GOTEK Emulator Experiments

We already know from the MPC60 forum that one of the GOTEK floppy disk emulators works with the MPC60 and also the ASQ10.

I have opened this thread to discuss using the GOTEK emulators with other equipment and encourage others to experiment.


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Just been experimenting with the SFR1M144-FU-DL drive.




This is the 1.44mb version of the one we had success with in the MPC60.
I am hoping it will work in some equipment that uses HD floppy disks.

So far I have tried it in the akai S1000 and the akai S20
After trying a few combinations I have drawn a blank so far as both units report 'wrong floppy format' when trying to save to the emulator.

Any suggestions welcome

btw. now these things are available singly, they are almost dirt cheap on ebay .

Share your results here.

I have one in my Yamaha SU700 it's okay but when I want to save a big file I cannot save at all. It keeps asking me to change disk

Thanks for the info,
Do you know which model you have? It would help others greatly to know which one to buy.


As a floppy emulator you will only be able to save a floppy size amount of data on each virtual image. Larger files or sets will need to be saved across multiple images.

its a damn shame that these don't work with more samplers. i have an ensoniq mirage hiding under a stack of floppies, begging for a floppy emulator. and dumping samples via midi to my S1000hd is getting boring.

the infuriating thing is that the gotek floppy emulators have updatable firmware that *could* be modified to work with a variety of samplers. somebody did this to support amiga but he didn't share his source code. so anybody wanting to do this would be starting from scratch.

if i ever get a synth or sampler that is confirmed to work with the gotek, i'll get one then i'll test it with everything else i have.

I have one in my classic 2000 , works perfect (even if the chinese folders manager is kind of cryptic ) . I tried to mount it on my prophet 2000, no luck, don't know why, i tried everything, 720 K, 1,44 mo . The keyboard sees it as a floppy but fails to format it .
Thanks god i have omniflop and an old dedicated PC with floppy drive, backing up is really easy .

motosega wrote: the gotek floppy emulators have updatable firmware that *could* be modified.

I think this is what the different model numbers are.
It's probably all the same unit internally but with different firmware to enable different equipment.
I heard that you can contact developers in China with a floppy image from your equipment and they will produce the necessary firmware but I suspect they wouldn't do it if you were just buying one drive.

i have them on OG mpc 60s. pretty good, not as nice as HxC but soo cheap. One issue is I have once hit both buttons while saving and formatted the drive, kind of sucked but sometimes loosing a song makes you remake it tighter...

I have a I Gotek Emulator in my Mpc 2000 and it works ok.
Just out of interest I tried it in my S3000i the other day and it didn't work, it just made it freeze up mostly or display the massage "no disk"
My Gotek Emulator is the 1000 virtual disks model.
I tried changing the jumper setting but none of them worked.

Just thought I'd let people know in case anyone is thinking of putting one in a S3000 (not Xl)
It may be possibly as I only had one jumper block, so maybe there's a different configuration with more blocks that works.
But in the short tests I did (about a hour of fiddling) I had no luck.
So, not a straight forward plug and play type scenario.
Hope this helps eliminate what doe's or doe's not work with these Emulators , just thought I'd share my findings.
Perhaps the ones with a smaller disk size might work.
Anyone know of one working in a S3000?

for those who have this in mpc 60, can you tell me what the jumper settings you using in the back and how big usb thumb drive you're using ?

I've got the version without the DL at the end, but cant it to work with the mpc. it wont save

also, anyone got this to work in mpc 3000 ?

Hey Koncept.

I used the jumper settings on this page viewtopic.php?f=4&t=165498

Try flipping the cable upside down as well. The protruding piece in the middle of the connector facing up. I was having issues with the 60 recognizing the drive, but that and the correct jumper settings managed to fix it.

Hi,

Don't know if this has been mentioned before, but it is now possible to reprogram the Gotek drives with the HxC firmware - see http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/

The info is buried down the page at the section titled 'USB Stick STM32 HxC Floppy Emulator (beta)' - basically you need a cheap serial programmer (£2-3 from ebay, must be one with FTDI chip) and a 10 euro payment to download the firmware. This converts the gotek to an HxC drive (it even supports an external serial LCD display) for about 1/4 the cost of an HxC drive. This means the Gotek should work with all the devices listed on the HxC site, including S950, Emax, ASR, SP1200, MPC60II etc. I'm going to try it with my S950 soon, just waiting on a serial programmer to arrive. Lots of people already reporting success with this.

Cheers, vout

djobserv wrote:Hey Koncept.

I used the jumper settings on this page viewtopic.php?f=4&t=165498

Try flipping the cable upside down as well. The protruding piece in the middle of the connector facing up. I was having issues with the 60 recognizing the drive, but that and the correct jumper settings managed to fix it.

thanks man! although think I've tried every possibility out there, I'll give it another try...how big is the thumb drive you are using ?

vout wrote:Hi,

Don't know if this has been mentioned before, but it is now possible to reprogram the Gotek drives with the HxC firmware - see http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/

The info is buried down the page at the section titled 'USB Stick STM32 HxC Floppy Emulator (beta)' - basically you need a cheap serial programmer (£2-3 from ebay, must be one with FTDI chip) and a 10 euro payment to download the firmware. This converts the gotek to an HxC drive (it even supports an external serial LCD display) for about 1/4 the cost of an HxC drive. This means the Gotek should work with all the devices listed on the HxC site, including S950, Emax, ASR, SP1200, MPC60II etc. I'm going to try it with my S950 soon, just waiting on a serial programmer to arrive. Lots of people already reporting success with this.

Cheers, vout

that's awesome, thanks for sharing that info. please post back with your results/findings

Hi,

Sorry, it's been a while, but here is an update - I tried the Gotek with HxC firmware in my SP1200 first. Unfortunately it only partially works - it loads preformatted disk images no problem (and it's faster than floppy, around 30s for a full disk) but I was not able to save anything at all - any attempt to save or reformat a disk image gave an error on the SP and also corrupted the image. I tried every setting I could but no go unfortunately. The HxC developer is looking at the problem I think, so a solution might be on the way.

Then I tried it in my S950 and success - it works perfectly, saving & loading full disks, samples and programs with no errors. No modifications were needed for the Gotek, just plug and play.

I would say this is an essential upgrade for any S950 user and it is cheap, less than £25 total for the drive, HxC licence and USB serial programmer.

Cheers, vout

hi vout

which "USB serial programmer" did you use?