I have an Ensoniq DSK-1 (with the red stripe) that arrived with the wrong diskette drive (a JU-257A024P 1.44MB) installed. There is an original sound diskette stuck, really stuck in it. I bought a new boot diskette, but haven’t been able to try it yet because of the drive issue, and I don’t have a compatible 360K or 720K drive available.
Are the Gotek 720k drives a workable solution?
If so, where and how do I get an image for the USB thumb drive that will boot it?
The next idea I had was a lot more complicated: to create a mezzanine board that plugs in where the FDC goes that would translate the track, sector, data, command/status registers for CF cards, which are cheap, plentiful and do parallel data transactions easier than SD. It would use a TI MSP controller running the data exchanges and firing the INTerrupts to the processor during 6809 SYNC commands. Honestly, while I could figure this out, I just really don’t have time for yet another project, especially since the usb drive replacement might already be a working option.
Any suggestions greatly appreciated. Otherwise might sell as-is.
Thanks in advance…
Thank you very much. Yes, this looks more like an engineering level modification. Honestly, I don’t think I can expend that kind of time on it. I appreciate you taking time to answer! Hope you guys are having a good day.
I’ve never tried using a CF reader to replace the floppy drive in the mirage, but I do have some experience with the SD card floppy emulators. I even have some videos on my YouTube channel detailing the installation process and disk image creation for the HXC SD card models. I don’t have any experience with the Gotek drives, but they seem to work okay, though I think they might be read-only.
I can link the videos here if you’re interested, they might offer a bit of insight, at least. Or you could PM me if the forum supports that feature.