf/greaseweazle/issues/181) in the Greaseweazle firmware, but it can be hard to find non-IBM/NeXT 2.88 drives that have separate power and data connectors. There's also the suspicion that 2.88 features are not exactly standardized (https://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/drive.html#288):
"unfortunately, these have different means of establishing HD and ED modes on the 44-pin connector. You have to custom wire the drive to the HD/ED floppy controller. Check the Intel Tech note AP-358 for details."
1) I have a PLI SuperFloppy at home and will open it up to see if it's got the same NeXT-specific 2.88 drive as tomaz has. (IBM also combined data and power into one cable for use on high-end PS/2 systems with 2.88 drives - it's possible NeXT just piggybacked off that design.) In this thread from 2010 over on 68kmla (https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/pli-superfloppy-2-8.21468/), a user found the drive inside their SuperFloppy was a Sony MP-F40W-1Y with the same unicable.
2) Having said that, it's interesting that PLI supplied the extra power cable just in case. Presumably there might be a jumper or something to configure the selection between traditional power and one-cable-power?
3) I'm also curious what program (and operating system) folks are using to image NeXT floppies. In the past I've used dd, but in recent years we've seen cheap USB devices such as Greaseweazle that can read at the magnetic flux level. (See TechTangents' video on this topic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxsRpMdmlGo).)
4) There is support for 2.88 drives (https://github.com/keirf/greaseweazle/issues/181) in the Greaseweazle firmware, but it can be hard to find non-IBM/NeXT 2.88 drives that have separate power and data connectors. There's also the suspicion that 2.88 features are not exactly standardized (https://www.retrotechnology.com/herbs_stuff/drive.html#288):
"unfortunately, these have different means of establishing HD and ED modes on the 44-pin connector. You have to custom wire the drive to the HD/ED floppy controller. Check the Intel Tech note AP-358 for details."
Title: Re: PLI Superfloppy - can't get it to work
Post by: pl212 on July 09, 2024, 03:24:08 PM
Post by: pl212 on July 09, 2024, 03:24:08 PM
Cracked open my black PLI SuperFloppy and can report the drive is a Sony MP-F40W-1Y (spindle label) and/or MFD-40W-1X (side label). A front LED header is unpopulated, as is the space for a regular power connector at the back. (Some IBM PS/2 2.88M drives did have an activity light). Amusingly the board itself is labeled "TurboFloppy" -- this was a similar product sold by PLI, obviously they reused the same controller with different firmware. Here's the controller:
I seem to have firmware version 1.4, and @tomaz has 1.5... perhaps we should dump these chips and archive them?
And here's what I've been able to figure out about this family of products:
Platinum SuperFloppy = standard 1.44 drive capable of reading both MFM (1.44M) and GCR (400k and 800k) disks. Marketed to Mac users those with pre-1.44M drive machines and a SCSI port (Plus, original II, original SE).
Black SuperFloppy = Sony 2.88 drive using a combined data and power cable - very similar if not identical to a Sony IBM part. Marketed to original NeXT Cube owners without a disk drive seeking to use Slab-era commercial software on floppies.
Platinum TurboFloppy = PC 1.44 drive with support for only MFM disks: 1.44M Mac and PC, and 720k PC. Marketed to Mac users as a cheaper solution if they didn't need 800k/400k support, and/or wanted PC disk compatibility.
I seem to have firmware version 1.4, and @tomaz has 1.5... perhaps we should dump these chips and archive them?
And here's what I've been able to figure out about this family of products:
Platinum SuperFloppy = standard 1.44 drive capable of reading both MFM (1.44M) and GCR (400k and 800k) disks. Marketed to Mac users those with pre-1.44M drive machines and a SCSI port (Plus, original II, original SE).
Black SuperFloppy = Sony 2.88 drive using a combined data and power cable - very similar if not identical to a Sony IBM part. Marketed to original NeXT Cube owners without a disk drive seeking to use Slab-era commercial software on floppies.
Platinum TurboFloppy = PC 1.44 drive with support for only MFM disks: 1.44M Mac and PC, and 720k PC. Marketed to Mac users as a cheaper solution if they didn't need 800k/400k support, and/or wanted PC disk compatibility.