Datex Designed a Floppy Disk Drive Emulator

(Updated December 8, 2010)

Most of floppy disk drives are no longer manufactured. The few still manufactured ones use new connection technologies. Therefore, users have to get their floppy disk drives replaced by second hand ones, less and less reliable. Datastorage, the brand name of French company Datex, worried about the everlastingness of these systems, has developed the DTX200 floppy drive replacement in order for these customers to recover the reliability of their device.

The DTX200 can replace all the floppy disk drives,
for example:

• 8” DRIVES: SHUGART SA850, CDC, YE DATA
• 5 1/4” DRIVES: Full height SHUGART SA400, MPI 92S, CDC BR8B1A, TANDON TM100; Semi-height TEAC FD-05xx, FD-55xx, EPSON SD-681L, DEC RX50, RX33, etc.
• 3 1/2” DRIVES:  ALPS AL FD 7xx, PANASONIC JU-25xxx, SONY MPF-520xx, MPF-920xx, YE DATA YD-702D, TEAC FD235F, FD235HF, FD235HG

Safe data
The Datastorage DTX200 use a hot swap CF card to stock your data. The access are ultra-fast, and the risks of drive failure are almost non-existent, because the DTX200 has no mechanical parts moving. A preventive detection system is incorporated to deal with an eventual failure. You could use the CF as you used your floppy disk except you can now stock (as an optional extra) the equivalent of up to 99 floppy disks with the ability to choose the various floppy disks thanks to the addressing reconnaissance.

Easy installation
The Datastorage DTX200 uses as much space as a 3 1/2” floppy disk drive. It will be mechanically adapted for your larger ones. The DTX200 is pre-programmed to have the same features with the floppy drive to replace. Each floppy disk drive using a specific connection technology, an adapter card will be developed for each of your floppy drives. It only has to be connected in place of the replaced floppy drive in a completely transparent way for the system.

It’s also possible to copy diskettes using a working floppy drive to the CF through the DTX200. To do this, Datex designs a unit to copy bit per bit the data , including the format.

Extended warranty
The Datastorage DTX200 has a two years warranty with workshop return, whilst the floppy disk drives are no longer repaired.

Reliability
You can work with a dust environment and vibrations without any trouble.

Applications

• Cash register
• Robots
• Plane
• Boat
• Submarine
• Knitting machine
• Jacquard (Mullër, etc.)
• Embroidery machine
• CNC (Charmille, etc.)
• DEC systems
• Intel iRMX86
• NEC PC 9801, etc.
• Yokogawa ORM1200

This DTX200 emulator has already been installed in more than 80 countries as well as in French RATP.