Where to buy an FDX68?

[h0ffman]

My project of restoring an X68000 ACE has hit a snag.  I can't get the either of the two floppy drives to work.  One takes on the disk, starts reading, screen goes black, then spits the disk out again.  The other drive takes on the disk but instantly spits it out without the sharp even acknowledging it.  I think the latter is acting like the disk is in upside down.

Not really sure where to go from here.  I was thinking that an FDX68 might be the most reliable answer but I can't seem to find one for sale anywhere!  Anyone have any ideas of what I can do or where I can find an FDX68?

[costa]

I bought a few on yahoo auctions Japan, and got them shipped by a proxy, sold the extra on ebay already unfortunately.

Try a proxy, they will. buy and ship for you.

Also, if I find the open source schematics for the FDX68, I could assembly some in UK.

[htdreams]

Hi!

There is other solution, if your 5.25 drives has working eject buttons, and that is to use a HxC Floppy emulator (http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/)

I don't know if this works with other solutions like gotek, I have my Expert x68k working with a HxC unit

What you have to do is to steal 10 pins from physical 5.25 drive, and then you are free to use HxC with disk images without any problem.

I've used information from this page: http://gra4.hatenadiary.jp/entry/20171119/1511085342

And these are photos from my setup:






You have to use a dummy floppy disk so the disk signals will be produced by the physical disk drives



I have updated this setup as I've put the HxC inside the x68k along a scsi2sd unit, and modified output DB37 connector to use for a custom built HxC controller (I don't want to alter Expert external case, but I want new functionality :-) )




Here are some more photos, and finally how it's working with a GBS Control board to use all Hz modes on a normal 31khz VGA crt monitor (currently I'm using a Samsung 20" proffesional monitor)

[X-Col]

@h0ffman I highly recommend the FDX68, great piece of hardware! The software on the Raspberry Pi is also very easy to set up and use.

@costa I bought my FDX68 (kit) on Ebay from someone who bought excess a while ago, I wonder if it was from you??

@Cyothevile I bought my FDD-Drive Swapper from Booth, it's the perfect companion to the FDX68 (once you fix the floppy eject issue)

[h0ffman]

Thanks for the suggestions guys.  I think I might try and go for the hxc option actually. Parts will be much more readily available at least.


I only really need I to set the sasi and ram settings so the scsi2sd can fire up. It's a shame there isn't a rom way around that but hey, I wasn't expecting the restoration to be easy!

[kendrick]

Hi all. FYI, I've removed a couple of posts from this thread. As moderator, I'm going to take a pretty dim view of profanity or name calling, especially when it's unprovoked or otherwise happens for no reason. Please keep it civil.

By way of filling in the information that's now missing, we've established that the FDX68 boards are probably copyrighted or are at least private designs. That means they're not open source. However, the legality of copying the design may vary depending on your regional laws and intellectual property rules.