Emulator Installed
If you are familiar with CNC disassembly, the instructions are as follows:
- Set power OFF and unplug CNC.
- Remove the blue cover.
- Remove front panel.
- Remove top chassis to expose computer.
- Replace floppy drive with emulator.
If you NOT are familiar with CNC disassembly, illustrations and explanations follow:
Disassemble CNC to Replace Floppy Drive with USB Floppy Emulator
Remove Cover
Disconnect all cables at rear of CNC. Un-plug power cord, then remove the blue cover.
Remove Front Panel
Remove six screws holding front panel.
Stow Front Panel
It is not necessary to disconnect cables to front-panel. Stow panel in notches at rear of top chassis as shown.
Remove Top Chassis
To gain access to the computer, disconnect all cables at rear of CNC, remove (8) screws and set top chassis aside.
Replace Floppy Drive
The floppy emulator replaces the existing floppy drive in the drive bay. The emulator mounts and connects the same way as the original floppy disk drive.
Disconnect the power cable and the ribbon cable, then remove and discard the four screws holding the floppy drive.
Install the emulator using screws provided. Reconnect the power cable and the ribbon cable. Be sure to orient the ribbon cable with the red stripe toward the power supply connector.
USB Floppy Emulator Description
Function
The emulator treats a properly formatted thumb drive as a "stack" of 1.44MB floppy disks, which you can select via the two buttons on the face of the unit. The right button increments the 1's digit of the display, and the left button increments the 10's digit. Pressing both buttons at once increments the 100’s digit. Selecting a different number on the display is exactly the same, from the CNC’s point of view, as removing one disk and inserting another.
Thumb Drive
The emulator is shipped with a thumb drive that's already formatted for use. Disk 0 in the virtual stack is blank floppy, ready for use as backup. Disks 1 - 7 are formatted as a hard drive setup disks, which can be used to reformat a failed hard drive. Disks 8 - 13 are system disks, and disk 14 is an update disk for the various execs. A label attached to the stick identifies the different setup disks. The thumb drive that came with your emulator is ready to use. Don't reformat it, because you may need to use one of the hard drive setup disks.
Format New Thumb Drive
If you need to format a new thumb drive, it can be formatted in the emulator by depressing both buttons on the emulator's face while powering it up. As the emulator initializes it displays a series of numbers, then, if the buttons are still held down, it begins counting up to 999. Once you see that it is counting up, you can release the buttons. After it reaches 999, it will go back to 0 and stay there. This takes about 10 minutes. Once the stick is formatted you can use it just as if it was a stack of blank floppies. (Much quicker formatting can be achieved using the emulator software below on your Windows computer).
Software
Complete instructions for using software and images are available here.
The emulator treats a properly formatted thumb drive as a "stack" of 1.44MB floppy disks, which you can select via the two buttons on the face of the unit. The right button increments the 1's digit of the display, and the left button increments the 10's digit. Pressing both buttons at once increments the 100’s digit. Selecting a different number on the display is exactly the same, from the CNC’s point of view, as removing one disk and inserting another.
Thumb Drive
The emulator is shipped with a thumb drive that's already formatted for use. Disk 0 in the virtual stack is blank floppy, ready for use as backup. Disks 1 - 7 are formatted as a hard drive setup disks, which can be used to reformat a failed hard drive. Disks 8 - 13 are system disks, and disk 14 is an update disk for the various execs. A label attached to the stick identifies the different setup disks. The thumb drive that came with your emulator is ready to use. Don't reformat it, because you may need to use one of the hard drive setup disks.
Format New Thumb Drive
If you need to format a new thumb drive, it can be formatted in the emulator by depressing both buttons on the emulator's face while powering it up. As the emulator initializes it displays a series of numbers, then, if the buttons are still held down, it begins counting up to 999. Once you see that it is counting up, you can release the buttons. After it reaches 999, it will go back to 0 and stay there. This takes about 10 minutes. Once the stick is formatted you can use it just as if it was a stack of blank floppies. (Much quicker formatting can be achieved using the emulator software below on your Windows computer).
Software
Complete instructions for using software and images are available here.
- Software for accessing the different disk partitions on a Windows computer is available online at:
www.omniturn.com/mike/USB_Floppy_Emulator_1.40i.exe
- Hard drive setup disk images are available online at:
www.omniturn.com/mike/images.exe