MPC 2000XL Floppy disk Guru's help?!

Technical questions for the MPC2000xl and the MPC2000
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Re: MPC 2000XL Floppy disk Guru's help?!

By ThirdEye Wed Aug 31, 2016 8:24 pm
tapedeck wrote:if you really like the floppy workflow, the hxc emulator is an excellent modern upgrade.

avoid zip.

the cf readers are not overpriced, aren't they like $5? even at $100 they are one of the best upgrades you can do. if you aren't willing to put in the work / time / $ to maintain the machine, or you are dead set on integration with a computer, you might want to consider a more modern option like a 1000 or 2500. you've just got to do this stuff to get the old machines running well, and then they are still going to make you jump through hoops to use them with more modern equipment like computers.


Yes. Well the artmix ones I was looking at on Ebay they're like £70/£100+. Yes like if you buy a classic car maybe there's bits that need doing up, but when I drop £550 on a machine that's in 'full working order' and 'excellent condition' I'm not expecting to jump through too many hoops now.

I don't want a more modern option, plus having an s950 with floppy is already similar enough, and PC integration is not any problem at all.
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Re: MPC 2000XL Floppy disk Guru's help?!

By Wal Martian Wed Aug 31, 2016 8:32 pm
ThirdEye wrote:
Wal Martian wrote:
ThirdEye wrote:I wanted to use floppy instead of CF/SD internal as I don't want to solder...


What were you planning on soldering?


I read somewhere about having to solder in the internal card readers, CF/SD ones, maybe that's only 2000's. So I wasn't planning on it.

Yes, the 2000 classic has no internal SCSI, the 2000xl is plug and play. To cut down on costs you can buy a cheap CF adaptor off ebay and mount it in an old floppy drive casing.
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Re: MPC 2000XL Floppy disk Guru's help?!

By tapedeck Wed Aug 31, 2016 9:25 pm
ThirdEye wrote:Yes. Well the artmix ones I was looking at on Ebay they're like £70/£100+. Yes like if you buy a classic car maybe there's bits that need doing up, but when I drop £550 on a machine that's in 'full working order' and 'excellent condition' I'm not expecting to jump through too many hoops now.

I don't want a more modern option, plus having an s950 with floppy is already similar enough, and PC integration is not any problem at all.

you are getting the right idea ...it is just like a classic car. sounds like 'full working order' was not accurate...and that is a premium price but hey, that's what happens when you buy used. you'll make up for it somewhere down the road.

you can find cheap cf readers, and those other ones are probably worth that price. i know you don't expect to, but sounds like you are still going to have to jump through some hoops and put in the work to get going.

i imagine you can find a compatible floppy drive easy enough, and that's not that big a deal. i'm not sure exactly what makes a drive compatible, but i think it's fairly flexible. the unknowns are still if it's ALL your disks are bad (unlikely) or is it user error (trust me, i surprise myself sometimes). it might be worth asking the seller for a disk he used to get that 'full working order' diagnosis...that also opens the door for a conversation about partial refund on account of mis-advertising.

Re: MPC 2000XL Floppy disk Guru's help?!

By JVC Thu Sep 01, 2016 2:01 pm
Ah okay I did check all the cables inside and it seemed fine to me. I wanted to use floppy instead of CF/SD internal as I don't want to solder, and because of the s950 which can save and read floppy's, couldn't read it through my PC drive though, which is windows 10 OS if that's some kind of issue?

I’ve never used Windows 10, so I don’t know if the OS supports floppies.
It is just easier to deal floppies with legacy machine like Windows XP. S950 might use proprietary disk format that is not compatible with Windows / DOS.
However, MPC-2000 (XL) uses the same format as DOS / Windows.

I'm guessing replacing the floppy drive is just a case of connecting the cables like in a usual PC, I read that the 2000xl has a special kind of floppy drive though somehow, instead of a regular cheap one?

I don’t know about S950, but MPC-2000(XL) uses the most common floppy drives (1.44MB, HD), so the replacement is easily purchased.

If I wanted some kind of external SCSI connection too like CF/SD, is there any affordable method that isn't ZIP. As what I've looked at is usually overpriced for just a few board parts and a slot, and I can't find much a part from Artmix ones which seem highly priced, when it's literally an external card drive. :hmmm:


SCSI devices were always expensive (compared to IDE devices Serial or Parallel devices), and still sought after.
And I would think that Artmix’s products are manufactured in very small batch, making it more expensive.
But for XL, you don’t need SCSI type CF reader, you can install non-swappable IDE CF reader.
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