The floppy disk drive controllers which came with the IBM PC, XT, PCjr. and most of the Tandy 1000s could only support double density drives, 720KB and lower. These are the systems where your need to use floppy disks will arguably be at its most frequent. As it comes from the factory, the Gotek is good for little more than using boot disks and installing some programs to DOS.īut the Gotek has hidden potential. The chip that drives the Gotek is an STM32 ARM Cortex-M with built-in flash memory. This flash memory holds the device's firmware and can be reprogrammed to serve other purposes. There are two third-party firmware projects which can be flashed onto the Gotek to give it more vintage-friendly functionality. The first is FlashFloppy, which is free and open source software.
#HTC USB FLOPPY EMULATOR SOFTWARE DOWNLOAD FREE# The other is the HxC firmware, but that costs 10 Euro and may not offer a great deal of additional functionality for my intended uses. Both firmwares can also make the Gotek simulate drives intended for non-PC compatible systems. I decided to try out the Flash Floppy firmware. I used this guide to buy a unit which would work with my vintage PCs. Because I was just starting out, I downloaded the stable release version, v2.13.
I used the USB-A to USB-A cable method described here to get the Flash Floppy firmware onto my Gotek. You can use a pair of bent paper clips to make the appropriate temporary connections on the JTAG header.
You have to give STM Electronics your email for them to send you the download.
My Flash Floppy firmware update did not take the first time with the "upload" function, so I used the "upgrade" function and that got the Gotek to take the Flash Floppy firmware. #HTC USB FLOPPY EMULATOR SOFTWARE DOWNLOAD UPDATE# The IBM PC Diskette Drive Controller, found in virtually all IBM PCs, XTs and Portables, uses card edge connectors. #HTC USB FLOPPY EMULATOR SOFTWARE DOWNLOAD PC# Almost all 5.25" Double Density drives also use card edge connectors. So you will need a custom cable or a pin header to card edge adapter to use the Gotek floppy drive with these systems. If you go the custom cable route, I recommend obtaining a "Universal Floppy Cable", removing the lone 34-pin connector on one end and crimping a 34-pin "IDC" female card edge connector on it in the pin connector's place.