Floppy Disk Drive retrofitting: USB Floppy Emulator for KETRON SD 5 In older keyboards – e.g. in my KETRON SD 5, the input device is a floppy drive und the internal RAM memory is supplied with information by a floppy disk. I would never replace my KETRON SD 5 with a modern keyboard however; the reason is the good quality.

With the IPCAS USB floppy emulator for USB pen drives, the known disadvantages …

• Sensitive to mechanical wear and tear
• Problems with dust, oil and other adverse environmental conditions
• Malfunction due to permanent mechanical load
• Low memory capacity

… of conventional floppy disks, which anyway are hardly to buy, can be totally attributed to the past.

Most salient features:

• The old floppy disk drive is replaced 1:1. The connections are identical, so no further changes have to be made.
• The USB Stick at the USB Floppy Emulator replaces the old diskette entirely. USB memory components have long life spans and high capacities.
• The new USB floppy drives and USB memory components are practically immune to impacts from magnetic fields, dust or shock.
• The contents on 100 floppies can easily be placed on one single USB Stick. That saves a lot of time and costs!

To replace the equipment I’m proceeds as follows:

1. Opening the keyboard (screws located on the bottom)
2. Slide back the panel of the keyboard
3. Removal of the floppy disk drive (FDD)
4. Detach of the data cable from the floppy drive controller
5. Inserting a floppy controller computer cable to the floppy connector
6. Connect this cable and the power supply cable (4-pin.) to the emulator.

Now the keyboard will switch on and the floppy drive (with inserted USB flash drive) are energize and the keyboard reports: not formatted.
After that, the format command must be executed according to the display information.
Then the emulator should set to 01 (with the Up button). The UP switching and formatting and will resist until 99.

If the formatting performs, you play the songs on the respective place (00-99), then – start playing – as usual.
When the formatting is completed, copy the songs on the respective place (00-99). Afterwards, as usual, start the playback.

More information on the ipcas UBS Floppy Emulator solutions >>

The USB Disk Format Tool is now available for download in the support area and on the product page.

Supported operating systems: Windows 2000/XP (x86)

Using the USB Disk Format Tool and the USB Disk Index Selector together (for example in a batch script), a variety of actions can be automated.

• automated formatting
• automated switching
• automated selection

Note:
Of course, the USB Floppy-Emulator works completely operating system independent when using only one disk image per USB flash drive.

If you are only looking for a comfortable USB-Flash-Drive disk images format tool, you can use the "USB floppy format tool for Windows" (also available in the support area).

The driver UFBFfilte.sys can be installed and de-installed with the console application USBSelector.exe, without additional and extensive software. This tool allows you to switch through the index and select/set a floppy disk image for use.

The example script “test.bat” shows how to automatically switch through 10 disk indexes on a USB Device “H” and create a file on each disk.

test.bat:

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@echo off
setlocal
 
set basePath=%~p0
set usbApp="%basePath%\USBSelector.exe"
set drive=H:
 
:doInstall
@echo.
@echo *** Install driver for %drive% ***
@echo.
%usbApp% -d%drive% -i
 
:doTest
@echo.
@echo *** Create a test file on index 0-9 ***
@echo.
for %%i IN (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) DO (
	@rem @echo Select index %%i, write file %drive%\00%%i.txt ...
	%usbApp% -d%drive% -n%%i
	@rem @echo errorlevel=%errorlevel%
	if not %errorlevel% NEQ 0 @echo 00%%i > %drive%\00%%i.txt
 
	rem use the ping command to wait for a little while ...
	ping 127.0.0.1 -n 2 -w 1000 >nul
)
 
:do UnInstall
@echo.
@echo *** uninstall driver ***
@echo.
%usbApp% -d%drive% -u
 
:end
endlocal

Please note:
After switching a little break must be made before switching again.
The number of actual disk indices is not checked.

Supported operating systems: Windows 2000/XP (x86)

Note:
Of course, the USB Floppy-Emulator works completely operating system independent when using only one disk image per pen drive.

The USB Disk Index Selector Tool is now available in the support area and on the product page.

The new USB Floppy Emulator user guide is available now.
You can download the current version on the product page or from the support area.