Relive the days when storage was counted out in kilo-bytes not giga-bytes, using the Adafruit Floppy FeatherWing on a Feather board - perfect for interfacing with 34-Pin IDC Connector floppy drives that were ubiquitous on PC's. This 'Wing has level shifting and a ready-to-plug connector that works with 3.5" or 5.25" floppy disks for reading or writing!

Floppy disks have an interesting data transfer method where raw bit transitions are measured and converted to data. This data streams pretty fast from the disk drive so you'll want to use a fast microcontroller that has large SRAM storage and ideally, a peripheral to DMA the data signal. For that reason we only have this FeatherWing working with the Feather M4 or Feather RP2040. ESP32, ATmega, nRF52, etc have not been ported to our support library!

Floppy disk drives require 5V power and logic. For the logic level shifting, we have a small boost converter on the 'Wing that will give 5V logic levels out the 34-pin connector. It will also shift the incoming signals down to a Feather-safe 3.3V.

For floppy driver powering you will likely need a separate external 5V power supply that can provide 5V at 2 A. You can't power most drives off of USB power, they have big motors that require more current than USB can provide!

We've got code and examples for three use cases:

Each order comes with one FeatherWing with the 2x17 header attached and level shifting circuitry built in. Before it can be used to read/write floppies, you will need to:

  • Solder pin headers on to attach to a Feather board. 
  • Attach an M4 or RP2040 Feather as the driver/brains.
  • Find a 34-pin IDC Floppy Drive that works
  • Connect a 34-pin DC cable between the 'Wing and the Floppy drive.
  • Provide 5V power to the floppy drive, as much as 2 Amps. 5.25" disk drives will also need a 12V power supply!
  • Find some floppy disks to read/write

Many of these items are no longer sold, and will require some sleuthing to locate!

Write a review

Please login or register to review

Adafruit 5679 Floppy FeatherWing with 34-Pin IDC Connector

  • Brand: Adafruit
  • Product Code:NR-Ada-Floppy-FeatherWing-IDC-Connector
  • Reward Points:6
  • Availability:In Stock
  • रo 534.00

  • Price in reward points:564

  • 45 or more रo 468.00
  • 290 or more रo 466.00

Related Products

Adafruit 5713 Floppy Disk Costumes for SD Cards by Charlyn Gonda

Adafruit 5713 Floppy Disk Costumes for SD Cards by Charlyn Gonda

Coder by sunlight, maker by moonlight, friend-of-the-Fruit Charlyn Gonda was inspired by Ladyada's f..

रo 803.00

Adafruit 2923 Latching Mini Relay FeatherWing

Adafruit 2923 Latching Mini Relay FeatherWing

A Feather board without ambition is a Feather board without FeatherWings! This is the Latching Mini ..

रo 858.00

Adafruit 3028 DS3231 Precision RTC FeatherWing - RTC Add-on For Feather Boards

Adafruit 3028 DS3231 Precision RTC FeatherWing - RTC Add-on For Feather Boards

A Feather board without ambition is a Feather board without FeatherWings! This is the DS3231 Precisi..

रo 1,506.00

Adafruit 2928 PWM or Servo FeatherWing - 8 Channel

Adafruit 2928 PWM or Servo FeatherWing - 8 Channel

A Feather board without ambition is a Feather board without FeatherWings! This is the 8-Channel PWM ..

रo 1,074.00

Adafruit 4743 SMT Socket Header Kit for FeatherWings

Adafruit 4743 SMT Socket Header Kit for FeatherWings

These SMT Socket headers are particularly cute and slim and are designed to match with FeatherWings...

रo 318.00

Tags: Adafruit, FeatherWing, IDC Connector

The product is currently Out-of-Stock. Enter your email address below and we will notify you as soon as the product is available.

Name
Email
Phone
Comments